Come Back

by Claire Fontaine

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” Lou Dozier says of her voice, grinning. “Men who have issues with their mothers just love it.”

  She’s a tiny, pixie-faced ball of energy who will be our Duane for Focus. She’s in her mid-forties, agile. Her body speaks as expressively as her voice, her movements are fluid and gestural.

  “Focus is about being 100 percent responsible for your life, about opening yourself up to new possibilities. I’d like you to step forward in any order and introduce yourselves.”

  A tall young woman steps forward. She says she works for the company and came because she wants to better herself and her marriage. Her voice is familiar.

  “You’re Priscilla from Utah! I’m Claire, from Morava!” I blurt emotionally. “You were the only person in the whole company who would talk to us—”

  “VICTIM!!” Lou yells.

  My jaw drops and it’s like a thousand-watt bulb went off in my brain, instantly.

  “I said introduce your selves, not your stories and drama!” she says. “Next!”

  “No, wait! You’re right!” I sputter. “You’re right! That’s exactly what I’m doing! I’m whining like a…I hate whiners!”

  Lou walks up to me.

  “No, you don’t, Claire, because you’ve always gotten something out of it. I get that you’ve been whining and angry and righteous for years—ooh, they did it to me, look what he did to me! Always fighting or blaming some bad guy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly—”

  “How’s it been working for you, Claire?” Lou cuts me off. “What were the payoffs?”

  “It feels awful, I’m always stressed. The payoffs? I don’t know,” I say, flummoxed.

  She addresses the group, “Being a victim gives you an excuse for not being accountable for your own life. Blame is a wedge against feeling powerless. Claire,” she looks at me, “I get that what went on at Morava was tough on everyone. Looking back from a place of accountability, what did you create for yourself there? Resentment? Chaos?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Exhaustion, umm, fear…”

  “Sympathy, approval, control!” she belts out. “You got to be right. A victim always gets to be right. If they’re the bad guys, then you must be the poor good guy. It’s a covert way of controlling. Can you see that?”

  It’s true, I could have done the exact same things I did that week with an entirely different attitude. My attitude was, indeed, that what the police, the company, and the press were doing was wrong, which made me, of course, right. My anger upset me, it upset Mia, it added to the anger and hostility already there. It didn’t control people, it further polarized them. As if anger ever really controls anyone’s behavior.

  Like your child’s. Another Bing! moment for Ms. Fontaine. The worse Mia got, the angrier I got. On some level, I thought that if I just got mad enough, I’d scare her into line. I just made us both miserable, and she just got better at pretending.

  Touching knees with a few people in a tight circle is not my idea of a good time. I like personal space. A member of the service team, Annie, joins my small group, telling us no kid talk, just what’s been working and not working in our own lives since Discovery.

  “Transformation will not tolerate mediocrity, it will not tolerate fear,” was what Lou left us with, and Debbie Norum is taking that last one seriously. She’s a pretty, pale blonde in her thirties with the kind of bright blue eyes that look even brighter when they’re shining with tears. Good thing, because I’m going to be seeing a lot of them.

  “I am so tired of feeling guilty and angry!” she exclaims, bursting into tears. “My son got his only student of the month award and I was lying in a hospital bed with tubes down my throat because I tried to kill myself, how fucked up was that? But I can’t take it back, I can’t take back the drinking. I’ve done everything I can to make amends, but he can’t get over it—”

  “You mean, he won’t get over it,” Annie reminds her.

  “No, he won’t, and I’m sick of buying into his letters home about what a lousy mom I was! I’m just so sick of being sick of things, mainly of being sick of myself. I don’t want to feel this way anymore!”

  I feel like I’m witnessing open-heart surgery, hello group, here’s my heart, eat of it. Her version of sharing is paralyzing, it’s making me sweat and I haven’t said a word.

  John Dean’s a big man in his late forties, with dark eyes, intense and intimidating. He’s guarded, says little, and when he does, it’s usually sarcastic, judgmental, or sly. It’s obvious he isn’t going until last, so I start. I talk about losing my dream job when Mia went down the tubes, about my new job, about my ex.

  “Lou really nailed me. I want honest feedback if you see me being a victim or overreacting.”

  “I get it,” John says dryly, “‘Group, I’ll tell you how I’m going to screw up, so you can be ready for it, and I can be ready with my response,’” John says, mocking me. “There’s certainly no risk in that, Claire F.”

  “There was no risk in telling Debbie that all men aren’t jerks, either, John D,” I shoot back.

  “Aren’t we a pair?” he grins. “Hey, let’s make this all about Debbie.” We laugh and he feels less intimidating to me.

  “How about let’s not,” Debbie suggests. “Claire, you just spent ten minutes on ‘stuff.’ I didn’t get anything about how you feel.”

  John pushes up his glasses, sits back in his chair. Defensive position, I think to myself. Debbie intimidates him.

  “Open body, John,” Debbie reminds him.

  He leans forward and says, “My experience of both of you is of two very sad and worn-out women.”

  Around 9 p.m., Lou asks the entire group to come up with a purpose for our weekend. Drafting a new constitution would be easier.

  There have been a few men who’ve gone head to head with Lou. Big guys who have issues with women, little Napoleons with authority issues, run-of-the-mill boneheads who have issues with women in authority. One brave man didn’t come back after lunch. Of course, these are the first guys at the easel. I think I’m about to witness grown men fight over a marker.

  Not that the rest of the room is much better. We’re all arguing in no time. We’ve even gotten anal about “the,” “it,” and just whose purpose is it, anyway. Tempers flare and pettiness reigns. John sits against the wall, muttering biting but funny remarks. Debbie keeps jumping up, crying, “Why can’t we all just come together as a team, my God, look at us!”

  By 1:30 a.m., we finally agree to disagree on: “Our purpose is to create growth and joy in an exciting, caring environment.” So far, only “exciting” applies.

  “You took four hours to do this,” a staffer says. “Know how long the kids take?”

  “They’re probably here till morning,” our Napoleon-in-chief says smugly.

  “Twenty to thirty minutes.”

  The word “horseshoe” takes on a whole new meaning in the world of seminars. Especially when it’s got a solitary stool in the middle of it. Today, it’s an opportunity to get a look at the Grand Canyon between how we think we are perceived and how we really are, the latter, at our worst, being called “our number.” We “run our number” when under stress or when we go unconscious about our behavior. We’re being given new names that reflect “our old number.” “Old” because the weekend is about moving past those beliefs and behaviors.

  “Morticia?” I practically fall off the stool. “But I’m one of the most cheerful, optimistic people I know!”

  “Are you nuts, Claire?” Debbie practically yells, suddenly deciding Lou needs an assistant. “All you wear is black turtlenecks, your face has no color, you don’t let anyone in—you’re like the walking dead!”

  “Ditto!” calls out someone else, probably Rebel Without a Clue, who has to stick his two cents in everything.

  I don’t get me as Morticia at all, but they do and I guess that’s the point. We have to wear
new name tags with our old number names, which I find exceedingly annoying. Debbie didn’t argue when it was her turn, in fact, she came up with her own, DOORMAT—Men, Come Shit All Over Me. Lou coached her that doormat was just the symptom, the belief behind it was Not Good Enough. Which sets Debbie to weeping again as she plasters on her new name tag.

  “So, John,” Lou asks when he’s on the stool, “who made you feel so small and weak when you were a kid?”

  From the look on his face, she hit the bull’s-eye.

  “Fate did,” he says, half-facetiously. “I was a very sick child, I was small and could die at any time.”

  “Fate, huh?” Lou says, unconvinced. “You look pretty hearty to me, when did you start looking like that?”

  “After I left home, I gained forty-five pounds.”

  “Gee, there’s a surprise.”

  “What are you gonna do, call me Mama’s Boy?” he says sarcastically.

  “Why, do you like that name?”

  “Hell, no, it doesn’t—”

  “Mama’s Boy!” she calls to the back table. They’re nodding in agreement as one of them scribbles a new name tag.

  “Are you open to some feedback, Debbie?” I ask her in this morning’s small group.

  “Of course,” she says brightly.

  “My experience of you is that you don’t realize how controlling you are.”

  “When did that come up for you, Claire?” Annie asks me.

  “Suggesting the group work as a team last night is one thing. But crying and judging everyone for not doing it was trying to control the experience of sixty people. And acting victimized when you couldn’t.”

  “Oh. Huh,” Debbie says, frowning, “welllll, I’ve got to think about that.”

  “Comforting Aging Barbie, I mean Deana, when she got that name, was about controlling someone’s experience, too.” I’m on a roll. “It says you think she’s too weak to handle it herself; it’s like saying: I think you’re needy and the person you need right now is me. Which made it about you.”

  Deana is a sexy little blonde in tight jeans and a high-collar blouse bursting with bosom. She’s super feminine, with bleached blond bangs hanging low on her forehead and a lot of mascara. She says she hates her forehead and obsesses about her weight.

  “But, it seemed so mean,” Debbie protests, “I hated to see her cry.”

  “The whole point was finding the name that pushed her buttons. Getting old and losing her beauty is her biggest fear in life. Of course, she’s going to cry, what’s the big deal?”

  “Caretaking is never about the other person,” Annie adds. “It’s about wanting to feel needed because you’re afraid you’re not wanted. Debbie, can you see the connection between that behavior and the belief that you’re not good enough?”

  “Yeah, I need to look at that,” she says thoughtfully.

  “Need to?” Anne prompts gently.

  “I want to look at that,” Debbie corrects herself, then says to me, “Though I sure didn’t expect to hear ‘what’s the big deal’ about crying from you, Miss Stick Up Her Butt.”

  “You’re in a rut in your life, just going through the motions,” Lou speaks dreamily into the darkness around us as we lie on the floor. “And you get an opportunity to go on a four-day cruise. The sky is blue and the air is fresh and bracing…”

  I see dolphins arc gracefully below me, waiters with trays of lemon tarts, chaises with silk cushions and ample shade…

  “The burdens of your life appear and you do something unusual. You request assistance and people respond. They’re excited that you’re there, making a difference just by being who you really are, sans image, pretense, or mask.”

  I picture myself at the prow in lotus position, serene and content and the…

  BANG!CRASH!BAMBAMBAMBAM!! thunders throughout the room, scaring the living daylights out of me.

  “THERE’S AN EXPLOSION IN THE ENGINE ROOM!!” Lou yells, “THE SHIP’S GOING DOWN FAST! You’re 2,000 miles from shore, the radio’s destroyed and there are sharks in the water! There’s room for only SIX of you on the lifeboat! ONLY SIX OF YOU WILL LIVE, THE REST OF YOU WILL DIE!

  It’s dark and the banging and crashing keeps going and I feel genuine panic.

  “THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE IS TO BE ON THE LIFEBOAT. YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO STATE YOUR NAME AND YOUR INTENTION OF WHETHER OR NOT YOU WILL BE ON THE LIFEBOAT AND WHY! GO!”

  This feels so real! The dark room fills with the sound of people shouting for help and drowning. People start popping up right and left, vying to claim their place. There’s desperation and panic in our voices as we try to save our lives in thirty seconds: I have small children! Their father is an addict, I’m all they have!

  I hear John Dean call out, “I’m giving my seat to the youngest!”

  They go on about the things they want to do, the amends they have to make, and oh, their children their children, as Lou calls TIME!

  “My daughter needs me!” I jump up and cry out. “She’s suffered so much already, she can’t lose her mother! My own mother’s lost enough family!”

  I don’t even know what else I’m saying when Time! is called and I sit on the floor, sobbing at the thought of never seeing Mia again. When it’s all over, dim lights come up and we’re given six little sticks. We have to go up to each person in the room, look them in the eye and say “You live” to the six we give a stick to and “You die” to the fifty we don’t. It feels so dreadful to tell someone “You die,” some of us are hysterical.

  We finish and are asked to line up in order of how many sticks we have—just in case there are some of us who haven’t fully scraped bottom yet. I only have four sticks. And one of them was my own.

  The lucky six sit in an area designated as a lifeboat while the rest of us lie around them, sinking into oblivion. None of us can stop crying; the sickening feeling of near loss is still fresh in us.

  “It’s too late, you had your chance in life and now it’s all over,” Lou says quietly as she walks between our bodies. “You’re sinking down into the darkness forever. Your loved ones will never see you smile again, hear your voice again, the world is going on without you. Because you didn’t get on that lifeboat.

  “This is not a popularity contest. It’s about your awareness of yourself as a unique contribution. There is no one who can make the difference you can make. Your purpose and vision can only be fulfilled by YOU! And if you’re lying on the bottom of the ocean, if you don’t take a stand for your own life, it ain’t gonna happen.”

  The service team comes out and calls our names one by one.

  Poor Debbie gave away all her sticks, and it felt like another suicide attempt. The service team hardly has to prompt her. She gets it, loudly and wetly—she’s still giving herself a you-die vote.

  “Mama’s Boy!” a thin young woman on the service team calls out. She graduated from Spring Creek a year ago. I see his silhouette rise as she walks up to him, her voice ringing out.

  “You sent your son away to save his life and you’re not even willing to save your own! I just staffed your son’s seminar and he did the same thing! He chose death, too!” Her voice breaks as she looks up at him. “Who do you think he learned this from?”

  I can see his chest heaving as he sobs.

  “Morticia!” Annie calls out and I stand up.

  “She’s had too much suffering…I’ve had so little joy!” she quotes me. “Claire, all you could think of was what you didn’t want or what you didn’t have! You’re all about fear and doom and gloom! No wonder you got so few sticks, why would anyone think you’d create something different if given another chance?”

  There are murmurs of agreement all around me.

  “I’m not sure what you’d create if you got a second chance,” Lou says to me quietly, “but you sure earned your name this time around, Morticia. Lest you doubt how you show up in life.”

  “Mommy, why are all your scripts and stories so depressing?”

  Mia w
as always bothered by what I wrote. Also by what I wore. The physical world was like a person to her, and she wanted it to laugh. When she was five, she woke up from a nap and her eyes fixed on my black stockings. She said in the most despairing little voice, “Why do you have to have on black stockings? I wish you had happy hearts and flowers on your legs, Mudder.”

  I take out last night’s homework. When asked to list the dates of the significant events in my life, I did not put a single happy event: 1962, cried when started kindergarten; 1964, wet my pants in second grade; 1966, moved to Michigan, sad leaving friends; 1974, broke up with boyfriend; 1980, marry ex,…right up to the dates of Mia’s downward spiral.

  A litany of tragedy. I’m always either looking back with regret and anger or looking forward with fear and doubt. Being alive in the moment, much less feeling joy in it, got left behind somewhere in a little yellow dress.

  Once I grew up, I was sure that marriage was the ticket to happiness. Oh, it’s gonna be smooth sailing now, I thought when I found Nick, I’ve finally boarded the right ship, the one with dancing and moonlight. Instead, I got the one with a hole hidden in the hull, the one that started sinking as soon as it lost sight of land. I’ve spent so much of my life paddling and holding Mia up to safety that I’ve forgotten there were any other kind of ships. Or that I could stop thrashing about and trust that the water would bear me up, because that is what water does, if you let it. And Mia could have learned to do the same by watching me. She could have learned ease, learned to trust, in herself and in the universe. She could have seen her mother know joy.

  I suddenly realize that I know exactly what it was like for Mia to have a mother like me. When I was growing up my biggest fantasy was not to be a smoky-eyed secret agent or Ginger on Gilligan’s Island. What I fantasized was this:

  I’m in a fabulous department store, trying on pearls, in my hot pink Twiggy dress. I have stick-straight hair and no glasses. A beautiful, elegant woman in a pink pillbox hat, à la Jackie Kennedy, joins me at the counter and says, “I see you like pink, too.”