Come Back

by Claire Fontaine

Sunny starts reading it immediately and shouts without permission, “Mein God! Meine mutter hat Discovery ge-passed!”

  Fan-fucking-tastic, her mom just went through seminar and mine won’t even write. I hate mail time. I’ve given up on them ever writing and am beginning not to care.

  As we line up for class, I notice Sunny break into a smile, then quickly cover it with her hand. Sunny got permission earlier to borrow a tampon from Lara and she’s staring at it like it’s a magic wand. I sneak a glance over her shoulder and notice the tiny writing: “A little something from me to go inside of you.”

  Normally, I’d laugh, we joke around like that all the time, but this is different. Sunny’s really blushing. And then it hits me. Sunny’s gay!

  Everyone stands quietly behind their chairs in the cafeteria. Miss Zuza nods and we take a seat. Lupe raises her hand, “Darf ich musik putten on, Frau Zuza?”

  “Jah, Lupe.”

  Lupe shuffles out of the dining room and returns smiling demurely. We begin eating in silence, save the clinks and tinks of eighteen girls’ cutlery. A classical song begins to play, a sweet melody I recognize but can’t name. Just as I begin to drift along to the song, a man’s vibrato voice starts crooning, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy,” and I suppress a laugh. Soon the whole table recognizes “Bohemian Rhapsody” and is waiting for Miss Zuza to as well.

  By “doesn’t really matter to me—to meee…,” we’re all at the edge of our seats.

  And then the rock part breaks out and we all bang our heads up and down in unison. Ruza, the cook, starts conducting with her wooden spoon and even little Jenka plays air guitar with a big spatula. Miss Zuza starts laughing when the door swings open and a worried-looking Peter rushes in. He stares for a second at the dancing cooks and headbanging girls and, seeing Miss Zuza unconcerned, shakes his head and retreats back to the boys. I guess his intrusion was enough for Miss Zuza, because she waves her arm, yelling, “ Das reicht, Mädchen, das reicht (that’s enough)!” But she’s still smiling.

  It’s moments like this that make it bearable here.

  I haven’t gone on the Link in a while, but I do tonight and find a post from Sasha’s mother.

  We both have had periods of great difficulty in coming to terms with the anger and pain that continues to creep in when we think of how she treated us…This evening I pulled out a book of my favorite poetry…sticking out between two of the pages was a photograph of our then-six-month-old Sasha in our arms, a look of radiant happiness on all three of our faces…

  I commit this day to relinquish my anger…to forgive my daughter…When she looks into my eyes I want her to see nothing but love, support, and pride…which is precisely what she deserves.

  It’s the first cool night in a while and before taking a walk, I dig out the big, black writing sweater my mother knit for me. It’s oversize with a big shawl collar, burnished leather buttons, and deep pockets. I haven’t worn it since last winter.

  When I look down to button it, I see it—a long, wavy strand of Mia’s hair, a part of her still golden, unblackened. The part of her I stopped seeing. My little monkey.

  17.

  The seminar room’s easy to find. Waiting outside the doors are about forty of the most haggard, wary, nervous middle-aged people ever to grace a hotel hallway. There are several parents like myself as well, who are upbeat, excited to be sharing in our child’s treatment, however distant.

  I’m more than upbeat; I’m still basking in the serenity of having forgiven Mia. I feel cleansed and tranquil. In fact, I feel positively seraphic.

  The easels should have been the first clue.

  Posters on the wall with slogans like “Nothing Can Change When You Are Comfortable” should have been the second.

  Duane Smotherman is a handsome, six-foot-seven African American in his late forties. He struts, gesticulates, and captivates; he booms, whispers, and gets in our faces. He’s here to teach us about our beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and assumptions, ladies and gentlemen. About accountability and possibility, about consciousness.

  “It’s no accident you are here, this did not happen overnight. Your children are not diseased, your children’s behavior is merely a symptom of a much deeper issue,” he says as he strolls down the side of the room. “They are reacting to a fundamental disconnect in the family system. So, they looked for connection in drugs, sex, gangs, alcohol.”

  We’ve been asked to remain in open body position—legs uncrossed, palms on our thighs facing up. The room is fast dividing into wide-eyed guilt with upturned palms and testy muttering with legs and arms tightly crossed.

  “They looked everywhere,” he stops in front of a muttering couple, “but to you, true? Do you get it?”

  They do, though they’re not happy about it. He looks at the rest of us to make sure we’re getting it, too.

  “Make no mistake about it,” he declares, “we’re not here this weekend to fix your children. We’re here to reveal, feel, deal, heal, and be real. To learn about the shadow you cast. To get conscious about what you brought to the family dynamic that landed you in these seats. The question is,” he pauses, “do you have the guts to do what you are asking your kids to do?”

  Like anyone’s going to say “No, I’m gutless” when they can just slink off unnoticed at lunchtime. Our heads rotate to follow him as he walks back toward the front.

  “This weekend you are going to walk through a hall of mirrors…Where everywhere you look…,” he stops abruptly. He knows how to hit the beats like a trained Shakespearean actor. He turns to face us. “All you see…is you.” He pauses, smiles.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Discovery.”

  I’ve never read or work-shopped anything remotely transformational. To keep us present and in the moment, we’re not permitted to take notes. Which puts me squarely outside the Comfort Zone thing Duane’s scribbling about at the easel. As he writes a long list of “where we grown-ups like to hang out,” I cringe and mentally tick off Control, Perfection, Being Right, and Analysis/Paralysis, i.e., “Being stuck in your head.”

  “This is where your kids hide out,” he says, pointing to his head, “oh, yes, they love living up here in the penthouse suite. Your kids are all about outguessing, control, manipulation, about working their parents. About staying up here in their brains, where they don’t have to feel. Now, none of you wouldn’t know anything about that,” he looks in my direction, nodding, “would you?”

  Was he looking at me? Could you repeat the question? Because I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the last lesson, the self-limiting belief thing, where I’m supposed to figure out how I got programmed.

  “Your SLBs,” he said as he abbreviated them, “run you, ladies and gentlemen. And our self-limiting beliefs are far more powerful than our self-enhancing beliefs. Because we’re unconscious of them. Most of us have no i-dea (a stomp here) what drives our behavior. We have no i-dea (another stomp) why something keeps showing up in our life. Oh, it may look like it “just happened,” but there are no accidents. Human beings are “addicted” to being right. And the thing they like to be right about most are their beliefs, do you get it?”

  Not without taking notes, I don’t. All of this is too much to get in one sitting, anyway. My eyes drift over to a poster that says “What You Fear You Create.” It reminds me of a quote by fifteenth-century French philosopher, Montaigne, “He who fears he will suffer, already suffers what he fears.” Duane’s lesson clicks into comprehension: Mia’s beliefs about herself had to be two extremes, I am loved and protected, and I am powerless, damaged, unsafe with men. Look which beliefs ruled her. Look who she attracted into her life. How much more powerless and degraded could she be than to be a Jew who found herself with skinheads, even if unconsciously?

  My attention wanders back to Duane, now sermonizing about Accountability, labeling a line graph I can’t make any sense of.

  “Accountability is not about blame, it’s not about being wrong, it is ab
out owning the choices you’ve made, or are making, that create the results you have in your life. And you do create everything in your life.”

  Well, hang on there, Mr. Corporate Honcho up front says, waving and standing.

  “You mean to tell me, if I’m in a plane crash, I created that, too?”

  “Do planes crash?” Duane asks.

  “Yeah,” the guy answers.

  “So, you made a conscious choice to travel in a conveyance that has been known to crash, sink, get blown up, or otherwise create the unfortunate result of your not making it home, did you not? Are you responsible? Of course not, you didn’t cause it. But you are accountable for making a choice that helped set up that outcome. You could have chosen another means of transportation. You always have a choice.”

  The guy sits down with an expression that says Duane is full of crap. Half the room agrees. The other half looks like a light went on. I’m somewhere in the twilight.

  “Folks, the deal with accountability is this—you either see yourself as accountable, that is, as making things happen or you see things as a victim, that things are happening to you. As long as you see your life as the result of someone else’s choices, then you see yourself as having no control over your life, because you have no control over anyone else’s behavior. You’re no doubt painfully aware that you can’t even control the human beings you brought into this world. The only person you will ever have control over is you. Once you’re willing to look at the role you played in what didn’t work, you put yourself in the driver’s seat of your destiny, because you can make a different choice to create a different outcome. You will be at cause in your life, not effect. In terms of your kids, if you don’t get conscious about the role you played in landing yourself in this room, you’re going to keep creating the same results.”

  He turns to the easel again, flipping to a fresh page.

  “So, when you look around at what’s showing up in your life, your results, you either have your stories,” he says loudly, writing “Stories” with one hand and waving the other at us dismissively to project his real meaning, i.e. you either have your bullshit,

  “or your reasons,” he writes and waves his hand again, meaning more bullshit,

  “or your ex-cuses,” a wave and a stomp, meaning your biggest bullshit of all,

  “or you have your RESULTS. And let me tell you something else, ladies and gentlemen.”

  He spins and leans toward us with his index finger held up. We lean forward, rapt, as if the meaning of life is about to be revealed. Or at least the reason for our child’s demise.

  “Results…never…lie.”

  He waves that raised finger at us. “Your results will always tell you what your real intentions are, or were, consciously or not. Results never lie.”

  He finally lets us out for lunch. He’s been scribbling and flipping, he’s had all of us doing “processes” and half of us crying. I feel blindsided and the first day’s barely half over.

  We stagger out of there feeling sucker-punched. But intrigued in a macabre way. Few things are more interesting to people than themselves.

  After the break, he introduces the service team, or staff, several happy men and women at the back table who’ve been scurrying about handling lights, music, doors. Unlike us, they’re allowed to take notes, which they’ve been doing from the start as they watch us.

  With one exception, they have kids either in the program or who have graduated it. The exception is a woman named Wendy G. She’s got an intense gaze and a dazzling smile, which she’s graced us with only once so far.

  Duane divides us into two groups for a “game.” It’s a brainteaser-type process. Sam’s group stays in the room; I go with my group to another room, where we figure it out in an atmosphere of excitement.

  When we bounce back into the other group’s room it’s like a slap in the face. They’re yelling, fighting, and harrumphing as they struggle to figure it out, making nasty remarks about the service team—“They want to see us lose!” Or about Duane—“He’s tricking us!” Or about the game—“Hey, let’s cheat, it’s just a game!”

  Paul stands and quietly gives what he thinks is the answer and he’s shouted down by half the group. He mumbles, “Fuck this shit” and sits down for the remaining time, and I have my first lightbulb moment—this is exactly what Paul always does when he meets resistance. He makes the other (usually me) an asshole in his mind and withdraws. Duane was right—how you show up in here is a mirror of your life. The woman feeling “tricked” probably never trusts anyone and Mr. Hey Let’s Cheat probably isn’t Mr. Integrity whenever push comes to shove. They’re not even aware of it. I love this stuff!

  Why wouldn’t I? So far, I haven’t looked in the mirror myself.

  During dinner, Paul actually agrees with my observations about him.

  “It’s amazing the way they design these processes to expose your issues,” Paul marvels. “You can’t deny what you just did in a roomful of people. I wouldn’t have listened if somebody had simply told me.”

  “Yes, you would have. You’d have nodded politely and pretended to agree, because it would have gotten them off your back. I so get what Duane said about silence being the biggest power play there is.”

  “I’ll try to be aware of it in the future.” He shakes his head. “You love to win, don’t you? You always have to be right.”

  “I never thought about it, but I guess I do.”

  “You guess? You can’t even stand to lose at Monopoly! To your own child!”

  This seminar’s either going to make us like each other a lot more or a lot less. I have a feeling it’s going to make me like me a lot more or a lot less.

  At the end of the first night, Duane has us get into “feedback arcs,” nine little horseshoes around the center of the room. From above, we must look like the June Taylor Dancers in daisy formation.

  “Feedback is one of the most powerful tools we have to assist us in becoming self-aware. It’s not about judgment, opinion, or making someone wrong. It is simply information, your honest experience of someone—‘Sally, my experience of you is…’ or ‘Sallie, my experience of myself around you is…’ Sally says nothing more than, ‘Thank you for caring enough about me to be honest.’”

  If it’s so benign, I want to know why they just dimmed the lights. And why the service team has suddenly spread like seeds to the four winds to impregnate our groups. They who have been taking notes about us for eleven hours. All grist, grist.

  I notice Paul in the next arc with a look of genuine terror on his face. We have to care and share until all forty-five of us know what we really think of each other. I’m glad it’s Wendy who joins our group; she’s been the most perceptive in her comments.

  Thus begins two of the strangest hours I’ve ever experienced. The darkened room resounds with the din of the good, the bad, and the ugly, punctuated by sobs.

  Our sharing of the first person, Patricia T, a serious, heavyset woman, consists of neutral observations. Wendy goes last. She fixes her big, dark eyes on Patricia T and with a loving gaze says:

  “Patricia, my experience of you is that you fear rejection so much that you create it by using your weight to push people away. My experience of myself around you is that I want to back away from your bitterness.”

  I can’t believe she said that! The poor woman ducks her head, nodding in agreement as she begins to cry, wringing her hands together nervously. Even if it’s true, and I think it is, I wouldn’t have been rude enough to say it! But, by the time I go around, everyone will be. I’m going to get reamed! Especially with Duane circulating, yelling over us, “How much longer are you going to lie to yourself or to others?”

  Wendy experiences the next guy as “using sarcasm to make people wrong.” Another staffer leans in to experience a woman as using her beauty to manipulate and control others. The man beside me experiences everyone as “nice.” Boy, is he going to get it—“approval suck” is the term they’ve been using.
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  “How far did your kids have to go before you stopped worrying about their approval?” Duane booms over the racket. “How did it serve you to sugarcoat the truth? Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to get real, this is your life!”

  I’ve always thought people found me good-natured, genuine, so I’m floored to keep hearing that I’m snobby, smiling but not real, too intellectual (can you be?). Wendy stares into my eyes and tells me, “Claire, you have so much anger, it feels dark and heavy to be around you. You use words to distance yourself, and you use them as weapons. You use them to be everywhere but here and now. I experience myself as almost invisible around you, because all I feel I’m getting is your mouth and your brain, not your heart.”

  I’m so uncomfortable, I wish my mouth and brain could make me invisible.

  Wendy’s relentless. She follows me to another group to add, “You think your brain keeps you safe.” Right now, earplugs would. Still, I’m unnerved by how consistent the feedback is. As my mother would say, “Ob drei menschen sugen als die bist shicker, geh schlufen (if three people tell you you’re drunk, you better go to sleep).”

  The din fades as the last of us finishes but the lights stay low because Duane’s not finished. With me. The room’s silent except for his voice hitting me like bullets.

  “Claire, you experience everything in your life in your brain, thinking you can control it all. You’ve been disconnected from your heart for so long, you are dead inside! You haven’t felt joy in so many years, you can’t even remember what it feels like.”

  My hands fly to my face. He’s circling me like a vulture.

  “You been burying your heart beneath your intellect, beneath your stories and drama for years! When did you first decide it was okay to kill yourself, Claire?” he says in my face. “Your heart is dying and the pain is exhausting you, exhausting you! I can see it in your face! You know it, don’t you?”