The Retreat

by Jacci Turner

  Natalie laughed. “I tried too. The Christian ones are just as bad! ‘Are you religious? ’Cause you’re the answer to all my prayers.’” Brooke snorted and Amy laughed. She was starting to feel better and glad that her friends had come to find her.

  “Yes,” said Brooke. “But you don’t need to fall in love. Just go on dates. How else will you find out what you could live with and what you definitely don’t want to live with!”

  Natalie nodded reluctantly.

  Brooke grabbed the notebook back and a pen and wrote, “Four: go on ten dates.” She looked up. “Otherwise, how will you ever have any romance in your life? You need romance!” She tapped the pen on the paper. “We wanted to tell you to meet us in the parking lot after the examen tonight. We’re going to town to have a beer. Bring your list and we’ll work on it some more.”

  Amy nodded as if this was the most natural idea; though going out for a beer was not something she’d ever really done before. To keep from speaking, she bit into the chocolate chip cookie. She was hungry and grateful for these friends who seemed … real.

  “We’d better go,” said Natalie. “It’s time for the evening meeting.”

  Amy grabbed her bag, shoving the notebook into it, and followed the girls out of the door. She was so glad they’d come looking for her. She didn’t feel so awful now, but she might have gotten stuck in that dark place if they hadn’t stopped by.

  The fluorescent lights in the main room felt too bright for Amy. She realized she’d neglected to look in the mirror and tried to smooth her hair, wondering if her eyes were puffy from crying.

  Tom greeted them and led them in a “be still and know that I am God” breath prayer. The topic of the night was centering prayer.

  “Centering prayer is another way to enter into silence, solitude, and stillness. Each of these teaches us its opposite. Silence teaches us to listen, solitude teaches us to be fully present with others, and stillness teaches us discerning action.”

  Amy liked to listen when Tom talked. He had such a fresh way of explaining things. She wondered if there were other men like him in the world. Single ones.

  He continued. “As several of us discussed in the Enneagram training today, our unconscious motivations keep us busy in order to mask our underlying pain.”

  What underlying pain were her unconscious motivations masking? She needed to think about that more.

  “As we surrender to silence, solitude, and stillness, we develop the capacity to know who we are. Why we are here. What we are supposed to give our time and energy to.”

  Amy really, really wanted the answers to those questions. She was learning a lot in her master’s degree but still did not feel a pull to any particular thing. She had to learn this silence, solitude, and stillness thing if it would help her find those answers.

  “Centering prayer is the practice of sitting quietly for twenty minutes, twice a day.”

  Amy didn’t think that sounded too hard.

  “The goal is to sit in the presences of the Divine and consent to the presence and action of God in you. Your mind will stray, so you can choose an anchor word, a holy word, to draw you back to the present. Some people picture a stream floating by and when thoughts come, you place them on a leaf and float them down the river. Chose a way that works for you. Let’s try it. Find your sit bones and be mindful of your breathing.”

  Amy settled into a comfortable position and tried to picture herself sitting by a gentle river. As Tom rang the gong, she sat quietly. Her stomach grumbled—she remembered missing dinner and wished she’d hidden away some snacks. Oops, put that on a leaf and send it down the river. She breathed deeply. Her leg itched. She remembered that she was going out tonight with the girls … that would be—uh-oh, on a leaf down the river. The thoughts came and went and Amy put them on leaves and sent them down the river, sure that she was doing this all wrong. It sounded easy, but her brain felt like it was full of a tangle of unending thoughts, and her river was getting totally backed up with leaves.

  8

  After the contemplative practice, it was triad time, and Amy joined her group by the windows. Centering prayer had been a disaster for her, as she was never able to calm her mind, but Tom said it took practice. She looked forward to this group time because Tom’s instructions had been intriguing “Each of you is here for a different reason. Most of you, because of the nature of activism, of doing good work, need to share some of the difficult things you’ve experienced. Tonight I want you to share what it is that needs healing or where you feel stuck. We will do this every night so each of you gets a whole night to share, but if you have four members, you’ll have to let two people share on one night. Either way, don’t rush. Take your time. Be as open and honest as you can.” Tom cupped his hands like he was trying to hold water and said, “At the end of each person’s sharing, take one minute of silence to just hold each person’s story in the presence of the Divine.”

  Amy wondered if she was ready to share. What would she say? She needn’t have worried. As soon as they sat down, the perfectly coiffed Connie spoke up. “I’d like to go first. It might help me to get some of this out.” She paused, and when no one argued, she continued. “The reason I’m here is, like you, Amy, someone paid my way.” Amy smiled at that. Who knew she wasn’t the only one.

  Connie took a deep breath. “I had some friends who were worried about me and sent me here. That’s how it felt, like an intervention or a jail sentence.

  “I told you I was mad at God. I’m not sure I want to be a Christian anymore, and the reason is I was married to a pastor.” Amy laughed nervously; she knew that life in the fishbowl of ministry, where everyone thought the pastor’s life should be theirs to critique, could be a pain. Connie gave her a weak smile and began to speak slowly, her words picking up speed as her story unfolded. “From the outside we looked like the perfect family. No one knew what was going on inside our marriage. We have two beautiful daughters; I’ll never regret that. But I regret everything else. He—John—became increasingly controlling as the years went by. He gave me an allowance, he wouldn’t let me spend time with my friends, but he had all the time in the world for the other women in our church.” Her voice took on a harsh edge.

  Amy felt so sorry for Connie. She had judged her as looking like she had it all together; now she was hearing incredible pain. Who knew what people were living with? Amy kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs up under her.

  Connie took a breath and continued. “He started to yell at me if I gained weight and wouldn’t let me leave the house if my hair wasn’t perfect or if I didn’t have on makeup.”

  Amy’s heart broke. “That’s emotional abuse,” she said.

  “I know,” said Connie. “We went to see a Christian counselor.” She emphasized the word Christian with finger quotes. “The counselor said I just needed to submit and work harder.” A tear slid down Connie’s cheek and she swiped at it with her sleeve.

  Stephen sucked in a breath, looking as angry as Amy felt.

  Amy wanted to punch someone—that counselor for sure, and Connie’s ex. This was ridiculous. It sounded like a story from the fifties, not now. But the story got worse.

  “At the same time, things weren’t going well at church. John had a disagreement with the pastor and it blew up into a big thing. John actually got a bunch of people on his side and left the church. He started a new church, which was, in retrospect, more of a personality cult. People thought John could do no wrong. I mean, he had a heart for the homeless and was great with the kid’s ministry. But with me he was awful.”

  “Aghhh!” said Stephen, digging his hands through his hair like he wanted to pull it out.

  The women laughed. Amy was glad she wasn’t the only one feeling violent.

  “The church was becoming very cult-like,” said Connie. “I tried to talk to the elders, but they thought it was my problem, because they thought John walked on water. I finally took the girls and left one day after John had gone to work. I h
ad nothing—no money, nowhere to live, no job training. It was very hard. But it was the best day of my life.”

  “Where did you go?” asked Hasmita. “What did you do for food?”

  Connie smiled with trembling lips. “My parents helped us. Sadly, I lost most of my friends when I left John. Because I was the one who left.”

  Amy was familiar with that phenomenon. In the evangelical church, you were not supposed to get divorced. “God hates divorce” was a passage she’d heard quoted time and time again. No matter what one person did—lying, cheating, gambling—it was usually the person who left the marriage that got cut off from the fellowship.

  “I’ve been bitter and angry at God for letting this happen,” said Connie. “But as far as my life goes, I’m so happy to be rid of John.” She sat back in her chair as if finished.

  “That is an amazing story,” said Amy. “You are incredibly brave.”

  “Yes,” agreed Stephen and Hasmita.

  “Thank you,” said Connie, her eyes glistening. “So you can see why I have issues. But that’s where I’m at.” They all nodded. Silence stretched out.

  “Let’s hold Connie’s story,” said Stephen.

  The group fell silent and Amy opened her hands like a cup, the way Tom had, picturing Connie and her girls and all they’d been through inside her hands, in the presence of the Divine.

  After some time, Hasmita spoke up. “Connie, your story gives me courage to tell my own story. As you know, I am a teacher of refugee children. According to my culture, I am too old not to be married. My friends talked me into using an online dating app, and it was there I met a wonderful Hindu man. What I am going to tell you now is very embarrassing to me.” Amy nodded to encourage her.

  “I should have seen it.” Hasmita shook her head. “But you must understand how attentive he was. Every day he sent me pictures; every day he wrote me poems. He lived in India, so we had not met in person, and he told me that his computer’s camera was broken so that we could not Skype, but we talked on the phone all the time.”

  Amy wondered where this story was going. Would it make her rethink the idea of adding “creating an online dating profile” to her list? She uncrossed her legs and sat up.

  “I feel so embarrassed,” Hasmita said again, “but you must understand. He talked to my roommate, he called my mother on Mother’s Day, and he even sent my father a birthday card. We were all fooled. When he proposed, I said yes.” She shook her head and chuckled. “I even had a little bachelorette party with my friends.

  “When I went home this summer, we were to meet in person. He was coming to meet my family before we were to be married. But on the day he was to come, he didn’t arrive. When I tried to call him, I discovered his phone had been disconnected. Of course, I worried that he had been in an accident.”

  Amy wondered why Hasmita’s fiancé had gone to all that trouble but then not shown up. Had he died?

  “My sister is very tech savvy. When we hadn’t heard from him, she went on Facebook and found that he had blocked me. Then she typed his name into the computer, without using his middle initial, and found that it was the same name as an up-and-coming Indian actor. All of the pictures he’d been sending me were pictures of that actor.”

  “Wait, what?” said Amy. “I don’t get it.”

  Connie explained. “He was using the actor’s pictures to create a fake persona, right? They call it being catfished.”

  “Yes,” said Hasmita. “And I never heard from him again. We did not tell my parents this, just that the marriage was off.”

  “Was he trying to get money from you?” asked Stephen.

  “That’s the funny thing,” said Hasmita. “He bought me gifts and sent pictures of them, saying he’d give them to me when we saw each other. I bought him gifts and he said, ‘No, don’t spend any money on me.’ Then, right before I went home to meet him, he asked for some money—twelve hundred dollars for an investment opportunity. But sadly, I didn’t have it to give him.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t have it,” said Stephen, “but twelve hundred seems a small amount to go through all of that.”

  “I have a theory,” said Hasmita. “That he was originally supposed to scam me. Then accidentally fell in love with me. Then, at the end, he tried to get some money after all. The whole thing is so embarrassing.”

  The other three members rushed to assure Hasmita that she needn’t be embarrassed; anyone would have been fooled by a con like that.

  As they held Hasmita’s story, Amy felt like maybe her problems weren’t so bad after all. It seemed everyone had difficulties in their lives and she needed to stop judging people by the way they looked.

  9

  Amy felt gleeful piling into the back seat of Natalie’s Toyota. Her stomach felt like she’d taken a dip on a roller coaster, like she was doing something wrong, sneaking out or something. Brooke sighed heavily as they pulled out of the parking lot in the dark. “Jeez, it feels like we’ve been here a week and it’s only been two days.”

  Amy agreed. “Not even two days—less than a day and a half. This is so intense! You wouldn’t believe the stories I heard in my triad.”

  “Mine too,” agreed Natalie. “By the way, where are we going?” She had pulled up to the main road, which was bordered by miles of cornfields and a few streetlights.

  “Turn left,” said Brooke. “I Googled pubs and there’s not much open at this hour. But I found one seedy little bar about ten miles up the road, and I need a beer.”

  Amy smiled. She liked Brooke with her big voice and honest ways. She was refreshing. As Natalie drove, Brooke used her phone to help them navigate. Amy’s phone buzzed.

  Joshua: You still alive?

  Amy: I survived the day; now headed to a bar with my new friends.

  Joshua: A bar? You? You’re at a conference in a monastery and now you’re going to a bar? This I want to see.

  Amy: Hahaha! I’ve been to a bar before.

  Joshua: When?

  Amy thought about it. Had she ever been to a bar? Her dad was an elder in their church and part of that role was a commitment not to drink, so they didn’t keep alcohol in their home. At college she’d joined and quickly become a leader in a campus Christian group. Part of their leadership covenant was not to drink. Then she’d become a missionary in Thailand—same policy. She racked her brain. Had she ever been to a bar?

  Her freshman year she and Jennie had ventured out to a frat party and had their first experience with Everclear. She found out later it was a tasteless, very strong form of alcohol that had been handed to her as a “wine cooler.” She had to hold Jennie’s hair back that night as she hugged the toilet. That had put her off alcohol.

  Then it dawned on her and she typed:

  Amy: Of course I’ve been in bars—all the time in Thailand!

  Joshua: That doesn’t count. Rescuing sex-trafficked girls from bars is not the same as going to a bar to drink. You are going to a bar to drink, aren’t you?

  Amy: I guess.

  Joshua: Well, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

  Amy: That leaves it wide open.

  Joshua: Seriously, have fun, Pooh Bear.

  Amy: I will. Good night, Tigger.

  Joshua: Night.

  It was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders talking to Joshua. She’d felt bad about their earlier conversation and was glad to reconnect. Hearing her nickname from him let her know there were no hard feelings. That’s how Joshua was: quick to forgive.

  Amy tucked her phone in her back pocket and noticed they’d come into a small town. Emphasis on small. She could see a gas station and a bail bonds building. That did not inspire confidence. “There it is,” said Brooke, pointing to a small white building lit by a single streetlight, with two cars out front. A crooked neon beer sign listed to one side next to a weathered wooden sign that read simply, “Joe’s.” Amy felt a shiver of fear run up her spine. Should they be going into this dive? Was it safe? Were there es
caped cons around here?

  Brooke seemed to think it was perfect and jumped out as soon as Natalie pulled into a parking space. “Come on, ladies—time’s a-wasting.”

  Amy crawled out and followed Natalie and Brooke into the dark bar. Country music played and a bartender stood behind a long bar with stools in front of it that ran across the front of the room. It reminded Amy of something from a movie, the stereotype of a seedy bar. Two middle-aged men sat at the bar drinking beer, a pile of peanut shells on the counter between them. Brooke seemed quite at home and led them to one of the small tables with chairs in front of the windows that faced the street. The windows had a bubbled plastic tinting on them, so you really couldn’t see much, which, Amy supposed, was the point.

  The bartender came to their table, wiping his hands on his apron. Amy thought he was not at all like a stereotype. In movies, the bartenders were always good-looking, manly men, and this guy was short, balding, and had a paunch that made him look about seven months pregnant. “You ladies know what you want?” he asked.

  Brooke said, “Do you have anything to eat?”

  “Sorry. Kitchen’s closed.”

  “Bummer,” said Brooke. “I’m hungry.” Amy’s stomach growled in agreement. She had missed dinner and was feeling it.

  “I could microwave some nachos. They’re not great, just a little something I make for myself sometimes.”

  “Sold!” said Brooke.

  “What can I get you to drink?” he asked as he flipped white paper coasters onto the wooden table with a map of Nebraska laminated under the varnish.

  “What’s on tap?” asked Brooke.

  “Coors, Bud, and Nebraska’s favorite, Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat.”

  “Oh, I’ll try the Boulevard. When in Rome …” said Brooke like a pro. Then she turned to Amy.

  “Um, I’m not sure. Is there a menu?”

  “Yeah,” said Natalie, “I’d like to see one.”