She’d had to parent herself, and her younger brother too. Children, however, don’t like having to be hyper-competent. So it’s not surprising that Charlotte wants me to be the mother for her now. I can be the “normal” parent who safely and lovingly drives the car, and she can have the experience of being taken care of in a way she never has before. But in order to cast me in the competent role, Charlotte believes she has to cast herself as the helpless one, letting me see only her problems—or, as Wendell once put it in relation to what I do with him: “seduce me with her misery.” Patients often
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