_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

Still, that familiar sense of dread grows when the train stops at the
signal, and I’m almost too afraid to look up. The window is shut, there’s
nothing there. It’s quiet, peaceful. Or it’s abandoned. Megan’s chair is
still out on the terrace, empty. It’s warm today, but I can’t stop shivering.
I have to keep in mind that the things Tom said about Scott and
Megan came from Anna, and no one knows better than I do that she
can’t be trusted.
Dr. Abdic’s welcome this morning seems a little halfhearted to me.
He’s almost stooped over, as though he’s in pain, and when he shakes my
hand his grip is weaker than before. I know that Scott said they wouldn’t
release any information about the pregnancy, but I wonder if they’ve told
him. I wonder if he’s thinking about Megan’s child.
I want to tell him about the dream, but I can’t think of a way to
describe it without showing my hand, so instead I ask him about
recovering memories, about hypnosis.
“Well,” he says, spreading his fingers out in front of him on the desk,
“there are therapists who believe that hypnosis can be used to recover
repressed memories, but it’s very controversial. I don’t do it, nor do I
recommend it to my patients. I’m not convinced that it helps, and in
some instances I think it can be harmful.” He gives me a half smile. “I’m
sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear. But with the mind, I think,
there are no quick fixes.”
“Do you know therapists who do this kind of thing?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t recommend one. You
have to bear in mind that subjects under hypnosis are very suggestible.
The memories that are ‘retrieved’”—he puts air quotes around the word
—“cannot always be trusted. They are not real memories at all.”
I can’t risk it. I couldn’t bear to have other images in my head, yet
more memories that I can’t trust, memories that merge and morph and
shift, fooling me into believing that what is is not, telling me to look one
way when really I should be looking another way.
“So what do you suggest, then?” I ask him. “Is there anything I can do
to try to recover what I’ve lost?”
He rubs his long fingers back and forth over his lips. “It’s possible,
yes. Just talking about a particular memory can help you to clarify
things, going over the details in a setting in which you feel safe and
relaxed . . .”
“Like here, for example?”
He smiles. “Like here, if indeed you do feel safe and relaxed here.”
His voice rises, he’s asking a question that I don’t answer. The smile