No answer.
Where was that thundering God of the Old Testament? He's the one I needed. The God of the burning bush. Not the God of screaming silence.
I turned on the faucet, cupped my hands to catch the cold water, swished it around my mouth, and spit.
The lower half of my red wrap dress bunched up into itself. I smoothed it with the palms of my hands and wished I had another reason to stay in the bathroom. My guilt over my temper tantrum blocked my way to the door.
Can’t hide in here all night. You need to apologize to Cathryn.
My lips didn’t move, but the message could not have been any clearer had the face in the mirror actually spoken the words.
Maybe God's not mute.
Maybe I needed hearing aids.
“Leah?”
I opened the door and saw Cathryn's raised fist aimed at my forehead.
“I was going to apologize, really. No need for violence,” I said.
“I was about to knock. Really.” She rolled her blue eyes in her best Leah imitation. “But more about that later.” She twisted her ponytail on top of her head and secured it with a pencil she pulled out of her pocket. “You have company,” she whispered and waved her left arm in the direction of the nurses’ desk.
I took a few steps forward and heard Carl's voice before I spotted him leaning against the counter talking to Matthew and another man.
Carl bent down to tie the leather laces of his deck shoes— those things were always a problem—and I almost tripped over my own feet when I saw the broadly smiling, fast-talking, hand-gesturing man who stood next to him: my father.
26
Fashionably late arrivals work well for parties, not for family therapy sessions.
Even though Matthew practically oiled the hinge to slide the door open quietly, and Trey's eyebrows shifted less than a centimeter when the three of us coasted across the Berber carpet, our arrival shifted the group's emotional universe. Even a whisper can knock down a house of cards.
“Dad, this dude Paul said to the Romans not to get all eaten up with bad. He said—” A lip-pierced, gangly Doug of the future, stopped mid-sentence and scanned Carl, Dad, and me as we lowered ourselves into the only empty folding chairs in the room.
Definitely clueless as to group therapy protocol, Dad raised a hand and said, “Late plane. My son-in-law over there—” he reached around me and pointed to Carl “—had to drive like a bat to get us here. And in one piece too.” He smiled at Carl who smiled back at him. At least I had one question answered.
“Oh, and the name's Bob. I’m Leah's father.”
Random throat clearings and scattered “Hi, Bob” replies fell like dominoes falling around the circle.
Hello. And I’m his mortified daughter. I shrugged my shoulders, mouthed “I’m sorry” to future Doug, and checked out Trey to see if he was already popping a Pez. Not yet. The rest of the group played “pass a glance.”
I didn’t need to look at Carl to know he was brushing phantom lint off his pants. He used the technique to avoid eye contact when embarrassed, appalled, and/or inappropriately amused. Carl and Dad had been friends for years, so I doubt he was surprised by his introduction. If anything, Carl, who tended to be socially paralyzed, admired my dad's unabashed friendliness. I once teased that Tom Cruise's line, “You complete me,” in the movie Jerry McGuire was meant for them. Though I’m sure Carl and my dad agreed with me, they were such self-proclaimed nerds, they wouldn’t dare admit it publicly.
I leaned toward Dad and whispered, “This isn’t an AA meeting.”
Uh-oh. How had I forgotten? Peter and I learned early never to kick Dad under the table to forestall his reckless storytelling. For some people it might be a story-stopper move, but not my father. He stopped only to look around the table and ask, “Who kicked me?”
“Honey,” he said and slid his arm around my shoulders and squeezed, “I know this isn’t one of those meetings.” I heard synchronized gasps. Designer Drug Princess crossed and recrossed her tanned and toned legs, a momentary entertainment for most of the males. Trey, however, captivated by his Blackberry, flicked his hand in one of those “Go on without me” gestures.
Dad loosened his grip around me, reclaimed his arm, and nodded in future Doug's direction. “Sorry to interrupt, son. You were saying?”
Mrs. Doug gently tugged on her son's shirtsleeve. “Go ahead, Danny. Finish what you were saying about Paul.”
“Yeah, kid.” Doug laughed, but it was Grand Canyon hollow. “Thump that Bible ya mother gave ya and give it to me straight.” Doug slouched in the chair and waited.
After that night, I truly understood the rationale behind scheduling our individual therapy appointments the day after family group.
We needed therapy to recover from therapy.
“Too bad you had to miss it. Maybe next week I can pass you off as my sister. You’d be hooting for days,” I said to Molly. She’d picked up a few LSU tees from my house so I could simultaneously be comfortable and torture Jan, a graduate of Alabama. Nothing like an SEC rivalry to spice the gumbo of rehab life.
“All that energy planning your attire and look what you’ve been reduced to.” Molly giggled as she handed me the shirts. “Promise me you won’t ask me to bring over a purple and gold LSU bikini. If Ann Taylor found out I was transporting tacky, they’d cancel my shopping privileges.”
“You’re right, girl,” I said. “It's a real opportunity they provided us, allowing us to dump bucks in their store. You’re safe, though. Nobody's going to see this body in any kind of bathing suit, much less one that could fit in my pocket.”
The atrium where we’d been sitting spared us the direct assault of the afternoon sun. July in Texas meant heat 24/7. Heat so dense it would mold itself to a body. Heat you could step in and out of like clothes. Heat that, by day's end, exhausted even the plants. Their leaves drooped in surrender like parched green tongues.
After spending so many days in climate-controlled interiors, I’d forgotten I was surrounded by a natural sauna. I’d also forgotten the joy of peeling myself off a wrought-iron chair that waffled the backs of my thighs. What I had not forgotten was the humiliation of wearing a bathing suit. Of overhearing Carl's mother, as she cooed and rocked Alyssa, tell her husband she hoped her granddaughter didn’t inherit my thunder thighs. Of pretending to enjoy their lake house, the place Carl hoped to inherit one day. The place, Carl reminded me last night, my father missed out on because of what he called “my situation.”
“How do you not want to dive into a pool in this heat?” Molly hooked a finger into the neck of her silk shell, stretched it out, and fluttered it against her body. “I’m sweating in places I didn’t know people could sweat.”
“Wow. Our friendship is crossing new boundaries.” I grinned and clasped my hands over my heart. But I wondered if she understood the gratitude that washed over the walls she dared our friendship to climb. She refused to let me hide, she refused to let me disappear, and she refused to let me die inside myself. Molly heard a cry within me that I had made myself deaf to, and she didn’t wait for a script to follow. She gave me the courage to take the next step. To go where I knew I needed to be.
“I’ll see if there's any iced tea inside,” I said.
“No, I’ll go. It’ll give me a chance at a shot of cold air,” said Molly, and she walked off in the direction of the cafeteria.
Minutes later, she carried two tall glasses to the table. “Mango iced tea. And don’t think you’re going to get this service when you’re out of here,” she said, and smiled as she wrapped a napkin around a glass and handed it to me.
“Let's see.” I held my hands palms up and moved them as if balancing a scale. “Rehab and being waited on,” I said, pushing my left hand down, “or,” pulling my right hand up, “sober and waiting on myself. No contest. In fact, I’ll be happy to wait on you.”
“Back to last night.” Molly pushed her damp bangs off her forehead, sipped her tea, and waited.
I emptied a package of Sweet ’N Low into my tea and stirred with my straw. One month ago who would’ve figured my new drink of choice would be iced tea? Steamy days like this used to be beer days. I’d open the refrigerator, grab a can, and pop it open before the refrigerator door would swing closed. If only that first long sip had been enough.
“You look upset. You don’t have to talk about last night if you’re not ready.”
“No, that's not it. I was just thinking about … ” I pushed the straw aside and gulped tea; the end of the sentence tumbled down my throat with it. Maybe it was too soon to share this boundary. Romanticizing about drinking was something I needed to stop. AAers cautioned against it as a stumbling block on the way to sobriety. I wasn’t sure Molly would understand I didn’t dwell on these unexpected flashbacks. “I was thinking who else but you would enjoy the latest installment of the antics of the poster family of dysfunctionality?”
“Speaking of that, how's your dad?”
Molly and I knew the unabridged question was, “How's your dad coping since your mom died?” I shared his stages of grief with Molly. They ranged from isolating himself at home for days on end to leaving in the car and being gone for days on end.
“He actually seemed more like himself. You know, the heartwarming and totally humiliating-his-children self. Peter mentioned a few weeks ago that Dad said he's dating. We’re not exactly sure what that means. We’re not even sure we want to know what it means. But we didn’t have time last night for any of those issues.”
“Knowing your dad, I can’t imagine how he managed to stay quiet.”
“Exactly. He didn’t. In fact, at one point, Trey had to remind him the session was only ninety minutes, and it was important for everyone to have a chance to participate. Then, when Trey asked him why he was there, he started rubbing my back and said, ‘I just want my baby to be happy. If this is what she thinks she needs, I want her to do it.’”
Molly groaned, one of those sympathetic, you-poor-dear, I’m-so-glad-it's-you-and-not-me groans.
“Wait. There's more. He looked at Carl when he was finished and said, ‘Right, Carl? Whatever Leah needs, don’t we want her to have it?’ There I am, sitting between the two of them. Trey was probably all over that seating arrangement with his therapist brain.”
“You have to warn me about the funny parts before I start drinking and end up snorting iced tea out my nose,” Molly said. “What did Carl say?”
“Not much. He couldn’t disagree with Dad without coming off like a dirt bag.”
“So Carl spent most of the session nodding yes? That's—”
“Unreal? Yes, but more like unrealistic because, of course, he politely wedged in a dig about having to be the one to ‘fix the fiasco’ of the July 4th plans and be the one left to make all the phone calls. Then Dad comes to his rescue. ‘Carl's handled all this well. Stood up to the plate.’ Yaddayaddayadda.”
Molly finished her tea and dumped the ice in the plant next to the table. “You know, you might want to cut Carl some slack.” She didn’t rush the words. She just let them dissolve into meaning, melting like the ice in the plant. “I’m not saying Carl's actions were heroic. But his hand was forced. He had no choice in this decision. But he did what he had to do.”
Maybe he's beginning to understand what it means to feel powerless.
Good.
27
How old were you when you lost your mother?”
I unwrapped my watermelon Jolly Rancher and popped it in my mouth instead of flinging it at Ron's forehead. “I didn’t lose her, Ron. She died. That's a lifetime of being lost, don’t ya think?” I ironed the wrapper with my finger. “Aren’t we supposed to be past euphemisms by now?”
Dr. Ron and I verbally sparred on Wednesdays. Somewhere between the sarcasm and the silly, serious happened. He tolerated my not-always-so-wise-cracks, and I allowed him his psychobabble.
“That depends. Are you past needing your used candy wrappers to be wrinkle-free?” He grinned and handed me a small wicker basket off his desk. “Toss the trash in here.”
“I’ll hold on to it. I have a feeling I’ll be overdosing on Jolly Ranchers this morning,” I said. “Is there a twelve-step program for the sugar addicted?” I reached into the candy cache on his desk for two lemons and a sour apple.
“I think that would fall under the umbrella of Overeaters Anonymous. So, you’re covered.”
He moved from behind his desk and sat in the chair across from me. He set the digital timer for forty-five minutes, placed it on the lamp table next to his chair, and said, “The recommended time limit for therapy torture.”
“If it wasn’t so true, it would be funny.”
“Well, I’d hoped for at least one of your pseudo-smiles. Guess you’re picking flavors to match your disposition.” He licked his thumb and flipped through pages of his legal pad. Yuck. Even doctors have gross habits. I did that thumb thing, too, when I looked for a number in the phonebook. Anytime I did it around Carl, he gave me the “that's a disgusting habit; please wash your hands before you touch anything else” lecture. One thumb lick, and Carl flipped right along with my pages.
Ron stretched his legs and propped his feet on the edge of the oversized padded leather ottoman between us. He glanced at the pad, uncapped his pen, and said, “Let's get started. I want you to pretend I’ll be picking your mother up from the airport this afternoon—”
Eyebrow lift and a smirk. “Good luck with that one.”
“Key word here is pretend. I want you to describe her to me in such a way that I’d be able to walk right up to her.”
Maybe this session wasn’t going to be an emotional jack-hammer cracking through decades of petrified feelings. I allowed myself the luxury of a deep breath and began to sketch my mother using words as my watercolors. “Don’t look for someone who looks like me. She's taller. Was taller? Anyway, maybe tall is relative because she was probably only five feet, five inches.”
I closed my eyes and scanned my memories, a slideshow of collected images. Some throbbed in their vividness, others glimmered too briefly to capture. “She has brown eyes. Not coffee brown. Muted brown like a camel-colored suede coat. Her hair's almost the same shade. Straight, thin, left side part, cut in a sort-of bob.” I opened my eyes. “This length.” I ran my fingertips alongside the middle of my neck. “She had a mole right here.” I pointed to the left side of my forehead. “She always said she wanted to have it removed, but then … well, cancer trumped mole. Otherwise, her skin was beautiful. Ivory with a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.” I stopped to scoot myself back into my chair. Somehow I’d inched my way to the edge of the seat, caught up in recreating the woman who’d created me.
Ron flipped a page. “What would she be wearing? Tell me about her mannerisms, her personality.”
I smiled remembering her monochromatic closet. “Definitely understated—her clothes and her personality. She’d be wearing, hmm, probably navy-blue linen pants. A blouse, I don’t know, white? With buttons. I don’t think she owned a turtle-neck or sweaters. She despised pulling stuff over her head. Personality? Let's say she’d never have won a Miss Congeniality award.”
“That fills some gaps in your profile.” Ron's serious observation didn’t match the laughter in his eyes. “Continue.”
I told him about my mother's shyness, so perplexing at times because of her quiet ferocity when anyone, by omission or commission, hurt her son or daughter. Yet, she’d never initiate a confrontation. She fought by choosing not to participate.
Except for that one time. I knew trouble was about to get capitalized because Mom stayed home from work that day. After her morning tea and one slice of dry wheat toast, she blazed into the front office of my then eight-year-old brother's elementary school like she’d just been blown out of a welder's torch. Peter, who’d rather have every hair on his body plucked out one-by-one than go to school, had spent the day in the vice-principal's office. Mr. Eagen
had taped Peter's mouth closed because his teacher said he talked too much in class. Two days later Peter started public school, and Peter's friend Lance told him Mr. Eagen announced he would be retiring at the end of the school year.
That afternoon she told the two of us, “Always remember, God never sleeps.” One day, she’d said, people were going to pay a price for their sins. “And don’t worry. With God, it's pay now or pay later. Nobody gets out of paying. Nobody.”
I kicked off my sandals and folded my legs under my butt. “So many stories died with her.” Pinpricks of sadness found their way into my heart, but I did not want to do weepy. Weepy and therapy were toxic. I concentrated on the scuffed bottoms of Ron's shoes to distract myself.
“Your mother sounds like someone I wish I really could have picked up at the airport,” Ron said softly. “Just a few more questions. This one's a shift: Did she and your father argue?”
Walking on Broken Glass Page 15