Deep End

I’M SORRY, WHAT WAS THAT?”

For every session, there are a lot of silences between Sam and me. Because she asks hard questions that I cannot answer, and doesn’t move on until she has received some kind of reply.

I guess it’s how therapy works.

“I said, has this ever happened to you before?”

“And by ‘this,’ you mean . . . ?”

“This block of yours.”

“Right.” I shake my head. “No. No, it hasn’t.”

“Not even at a smaller scale?”

“Not really.”

She glances down at her notebook. “I did some research. It appears that lost move syndrome is a typical phenomenon in athletes. A sudden inability to perform a skill you had previously mastered.” She recites the last bit, like it’s a definition she’s quoting. Her eyes find mine through horn-rimmed glasses. “Does this description match what you are experiencing?”

I take as long as I can before nodding. Maybe the more I delay this, the less true it will become.

“Twisties,” I say eventually. “Or yips. That’s what we divers call them.”