If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

In If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Linda is a psychotherapist who spends her days listening to other people's problems. At home the load is heavy: her young daughter has a pediatric feeding disorder, needs tube feeding every night and attends a day-hospital program that Linda drives her to each morning.

Her husband, Charles, is a ship's captain and is almost never around. Linda carries everything alone, juggling patients, doctors, bills and an anxious kid who won't let go of her.

Then the ceiling of their Montauk apartment caves in and floods the place. With nowhere else to go, mother and daughter move into a run-down motel. There Linda meets Diana, the clerk, and James, the superintendent, two people who slip into her routine in odd ways.

The hum of the feeding pump keeps Linda awake. Exhausted, guilty and without help, she starts losing her grip on small things, and every day feels a little harder than the one before.