“Good, that's something.”
“It's not enough.”
“Let's be positive.”
Anger starts to course through my veins.
“I'm tired of being positive,” I say, standing up from the table. “It's not enough and who knows if it will ever be enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How do we know that they will stop at this? How do we know that if we pay them the last of this, then that will be enough?”
“That's the debt that I owe and once you pay it, it's over. They are men of their word.”
“Oh, yeah? They’re honorable? Trustworthy, taxpaying?”
“No,” Mom says. “They are none of those things, but they will keep their word on this.”
“Whatever,” I say, throwing my hand in her face like a petulant teenager.
I don't have the mental strength to deal with any of this anymore. I'm spent.
Exhausted.
Of course, I don't tell her any of this.
I go to my room, close the door, and bury my head in the pillows. I want Tyler to be here more than anything else in the world.
I want him to hold me and I want him to make all of this better.
A part of me wants Tyler the way that other people want their mom when things get tough.
My mom was never that person. She was never someone I turned to and I don't plan on her becoming that person now, even after everything that she said.
The truth is that there is so much that we have not talked about yet.
It has been almost a week and yet she didn't really tell me anything about the kidnapping and what she went through. I didn’t tell her anything about Tyler. We know some of the broad strokes, but none of the details.
I thought maybe that I would tell her about Tyler, but after a little bit, I decided against it. I knew that I couldn’t trust her when I was a kid and now I have even less of a reason to trust her.
Still, I wish that she had reached out to me and told me what she had gone through, but she didn't.
She kept to herself.
She kept it bottled up. Slowly, what was originally a stream separating us became a river, then a gulf, and now an ocean.
I cry into the pillow for a long time that evening. I cry because of how helpless I feel and what my mom did but I also cry for so many other reasons. I cry for Tyler and for the life that we could have had.
I know that my tears are not worth much and they don't even do much to help me, but I can't help myself. They continue to flow and I let them. I stop fighting and just lose myself in my sorrow.
After a while when I have nothing left, I force myself to my feet and walk out to the living room.
“Why don't we try to meet up with Libby?” I ask. “I haven't seen her for a while and it will be nice to catch up.”
29
Isabelle
When Mom texts Libby and tells her that we are in town, she invites us over right away. Libby lives in a small two-bedroom house whose front porch looks straight out onto the street.
Sharpsburg hasn't changed much since I was last here. The houses are old and dilapidated, broken up into three or four apartments each. This has always been a white, working-class part of town that has really gone downhill since the nineties.
People with stable jobs and good credit tend to look for houses in nearby Aspinwall if they can't afford the 2,500 to 5,000 square-foot homes they have in Fox Chapel and O'Hare.
As soon as Libby opens the door, she pulls me in and gives me a warm hug. There's a small two-year-old on her hip who she introduces as Kylie. When she embraces my mom, the four-year-old runs up to me and shows me her princess tiara.
“This is Carolyn,” Libby says as the two little girls run toward their kitchen play set at the far end of the living room.
“Come in, come in,” she says, ushering us inside.
“Let me take off my coat,” I say, peeling it off carefully.
The rain was only a drizzle when we started driving and then it quickly turned into a downpour.
There is no street parking outside of her house and I had no umbrella to shield us during the two block walk.
I place my coat carefully on the railing that separates the foyer from the living room and leave my boots by the front door.
Following my lead, Mom takes off her coat and throws it onto the railing, missing it slightly.
I feel a little awkward about everything because it has been years since I have seen Libby.
Mom, on the other hand, doesn't seem to feel any reluctance and instead acts like the last time that she was in this house was this morning.
We sit down on her weathered beige sofa that I remember from when I was little. It has definitely seen better days, but she tries to make do with that by covering it up with a bright Mexican blanket.
She offers something to drink and is surprised when my mom says no. She brings over coffee, tea, and a plate of biscuits.
Libby looks like she's at least fifteen years older than my mom. Her hair is thinning and is cut in a blunt bob right above her jawline.
She doesn't wear much makeup, if any at all.
When her kids come over and drape themselves over her, she lights up like a Christmas tree.
She looks absolutely happy.
After taking a sip of her tea, she tells us that she’d married the man that she’d met at University of Pittsburgh, Erie, where she attended when her grandmother got sick.
“You went to college?” Mom asks almost with a gasp.
“Yes, I did. I also graduated with a bachelor’s in childhood education.”
“No shit,” my mom says, crossing her legs and reaching for a cigarette.
“I'm sorry, you can't smoke here,” Libby says.
Her tone of voice is calm yet stern like she means business.
This catches Mom by surprise. I remember even from when I was little, how much of a pushover Libby used to be.
She would follow my mom around and do everything that she said. Now, she seems like a completely different person.
“When I got into my mid-thirties, I was pretty certain that I was never going to have kids and I got tired of working at the grocery store doing the exact same thing over time. As you know, I have always loved children, so I thought that if I couldn’t have any, then I could at least get myself a degree and get a job as a teacher.”
“So, how did you decide to go to Erie?”
“Well, I applied to a few schools here, but then my grandmother got sick and it was going to be too expensive to hire a nurse to take care of her or to pay for an assisted living facility. My dad didn't want to deal with it and neither did his brother or his children. She was always very kind to me so I figured that I could move up there, live with her, take care of her, and go to school.”
“Wow, that was so great of you,” I say even though my mom shakes her head. “Right? Was that not a really nice thing to do, Mom?”
Begrudgingly, she agrees.
I have no idea why she is so irritated by the story, but I'm aggravated by the fact that she's annoyed.
“It ended up being a really great thing,” Libby says. “That's where I met my husband and much to our surprise, we actually got pregnant, twice.”
“I'm glad that it all worked out,” Mom says, tapping her finger on the pack of cigarettes that she can't smoke.
As we talk, Libby tells us that her first daughter has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and that her second isn't really talking yet even though she is over two years old.
This piques my attention and I tell her that I'm actually a speech therapist and that I can evaluate her and offer an opinion. She agrees and without wasting much time, I go over to Kylie and sit down next to her.
I talk to her a little bit and we play with a few blocks. She likes to line them up, one behind the other and try forcing cars over them.
She doesn't say anything, but I also notice that she keeps her mouth closed and doesn't dr
ool, which is a good sign for speech later on.
We stay at Libby's house for a couple of hours. I play with the kids on and off and even get Carolyn to relax and take a few quiet breaths. This calms her down a lot and keeps her from bouncing off the walls.
“Tell me about her speech,” I say, sitting down on the couch. “What can she say?”
“Well, she said ‘Mama’ when she was about eighteen months. She said it a lot, but that was pretty much the only thing that she said and then she stopped.”
“Was she saying it intentionally?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, was she saying it to you, calling you by that name, or was she just making sounds?”
She thinks about that for a moment and then shakes her head.
“I have no idea.”
“What else?”
“She basically says ‘night, night’ for water, but she drops off the ending of each word. Mainly, she just points to things and grunts. I don't know why, but she doesn't seem to mimic us at all.”
“I’d have to spend more time with her to get a picture of what's going on, but for now I want you to make it a little bit more difficult for her to get things. One thing that I noticed is that you anticipate a lot of her needs. Everything in the pantry is lined up at her level and she can reach everything and get whatever she wants. I want you to put those items up higher and to take pictures of the ones that are favorites. Then put them on a board like this one.” I pull up my phone and show her. “You can stick them on with Velcro. Since she can't speak whenever she wants one of those, you have to get her to view the picture and then you will go get it for her. Also, I want you to start using a few basic signs with her.”
“Signs? What are you talking about? She's not deaf.”
“No, she's not, but kids with speech delays do really well with sign language. Basically, right now she doesn't have to really use language to get what she wants, but eventually she will start getting more frustrated as she has more complicated thoughts. We don't want that to happen.”
I put my fingers together with both hands and show her the sign for ‘more.’
“I want you to say the word ‘more’ and do this sign for her. That way when she says that she wants more, you ask her if she wants more and show her the sign. Then I want you take her hands and show her how to do it. They can take a little bit to get this idea, but as long as you are consistent and try to do it as much as you can whenever she wants something, this will be the beginning of your communication.”
“Sign language?” Mom asks. “How does this teach her to say the word?”
“This is like training wheels for language for kids that are not deaf and have a speech delay,” I say. “Since they can make sounds and they do hear well, she will learn the sign and then eventually start using the sound in addition to the sign. Eventually, the sign will fall away and she will no longer need to do that.”
Libby wraps me into her warm embrace. “Thank you so much,” she whispers into my ear.
“This is going to be a long journey because she is quite behind,” I say. “Kids her age already have 100 to 200 words in their vocabulary and can make three to four word sentences, but with a lot of work, I think we can really make a difference.”
I hand her my card and write down my cell phone number on the back.
I don't really do this for other clients, but she's a friend and I doubt that she'll be able to pay the hundred dollars an hour that Trisha charges.
“Please call me or text me. We can try to set up a few appointments,” I say.
She nods her head and I see the smile on her face slowly disappear.
“What's wrong?”
She sighs and says, “I really appreciate your help, but we can't really afford to do this. Our insurance isn’t very good and it's probably not going to cover this. I'm going to check, but I'm just telling you right now. My husband's job doesn't pay that much and we pretty much live paycheck to paycheck.”
“It's okay,” I start to say, but she cuts me off.
“No, it's not about a discount,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I can't afford anything. He makes $35,000 a year and supports all of us on that. I won’t be able to go back to teaching in a preschool because I can't afford to pay for daycare. Is there anything else that I can do to help her on my own? Maybe you could do videos or other things that I can learn to do on my own?”
“It really depends on what your daughter’s situation is,” I say. “I have to evaluate her and spend some time with her in order to decide the best direction to go. You say that she understands a lot and that may be the case, but I have to make sure to confirm that. She might have great receptive knowledge, but she might have an oral motor delay.”
Libby looks at me and hangs her head.
“Listen, I'm not trying to scare you; this is fixable. All I'm trying to say is that I want to help you. For free.”
She looks up at me, her eyes getting big.
“No, I can't accept that,” she says cautiously.
“Listen, you have spent so many hours of your time babysitting me and entertaining me as a kid, let's think of this as a way for me to give back.”
She drapes herself around my neck. When she comes up for air, she starts to gasp, almost hyperventilating.
“I want to do this,” I say. “It's not an imposition. I want to help.”
“You didn't have to do that, you know,” Mom says when we leave Libby's house.
“Yes, I know, but I wanted to. Her daughter needs help and the sooner that she can get that help, the easier it will be for her later on.”
“That's true of a lot of things,” Mom says nonchalantly, finally lighting her cigarette. “You wanted to help her. Why?”
I shrug and say, “I guess because I'm in a position to help. I know what I'm doing. This is what I do for a living.”
“What about your work?”
“I'm going to have to do this on the side, outside the office. Trisha is not going to be very happy about me taking on a client who doesn't pay.”
30
Isabelle
The following morning, I brace myself and go into the office for the first time since Tyler showed up at my doorstep. I left a message for Trisha that I would be stopping by, but I haven't talked to her in a while.
Frankly, I'm hoping that she doesn't fire me. I know that I had a lot of vacation days and I did the sessions online that I could, but she hasn't been particularly supportive of all this time that I took off without much of an explanation.
When I am into the waiting room, the bell on the door rings. The waiting room is small, with only seating for five people, and there's another door leading to the rest of the offices with the sign on the front that says, Sessions Are In Progress.
This is mainly to keep nosy parents from interrupting the sessions with their children and to keep the children in the waiting room until the therapists are ready for them.
Trisha's office is to the left as I walk inside. Mine is a few doors down and I share it with three other therapists. It's not so much an office as a place to drop off our bags and to keep our laptops and any other supplies. We do all of our work in the individual therapy rooms that are lined with toys and have a little table and chairs for kids to sit on at their own level.
“Hey,” I say, popping my head into her office.
She has a large space with a big wide table. One part of the table faces the window and the other two face the adjoining walls. Her computer is behind her and she's writing something onto her planner, facing the parking lot outside.
“Hello. It's nice to see you.” Her voice is upbeat but a little bit detached.
She's quite hard to read, but my sense says that something here isn't exactly putting her at ease.
I don't want to be here either. I have taken off a lot more days than I should have, but partly that was the case because I wasn't sure if I was coming back.
We chat for a few minutes about the
weather and nothing in particular and when the conversation reaches a lull, I apologize.
“Listen, I just really needed some time off and that's why I wasn't really communicating that much these past few days.”
She’s about to say something, but I stop her.
“I'm sorry about everything. I really should have called you and kept you more in the loop. The online sessions with three of my clients actually went pretty well.”
Trisha taps her pen on the table and licks her lips.
“What happened? I mean, what really happened? Why did you need all this time off all of a sudden?”
I open my mouth to say something generic about why I needed space, but then I realize that I need to give her something more concrete, if I want her to believe me.
“I had a romance with someone,” I say, looking straight into her eyes. “We met online and I didn't know who he was, but we talked a lot on the phone and video chatted and then we decided to meet.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” I say.
I can’t tell Trisha the truth. I can’t tell anyone the truth, so this line will just have to do for now.
“We met in a Facebook group,” I say, trying to think about a plausible place to start up a conversation with a stranger.
“You always said that you never wanted to date online.”
“I know,” I say with a shrug. “I never really felt very comfortable with that, especially given what happened in New York.”
I didn't meet my ex-boyfriend, the police officer, online, but after what happened, I didn't want to strike up any conversations with people I didn't know.
“It was just a Facebook group about this area. People post pictures and discuss what's going on. Nothing close to being romantic.”
She nods, waiting for me to continue.
“Anyway, he made a few funny posts and commented in a witty way and he made me laugh. I commented back. Eventually we started messaging back and forth. A little bit later, we talked on the phone and then we video chatted. It was all very natural and fun and that's when we decided to meet up.”
The Perfect Lie (The Perfect Stranger) Page 13