by R. Rodriguez
I didn’t rely on his comfort this time. Respecting that I had placed him in second place so many times and I had no right to even think of him at the first sign of trouble with Dario. Unable to perturb the friendship we had slowly built up again.
My dad was out of the question, also. He was old and he didn’t deserve to deal with my bad marriage. Mom wouldn’t appreciate me barging in on their perfect life, either. Instead, I searched for whatever sanity and strength I still had left in me for solutions.
I referred to the library to place the bible back in its place and my hand bumped into the plush cold surface of a larger book. My journal. The journal Lucian had given me so many years ago. I picked it up and walked back to the living room. It was unbelievable, but I noticed that it still had space enough for me to write in.
I had referred to it so many times to sort things out, to give thanks, to lament. Mostly lament, I saw. My lamentations were the main and central theme of this journal. It went on and on for exactly four years to the day. Since I had married Dario. Instead of focusing my whole being on improving myself, I had been engrossed in the never ending void that was my relationship to Dario.
An unexpected feeling inched its way through my dark hour. I knew about fury. I knew about rage. I had let both take a hold of me in the turbulent bond to my husband. I recognized a strange calm and certainty. I recognized dignity and resolve.
I had been begging God to help me before. To help me have a happy life. To protect my mind and my emotions and I was given many opportunities to be in such a state, every time Dario left. I was being given the chance to let him stay where he chose. But I never had the guts to let him stay away.
Now here I stood, twenty-five years old. Still getting disrespected. Still being second fiddle to complete strangers who waltzed into the sacred space I had created for me and Dario, trampling on my inhuman efforts to create well being and substance for our family. For Dario.
But I realized that it was never mine to create. At least not alone. I could only be responsible for my own well being and substance. By not allowing another human being to just be and shoulder his responsibilities, I disrespected Dario’s growth and it was sure time for Dario to grow up. Not for me as I had battled for so much. Now it was not enough. I was drained. I had no more battle left in me. At least not for us. There was nothing left to battle.
My love for Dario had been eroded by his disloyalty and neglect. I was empty. I was empty. I didn’t want to feel for him anymore. The ideal family I held on to so ferociously didn’t exist. If I stayed, my precious daughter would learn that it was okay to be neglected, exploited, insulted, betrayed, and disrespected and my beautiful boy would learn that it was okay to do so.
I only hoped that it wasn’t too late for Cody and Sarah. I hoped that my prayers had somewhat shielded them from all this madness. I hoped that my future intervention would erase years of overlooking their best interest. The insanity would end tonight.
As the dewy night progressed, I didn’t fret another second with the hallows of my inferno. I wrapped up my journal in newspaper, stepped out to the garbage bins outside our home and dumped it in. I returned to the house with intention and packed up whatever I could fit in a duffel bag of my kids and…I left. I left the house with the clothes I had on my back. I left to freedom.
A half hour later I stood knocking on Mrs. Granada’s door.
“Sh.Sh.” She shushed me, ushering me inside tenderly. “This is your home. Let’s get the kids in bed.”
Mrs. Granada took over. My nerves were shot. She picked up my kids tenderly and placed them together in the guest room. She returned quickly to settle a cup of steaming tea in my hand and usher me to her comfortable sofa. She settled next to me and forced me to drink. When I was done she led me to another room where a profound sense of peace enveloped me.
The Granadases opened the door to their home to us without a thought.
There, I put my thoughts in order and began the surprisingly short and simple process of putting Dario out of my life. Mr. Granada accompanied me to the closest police station where I filed a complaint for abuse.
Dario was put in jail and I was able to gather my things from the house without his threatening presence. Soon after, with the money I usually used to pay the mortgage and bills, I filed a lawsuit against Dario for divorce based on the grounds of cruelty. I had to go through the grueling experience of facing him in court, but in the end they awarded the house to me, which I quickly sold. I wanted nothing to do with our life together.
He had to go through a twelve step program for abuse and addiction and was ordered to stay away from me indefinitely. He wasn’t even allowed to see the children, in case he would use them to manipulate me into his vicious cycle of violence. He would regain visiting rights upon approval from the court.
It was only then that I allowed myself to seek Lucian again. Or rather, answer his calls and attempts to get in touch with me, since I had all but vanished from the face of the earth. I asked Mrs. Granada to watch the kids for me one day and drove to his place.
The doorman to Lucian’s building let me through immediately. He was no stranger to my late night emergency visits to my dear friend’s place. He probably thought Lucian was my booty call, judging from the knowing grin he always wore when he saw me.
He seemed amused to see me showing up so early in the afternoon and tranquil as opposed to teary eyed, for once. He was probably thinking that Lucian and I had changed our nights for afternoon trysts. Above his obvious curiosity was duty, so he placed the call to Lucian and led me to the elevators without a hint of further indiscretion.
I boarded the elevator and punched in his floor number. I didn’t have to ring his doorbell. Lucian was waiting for me, leaning expectantly on his doorway. He grabbed me inside and hugged me tight to his body. I detected the look of concern, not knowing that he had been briefed on my whole ordeal by a well meaning Laura.
“Lu…” I started.
“I already know, Grace.” He cut me short. “And although I have to say that I’m offended that you didn’t seek my help, I can also say that I understand why you didn’t and… I’m proud of you.”
He settled me firmly on his solid chest. There was nothing inappropriate about his approach. He held me close and dried my tears as they fell in torrents. They were tears of disbelief at what I had endured, but also of relief.
Lucian continued to smooth my hair. He said pretty words to me. Genuine words. He stroked my wet cheeks and coaxed my head up slowly. I saw a deeper concern in his eyes when I looked into his gray eyes.
“Grace. This is it. Do you understand? This has to be it,” he said.
“I’m afraid, Lucian,” I admitted.
“I promise you that you have made the right choice.”
“I know. I know. I just need for this nightmare to be over,” I breathed.
“The wheels are turning for you again, love.” Lucian kissed my cheek and I fell into the safety of his arms.
****
Okay. Here goes nothing. I stepped into the doctor’s office. The plaque next to her door read Dr. Stella Cummings. Let’s see how she could help me. I had a natural aversion to therapists since I had been carted off from one to another since I was a child in my mom’s infinite search for what was wrong with me. After many years of letting her, I concluded that there was nothing wrong with me except the fact that I was not like the others in my family.
The theme from Sesame Street always snuck into my head idiotically, as I played around with my cousins and sister as a child and even into adulthood, “One of these things is not like the others… One of these things is not…”
But even I could recognize that I needed help, now. I needed to know that I wasn’t going crazy. Or at least, if I was, it had a remedy. I needed to know that I had made the right decisions. And that my decision to leave him wasn’t, “throwing away four years of marriage”, like Dario said once he had a chance to call me again to arrange visitation righ
ts. I had held on for that long because maintaining a stable family for Cody and Sarah had been the most important thing to me, even above my own pride and dignity as a woman; as a human being.
I thought it funny for a stranger to presume that they could tell you what to do with your life, but I decided to trust. Lucian had convinced me. He was eager for me to let go of any guilt I felt over the break- up of my marriage to Dario and thought that this doctor could very well rid me of it. Also, he believed that the health issues that had suddenly accosted me would go away as soon as I cleared my spirit.
I trusted him and best of all I trusted myself. The worst was over. I was already free of my commitment to Dario. I was living in my own place. Modest, but mine. I had no more hidden things to discover. Dario’s Pandora’s Box was of no consequence to me anymore. But, nightmares accosted me and flashbacks of it all. The panther’s persecution seemed like a distant threat when I had lived a full scale nightmare in real life. I sometimes suffered from irregular heartbeat and migraines.
“Good morning, Grace.” The doctor greeted me as if she already knew me.
She had an ease about her that inspired my trust immediately.
“Good morning, Dr. Cummings,” I greeted her back.
“Well, take a seat, Ms. Coventry.” She motioned to a very comfortable chair in front of her desk.
I was feeling awkward and frankly unwilling to unravel my whole sordid story, but Dr. Cummings didn’t try to force me.
“Well, dear. Before you begin your therapy, I must tell you that I don’t use conventional methods of psychotherapy. I use alternate methods that dig deep into the origins and essences of maladies.”
Well, I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I was willing to try. How could you possibly treat the essence of my ailments? My doctor even thought I had a brain tumor. How could a psychologist cure that, I wondered?
“I need to know that you’re willing to undergo the treatment as it is,” Dr. Cummings said.
“We’ll be focusing more on your subconscious than the manifestation of it in wakefulness.”
My subconscious? Oh, good. So, I wasn’t crazy after all. It seems my subconscious had a part in my every day torment.
“So, you’re gonna cure my subconscious, so that I can be okay in my conscious state?” I eagerly sought her agreement.
“Sort of speak,” she said cautiously. “We’ll attempt to tap into your true wishes. Once you’re focused on that, you’ll get over the past.”
That all sounded great, like I wouldn’t have to do too much work.
“Okay. When do we start?” I said breathlessly.
“What we’ll need to do is to arrive at a profile of your symptoms today and then we can work from there,” she said sternly, taking out a white legal pad.
“Well, I don’t really have symptoms, per say, more like I’m overwhelmed by things that have happened to me,” I began.
“Exactly. Those are symptoms, dear. Let me see if I can help you. You’re having recurring dreams, feelings of guilt, flash backs of things that have happened to you. Sudden physical ailments that threaten to be fatal, even,” Mrs. Cummings recounted as if she knew my case already.
“How did you know?” I was befuddled.
“You filled out a questionnaire when you made your appointment, remember? Your circumstances were pretty detailed in it, dear.” The doctor chuckled amused. “I wouldn’t be able to know anything that was said here, unless you informed it.”
“Oh,” I said listlessly. I swear that despite my supposed high IQ, I could be so dense sometimes.
“Well, yes. That’s basically it. I also have an inability to let whatever my ex husband and his family does, or say, slide off my shoulders. I am deeply affected by him even though, I no longer feel love for him and I know for sure that he was harmful to me,” I babbled.
“Well dear. That’s only normal. You’re suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“I thought only soldiers suffered from that when they came back from war.” I was sure I had read that in a magazine one day.
“In effect, that’s correct. What you’ve been through resembles the trauma of war,” the doctor explained. “Not to worry, though. It’s all over now and you’ve taken the correct steps to remove yourself from harm, but you have the remnants of what’s happened in your spirit.”
I had truly never heard a doctor talk about the spirit before. They talked about the body. They talked about your emotional and mental state, all which occurred in the brain, though. But, they never ever mentioned the spirit.
“We are spiritual beings, you see. Everything that we experience has another dimension. We have to tap into that dimension to find the balance that is created there naturally in regards to that occurrence. Once we do, Grace… It’s all gone for good. Believe me. It’s like it never happened. I’ve seen it many a time before.” Dr. Cummings seemed so convinced. I hoped she was right.
“How do you happen to know Lucian, if you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Cummings?” I quickly became curious. Lucian hadn’t told me how he had stumbled upon this Dr. Cummings. He had only mentioned he had therapy when I left him. The summer he went away. So how had his therapist turned up so close to home? And all this esoteric stuff she talked about… Lucian was always very centered. He was my rock. I couldn’t picture him believing in all this stuff.
“Perhaps, you should ask him yourself, Ms. Coventry.” Dr. Cummings announced that our session was up and urged me to schedule our second session for the following week.
My following two sessions with Dr. Cummings were spent basically telling her everything that had happened to me in even more detail and how I had felt about those things separately. Also, I discussed what I had before about my reasons for having stayed with Dario for as long as I did.
“Well, dear. You pretty much have a very good ability to reflect upon what happens to you and how it affects you. You also reached the point of letting go. Which needed to happen. But… you haven’t found the balance that has been created because of your detachment, Grace. I’m glad you came. We’ll begin in the next session.” Dr. Cummings promised me sure relief from then on.
The sessions were doing me good, but my headaches weren’t going away. My doctors kept performing tests and kept coming up with inconclusive results. I was starting to believe that their suspicions of a tumor were right. The pain was blinding. My asthma attacks also came more frequently. I was desperate to get better. Dr. Cummings finally decided that it was time to tap into my subconscious. She said nothing would be the same after the next session.
“Look at me well, Lucian,” I said kiddingly to my still best friend. “Cuz’ when I walk into this car again, I’ll be a changed person. Mark my words!” I pecked Lucian on the cheek and hopped off the car.
I was so preoccupied with the anticipation of being rid of my “spiritual” baggage that I missed Lucian’s look of concern.
“I’ll be back in an hour, Grace.” Lucian drove away in a rush before I could say anything else.
Dr. Cumming’s office was hardly recognizable that day. There seemed to be no one else scheduled. She said that our session would last more than the usual hour. That it would take as long as it would take and that if we tapped into my balance, which be sufficient to rid me of my woes.
As soon as I was ushered in, I inhaled the strong patchouli incense that permeated the air. There were white scented candles all around me. A white sheet lay in the middle of the office. It was pinned down with amulets containing different symbols that I didn’t recognize on each corner. I knew enough to know that they probably meant something important.
I must admit, I felt a bit uneasy about Dr. Cummings’ methods, but there was an inexplicable affinity with her when we spoke that I just couldn’t overlook. As she had said, I had tried everything to try to cure myself, but was unsuccessful. So, I placed on the white cotton tunic that she handed me and shed my binding shoes. The last thing I had to do, Dr. Cummings instructed was t
o untie my tight ponytail and let my hair be free.
By that time I had already freed my mind of all thought and was in a very relaxed state on the sheet. I was kneeling at first, but I was led into laying down freely on a soft pillow at the far end of the sheet while I visualized and described what came into my mind.
I was descending a staircase in an unknown building. It was a church, I realized as soon as I walked through a heavy wooden door to my left. I stepped out and gazed at my beautiful white gown. It overflowed around me when I spun around to take a closer look at it. I caught myself in a mirror.
My hair was up in a beautiful loose bun and exotic azalea flowers adorned it. Loose tendrils caressed my face as a warm tropical wind blew through the open window. My face contained only the slightest hues of color. My natural sun tan made my emerald eyes shine. I looked unnaturally beautiful.
Someone was behind me. It was a beautiful little girl with short curly locks that were adorned by a crown made of the same azalea flowers that adorned my hair. I didn’t know her, but she seemed familiar, somehow. It certainly wasn’t Rose. No, not Rose. It was Sarah.
“Look at how beautiful she looks.” I heard a man’s voice as I was led down a short corridor to a foyer. The foyer of a church. The turquoise of a vast ocean was visible from every window I passed on the way to the foyer. Its scent hit my nose sharply, reminding me of the only ocean I had ever witnessed in San Juan. It smelled salty, but in it, were also mixed, the smells of unknown fruits and flowers. An elixir of calm, I thought. So, I was going to some kind of island celebration. Maybe a religious festival. That’s why we were in a church.
I heard the music playing. A whole symphony, it seemed. I could recognize the instruments. I played in one, after all. The symphony’s melody filled the tall walls of the church and vibrated in my body. Maybe they were waiting for me to join in with my cello.
My body felt like it was floating. I turned the corner where the laughing, carefree Sarah had skipped before me with her crown of flowers. There seemed to indeed be a ceremony happening in the church.
