The Hypnotist's Love Story

Ellen has lunch with her friends Julia and Madeleine. They have never quite gotten along, but this night Julia and Madeleine agree that Ellen should be concerned about the biscuits. Ellen reflects that the biscuits reminded her of her grandmother and it felt good to eat them. She thinks, “It seemed to her that it wasn’t about Saskia and Patrick anymore. It was about Saskia and Ellen. It was between the two women” (261). She didn’t tell Patrick about Saskia’s little gift.

Her friends don’t understand Ellen’s interest in Saskia. Ellen feels impatient with them and wonders why it feels like pregnancy is stripping away all her emotional maturity. They ask about meeting her father, and Ellen says he is just a dull, ordinary man. What she really wants to talk about is how angry Patrick’s boxes are making her.

Later, Ellen sits in her car outside her house and tells herself it will be nice to return home to Patrick and Jack. She also reflects it would be nice to have a quiet, empty house and take a long, hot bath. She thinks about Saskia’s single-minded focus on Patrick, and “Ellen knew that she didn’t love Patrick with that same ferocity. Actually, she’d never loved anyone that much […] that she’d break a law, or do anything that was socially unacceptable” (271). She reflects how she always tells her clients that relationships are hard work, but thought she was good at them.

Ellen reflects on meeting her father and how it felt so ordinary, and how she hated the way her mother defers to him. She thinks her mother is diminished with David. She found the whole interview awful and strange and compares it to an Internet date. She identifies with Jane, the woman David married and is now separated from. After the meeting, her mother admits she had always cared about David and no other man measured up.

Sitting in the car, Ellen feels the baby move and reminds herself that nothing else matters.

Over breakfast, Jack describes his dream about Armageddon. Patrick tells Ellen he is taking the morning off work to move the boxes. During his relaxation sessions, she had suggested Patrick organize his life. Ellen feels powerful and triumphant, but reminds herself she can’t hypnotize people to do something against their will.

Ellen’s first client is Luisa Bell. Luisa, who is experiencing infertility, is furious and hurt that Ellen is pregnant and Luisa is not. She demands a refund for their sessions. Ellen, who is battling constant nausea, writes her a check. When Luisa leaves, Ellen sees her in the drive talking to an angry-looking man.

Patrick gets protective when the man demands to see Ellen. He is Ian Roman, Rosie’s husband. Ian overheard Rosie saying she wasn’t in love with him but was trying to get hypnotized into loving him. He tells Ellen he’s going to put her out of business.

Saskia is driving back from a work meeting and realizes she isn’t far from Ellen’s house. She feels she almost doesn’t have a choice about turning. She imagines that none of her professional colleagues would be able to believe she does these crazy things in her spare time.

Saskia does admit that cooking biscuits in Ellen’s house might have crossed a line. She tells herself she can stop this. She reflects on the pleasure she gets from her work and gets a call from an old friend, Tammy, who is back in town. Tammy was there for Saskia when she first broke up with Patrick. Saskia thinks that losing Patrick and Jack was like a death, but because they didn’t die, others didn’t understand her grief. Friends thought she should simply turn off her feelings and move on. She and Tammy arrange to meet for a drink the next night, and Saskia tells herself she’s perfectly normal.

At Ellen’s house, Saskia sees Patrick and Ellen coming out of the house together. They look very much like a couple, and Saskia feels hurt. She follows them. They drive to Jack’s school and pick him up. Then they drive to the ultrasound clinic. Saskia feels she’s been a part of this pregnancy from the very beginning and thinks that being present for the ultrasound means, “[a]t least this way I had some control. I was still part of it; I still existed. Even if they didn’t know I was there, I would know” (301). As Ellen is called into her appointment, Saskia cries.

Jack talks about Armageddon and the Yellowstone supervolcano while they have pizza for dinner. Ellen keeps looking at the ultrasound picture. She marks every time Patrick mentions Colleen. Patrick asks if Ellen noticed Saskia at the clinic. Ellen asks if he and Saskia discussed having a child, and Patrick says roughly that it doesn’t matter. Ellen gets a voicemail from a journalist who wants to interview her for an article about the allegations being made about her business.

Ellen talks in bed with Patrick about meeting the journalist. She’s worried about the interview. Patrick, too, is having a problem with a client who won’t pay his bill. Ellen thinks of the little routines she and Patrick have established as creating a kingdom together, and realizes Saskia can’t let her kingdom go.

To soothe Patrick, Ellen induces a trance and tells him to remember a happy moment. He says he’s on his honeymoon. When Ellen tries to bring him out of the trance, Patrick confesses that he will never love another woman like he loved Colleen. He says, when he looks at Ellen, he thinks, “It’s not the same. It’s just not the same” (313).

Saskia can’t stop crying at the ultrasound, and when she leaves, the pain in her leg becomes so unbearable that she has to sit down. She goes home and opens a bottle of wine, and that, she says, was her mistake.

Ellen has dreams in which she is addressing Colleen, with Julia there. Ellen wakes up and hears the wind howling. When she falls back asleep, she dreams of her wedding. When she wakes again and sees a woman in their bedroom, Ellen at first thinks it is Colleen. She realizes the woman is Saskia, and she is holding the ultrasound pictures.

Patrick lunges at Saskia and tells her to get out. Ellen sees the sky is an apocalyptic color of orange. Jack runs into the room, saying it’s Armageddon. As Patrick shoves Saskia, she slips on the runner and grabs Jack, pulling him down the stairs with her.

Jack is upset that Saskia might be hurt. When Patrick says to forget about her, Jack cries, “You can’t just forget about her! Stop saying that! Just because you don’t like her. It’s not fair!” (322).

Saskia reflects that she doesn’t remember calling a taxi, but she felt wild and exhilarated. It was raining. She can’t remember what she wanted to tell Patrick. She hears her mom’s voice in her head telling Saskia she’s crossed a line. When Saskia gains consciousness, Ellen is at her hospital bedside. Ellen tells Saskia she fractured her pelvis and her ankle. Saskia thinks their eye contact “felt shocking, as if the strange connection between the two of them was more intimate than that of two sexual partners” (325).

Ellen says Jack broke his arm but is otherwise fine. Saskia is devastated that she hurt Jack when she was always his protector. Ellen tells Saskia she’s hit rock bottom, but this is the turning point to getting her life back. Saskia thinks a future doesn’t seem possible for her. Ellen uses her hypnotist’s voice to tell Saskia she’ll get counseling and she’ll be able to heal. She says this is the beginning of Saskia’s new life.

Saskia says Patrick still loves Colleen, but Saskia didn’t care that she loved Patrick more than he loved her. Ellen tells Saskia to imagine she’s shutting a giant door. Saskia asks if Ellen is hypnotizing her, and Ellen says she’s trying to unhypnotize her.