by Bonnie Grove
The woman who I assumed was Laura-Lea Autumn, the group facilitator, entered the room at precisely seven. Or at least her breasts did. The rest of her body followed seconds later.
The men in the room visibly brightened. The women, me included, did a quick breast check. I glanced covertly down at my chest and mentally conceded, “Yep, I’m out of the game.”
The short blond man in the gray wool pants (in the summer?) and checkered blue tie stared at Laura-Lea like he could hear “Make the World Go Away” in full orchestra. I crossed my arms over my chest and slid farther down in my chair.
Laura-Lea marched to the center of the room, and, hands on her oh-so-slim hips, she planted her feet far apart on the floor. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d produced pom-poms and broken out into a catchy cheer. She turned a slow circle, looking everyone in the eye. She was smiling in a way that was both perky and intimidating. As she turned, she pointed with a long manicured finger to the spot where the chairs had been. Clearly she wanted us to return our chairs to the middle of the room. We obeyed the silent command, fashioning a reasonable facsimile of the original circle.
Laura-Lea sat in her chair, smoothed her white cotton pants, and placed both hands on her knees. “We are here tonight to begin to heal.” She leaned forward, looking around the room. Heads bobbed in agreement—yes, yes, we’re here to heal. She smiled, seemingly satisfied with this response. “The whole point of group therapy is to heal ourselves, and” —her voice dropped to a soft, but oddly adorable whisper— “to heal each other.” More nodding, a few murmurs of agreement. Wool Pants Guy closed his eyes for a moment, as if savoring some sweet aroma.
Laura-Lea took a long, meaningful breath. “We’re here to share our innermost beings with each other. Our thoughts. Our hopes. Our dreams. Our very souls. Each one of us will stop at nothing until we have laid bare our greatest pain.” She let out a soft sigh. “But first, I need to have you sign these confidentiality forms.”
After group therapy, I walked through the foyer, surprised to hear a cacophony of voices, whistles, and the sound of balls bouncing off various surfaces.
Basketball, I thought as I walked across the foyer toward the gym. Kevin had loved basketball. He played it all through high school, always wearing jersey number three.
I pulled the door open a crack and looked in. From my Peeping-Tom vantage point I could only see half the gym. Several teenagers were gathered in the key, watching the ball circle the hoop as it decided which way to fall. When it spun into the basket, there was simultaneous cheering and booing. Two boys exchanged a fast and complicated-looking handshake and ran down the court, out of my view. I listened for a moment, and then pulled the door open enough for me to squeeze through, into the gym.
No one noticed me; they just kept playing. The teams appeared to be red bandannas versus blue. A tall, skinny boy with a red bandanna tied around his wrist was dribbling fast down the court. A girl, shorter, but still no slouch in the height department, sped ahead of him and planted herself directly in his path. I was sure they would collide, causing a foul on the red team and, undoubtedly, causing the girl physical harm. In the moment it took to suck my breath in, the boy stopped, pivoted away from the girl, and landed a bounce pass to a teammate who took it up court and scored.
The red team screamed out a victory sound; high fives all around. For a moment the boy and the girl from the blue team stood facing each other in the middle of the court. Her back was to me. He looked down at her with a grim expression, like he was about to call Louie the Fixer to come take care of her. Then his face cracked into an enormous grin. The girl shoved him hard with both hands. She turned so I could see her face. She was smiling. “Jerk,” she said in a casual voice. They walked to their respective benches.
When the game resumed, I decided to leave. It had already been an eventful evening for me and I was tired. I had my hand on the door when I heard a male voice call, “Who dat?” I pushed the door open.
Another voice: “Hey, wait. Where you goin’?”
I turned. The two teams were standing in the middle of the court staring at me. The tall girl raised her hand to her waist and gave me a quick wave. I bent my elbow, hand at my belt, and jerked it at her in response.
A man with a whistle around his neck was walking toward me holding a clipboard in his left hand and extending his right hand, a long-distance handshake. He stopped in front of me, still offering his hand. “I’m Jack.”
I gave his hand a quick shake. “Kate. Sorry to interrupt. I was just leaving.”
He gestured toward the court. “You wanna play? You’re welcome to join in.” He looked down at my strappy black sandals. “Or watch.” He grinned at me.
“Hey, coach, think fast,” someone called.
Jack turned and ducked just in time for me to see a basketball coming full speed toward me. I was about to throw my hands up in front of my face when the ball made contact with my nose. I made a sound like gah and grabbed my nose.
I felt a hand push my forehead back, forcing me to look at the ceiling. I heard Jack’s voice, “Are you okay?” He gave me no time to answer. “Head up. Keeps the blood from going everywhere. I’m going to take you into my office; I have a first-aid kit. Keep your head back.” He took hold of my elbow and started walking. “Look out, guys.” I watched the light fixtures go by as I walked beside him.
I heard a door open. We must have reached his office. “You guys keep playing. I’ll be back.” Jack led me into his office and eased me into a chair. I stared at a brown water stain on the ceiling.
I heard rummaging, and then Jack was beside me, pressing white gauze to my nose. I tried to straighten my neck, but Jack pressed down on my forehead again. “Just keep your neck bent like that. It’ll help stop the bleeding.”
I reached up and touched the side of my nose. “Ouch.” My voice sounded nasal. I offered a pathetic smile.
Jack lifted the gauze from my face. “I think it’s okay. The bleeding, I mean.”
I straightened my neck, waiting for blood to rush down my nasal passages. It didn’t. I looked around.
The cinder-block walls of the office were painted institutional gray. The furniture consisted of a metal frame desk with a chipped tabletop. Behind the desk was an old office chair you’d expect to see in the steno pool, and a white mini fridge. I was sitting on one of two orange plastic molded chairs. A metal four-drawer filing cabinet sat in the corner. Posters of basketball players in various poses of action or victory were taped to the walls. The room was surprisingly quiet considering its proximity to the gym.
“Thirsty?” he asked, pulling two bottles of water out of the fridge. He thrust the bottle at me.
I caught it. “Thanks.” I held the cool bottle to the side of my nose. “Ah, that’s better.”
Jack sat on the steno chair, propped his feet up on the desk, and leaned back until he was nearly horizontal. He smiled and then tipped the water bottle back and drained its contents in several loud gulps.
I uncapped my water and took a self-conscious sip. “I’m feeling better. Thanks for your help.” I felt embarrassed for bleeding in front of a stranger. “I should get going.” I reached down for my purse. It wasn’t there. I must have dropped it when I was hit with the ball.
Jack swung his feet off the desk and sat up. “I’m sorry about what happened. Big Tim and me, we have this thing. Every once in a while, he yells ‘think fast’ and throws a ball at me. Each time I duck, and the ball goes sailing over my head. He thinks it’s hilarious.”
I recapped my water and raised an ironic eyebrow. “Hilarious.”
Jack spread his hands out in front of him in a helpless gesture. “Tim has developmental delays. He isn’t always the best judge of when it’s appropriate to chuck a ball at me and when it’s not. He didn’t mean to hurt you. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
I chewed
the inside of my cheek. My nose throbbed. “It’s okay. Just one of those things, I guess.” I thought about it for a second, then mumbled, “Kinda par for the course, lately.”
Jack propped his chin up with his right hand. “Huh?”
I shrugged. “Oh nothing.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
I flashed a halfhearted smile. “No.”
“Ah, a woman of mystery.”
A laugh pushed its way out of my mouth. “Nothing as interesting as that.” I stood up and grabbed the doorknob. “Thanks for helping me with the …” I looked down and saw splatters of red on my blouse. “Blood.”
I opened the door and walked straight into Big Tim’s chest. “Oof,” I said. It seemed he had been listening at the door. A quick peek behind him showed me that he hadn’t been alone. I blinked at the group of kids as they all suddenly thought of something else to do and wandered off to do it. All except Big Tim.
I stepped back into the office and looked up at him. He held my purse up. “Sorry I creamed you with a ball. You dropped your purse.”
I took my purse from him and smiled. “Thanks, Big Tim.” I glanced back at Jack. “Nice meeting you.” I touched my nose. “Well, mostly nice meeting you.”
Jack grinned and gave a shrug. “Anytime you get beaned with a ball …”
I shook my head. “How embarrassing.” I walked out of the office and across the gym, still shaking my head.
“Hey!”
I turned to see Big Tim holding a basketball out to me. “Do you play? Wanna shoot some hoops?”
I held my foot up for him to see. “Wrong footwear, sorry. Maybe some other time.”
Big Tim’s face broke open in a toothy grin. “Great. When? Tomorrow?”
Jack stood in the doorway of his office, leaning against the doorjamb, his face an open question. I turned my gaze back to Big Tim. “I can’t tomorrow, sorry.”
“Okay. How about the next day?”
Jack sauntered over and patted Big Tim’s arm. “Hey, buddy, Kate was just popping in for today only. A one-day deal. Okay?” Jack lifted his head and hollered to the group, “We have time for a quick one. Team up, everyone.” He looked at me. “But you are welcome to come back anytime.”
I gave a you-never-know shrug. “Sorry I interrupted the game.” I pushed the gym door open.
“Hey, lady, Jack’s friend,” said Big Tim. I turned and looked at him. “Next time bring your basketball shoes.”
I raised my hand in a quick salute. “Right.”
21
I stood at the top of the steps leading to my bedroom and fingered the journal I’d bought. Over the past two weeks I’d met with Dr. Alexander another four times. He had assigned this “homework,” as he called it—journaling—at the first of those four meetings. Dr. Alexander was big on gradual sensory flooding—something I’d never heard of before. It was, essentially, baby steps toward “robust mental health.”
Baby step number one was for me to purchase a journal. “Nothing fancy, just bound paper with lines.” The book I held wasn’t just any journal, though. I wouldn’t be jotting down my girlish daydreams beginning with Dear Diary in swirly script. I wouldn’t be dotting my i’s with little hearts and finishing my sentences with tiny daisies instead of periods. I browsed the racks of journals at the bookstore, wondering what sort of cover would be appropriate for a journal that was to detail the ebb and flow of my fear. Especially my fear to reenter my bedroom. It had been over two months since Kevin died, and I was still sleeping in the living room.
Dr. Alexander instructed me to stand at the top of the stairs, journal in hand, and look at my bedroom door. I was to write the date and time of this exercise in my journal, and document how many steps I was able to climb. Beside that number I was instructed to rate my fear on a scale of zero to ten. Zero meaning I was bounding into the room, whistling “Mack the Knife,” not a care in the world, and ten meaning I was crawling away on all fours, weeping and hyperventilating into a paper bag. I was to bring my journal to our sessions so we could discuss my progress.
So far I’d gotten as far as buying the journal. That was my progress.
I had decided on a compact notebook with a two-tone hardcover in brown and black. The pages were unlined and completely void of my thoughts, experiences, or processes. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand Dr. Alexander’s intentions. It would be an important step to sleep in my own bed again. But something inside of me, some niggling ghost, vaporous and intangible, told me that where I was sleeping wasn’t the biggest deal in my world. Important, sure, but not my top priority.
Dr. Alexander said I wasn’t sleeping in my own bed (I wasn’t even setting foot on the second level of my home, except for the occasional and desperate shower) because of some “innate fear.” He wanted me to pinpoint the cause of my fear and then overcome it, in order to begin to reclaim a normal life. What I couldn’t explain to him was that it wasn’t fear that kept me from climbing the stairs. I didn’t have heart-pounding panic attacks each time I walked by the stairs or used the shower. I just couldn’t go into my bedroom. My feet wouldn’t take me there. I just stood as if someone had nailed my feet to the floor.
I fingered the journal’s sturdy cover, looking at the partially opened bedroom door. I opened it to the first page.
“You’re a reader, not a writer,” Kevin said.
My body went rigid. My joints straightened, and my head began to ache.
“This isn’t real.” But my voice was a murmur, an undertone below the roaring in my ears.
I was afraid now. Okay, give the fear a number, just as Dr. Alexander had explained. Ten? One hundred?
His voice undulated, swirling in through my ears and rising like fog in my mind. “Go upstairs. You know you’re mine.”
I closed my eyes in a hysteria of fear and need. I could almost feel him; his presence pulsed just beyond the walls of my home, just beyond my fingertips.
“Stop. Please, stop.” I chanted reality in my head, praying it would push the voice aside. This isn’t happening. You’re not real.
His voice, like a caress, blew across my face. “Kate. My wife.”
Warm tears flowed. He was as real as he’d ever been in life. Real enough to send me to the psych ward, to make Dr. Alexander’s mouth pucker with concern, to make my body ache. I gazed into the bedroom. “There’s nothing for me in there anymore.”
“Mine.” He said the word tenderly, my lover returned from a long sojourn. Instantly my mind filled with memories of Kevin and me together. His warmth, his touch, the abandon he brought me.
I clutched the wall, fearful I’d fall backward down the stairs. I sank to the floor. A sob wrenched free, pulling my breath out with it as fresh grief rushed in to fill the void. Fear and grief tossed me between them. Fear for my sanity, yes, but mostly fear that his voice would turn menacing again. But grief, too, longing for my husband. For his solid touch, his fresh scent, his dependable presence. I pressed my palms against my temples. “I don’t want to remember anymore.”
I could hear his disapproval, like the shaking of a head. “You’ve already forgotten too much.”
Kevin’s voice is a stern whisper. He’s calling from work and I can tell he doesn’t want to be overheard. “You forgot?” he says, for the fourth time.
I open the fridge, close it, open a cupboard door, peer in, close it. “I’m sorry. I had to go in to work today. Percy was sick. He ate bad fish. It just slipped my mind.”
“My boss is coming to dinner for the first time and it slips your mind. What am I supposed to do, Kate? She just came in here and said she’ll be ready to go in half an hour.”
“Can’t we just go out?” Back in the fridge I find a bowl of fuzzy scalloped potatoes. I try to recall the last time we had scalloped potatoes. I don’t think I even know how to m
ake scalloped potatoes. Kevin’s loud breathing interrupts my thoughts. “Donna wants to see our house and I told her you were a wonderful cook. She’s expecting a home-cooked meal.”
“Kevin,” I say in a reasonable tone, as I throw an empty box of stone-wheat crackers into the recycle bin by the back door. “This isn’t The Dick VanDyke Show. You won’t lose your job because your wife forgot to make a pot roast.”
For a moment he is silent, then: “You think this is funny?”
I shake my head at the phone. I did think it was funny. But there was no sense trying to get him to see the humor. Clearly this was important to him. “No. Sorry. It’s just that there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“We’re eating at home tonight. Call the caterer.” He slams the phone in my ear.
I stare at the phone. He hung up? Call the caterer? Like I’d ever used a caterer before? Like we had one on speed dial? Okay, Kate, think. Your husband is about to have a stroke unless you can whip up an eight-course meal in the next thirty minutes.
There was a caterer we had used at work. It was supposed to be oh-so-chichi, but Mandy, the manager of the Wee Book Inn, had ordered the cheapest lunch tray, consisting of champagne crackers, cheese cubes, a spinach-and-avocado dip, and an antipasto only Percy would eat. “It’s a pity Mandy didn’t go for the good stuff,” Percy said. “They make a pimento and goat cheese stuffed-olive platter that is” —he held his hands up by his ears, praising the food gods— “to die for.”
What was the name of that place? I look at the clock. The second hand ticks like a time bomb. I reach for the yellow pages and start flipping through. “Any port in a storm,” I mumble.
We eat and eat. The food is good. Too good. Every third bite Donna winks and says, “You must give me the recipe.” She waves her bone-thin hand and asks for my e-mail address. She calls me a culinary genius. I turn red, and I hope she thinks I’m blushing.
