Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  I’d tried calling Lachlyn after my AA meeting the night before but only managed to get her voice mail. I told it that I’d be stopping by this morning to pick up Regina’s personal items and hoped I could get some time with the files. I sounded so submissive I almost puked.

  Even if Lachlyn wasn’t available, I planned to confront Clotilde about Karissa’s missing files. I’d gone back and forth trying to decide if she’d overheard Astrid. Eventually I decided it didn’t matter either way. If she hadn’t heard us, it was only a matter of time until Astrid filled her in. If she had, she and Lachlyn would probably amp up the resistance to my presence. Either way, I was going to need Karissa’s file and contact information. Better yet, I was legally entitled to it.

  Before heading over to the shelter, I met with Bob to give him an update and ask if he knew anything about Regina’s shelter calendar.

  He denied knowing anything—which explained a lot—and gave me an impatient, finger-rolling gesture telling me to get on with it. I debated showing him a different sort of finger gesture, but refrained.

  Hannah and I had scheduled the second grief session for the coming Tuesday, even though only a few of Regina’s clients had committed to attending. Of those, several would probably be no-shows. It was a start, anyway. Others had decided they’d feel more comfortable in a one-to-one setting, and I’d been scheduling meetings throughout the week. Unfortunately, even more had decided to discontinue therapy altogether. Almost all agreed to return if needed, but I didn’t have an established relationship with any of them. Therefore, there was no way of knowing which were close enough to the end of therapy to pick up the pieces and move forward on their own and which were tucking their issues back under the rock of denial until the next crisis overtook their life. In other words, who was bullshitting and who wasn’t.

  Hearing how many clients had dropped out of therapy clearly annoyed Bob, and we shared a moment of helplessness that therapists experience when a client’s fears draw him away from confronting the pain in his life. For the first time, I almost liked Bob.

  Of course he had to ruin it.

  What I’d interpreted as concern for the clients’ welfare was actually bitching about the drop in revenue. What a nub. As soon as I realized my error, the desire to thump him with a blunt object rose like a phoenix from the ashes of my naivete.

  I left for the shelter.

  Lachlyn met me at the door and informed me, reluctantly that she had time to supervise while I plowed through the files. Well, actually she said she had time to review them with me, but we both knew what she meant. Perhaps they’d decided that the best way to get rid of me was to let me do my job.

  Sillies.

  I mentioned Emma’s request for her sister’s personal effects, but Lachlyn seemed to have no problem with that. She pulled out the same stack of files that I’d looked at two days ago. I shuffled through them quickly, looking to see if they’d added Karissa’s. Nope. I worked for several minutes gathering information from the other files while I pondered what to do.

  “I believe several of these women are still in residence here?” I asked.

  Lachlyn took the list again and placed check marks next to four names. “These women are.”

  “Have they been reassigned a therapist?”

  “Of course. Clotilde and I already adjusted our schedules for now, although we’re hoping to have an intern this semester. I doubt if we’ll assign any of Regina’s clients to her, though. They’ve been through enough instability as it is.”

  Lachlyn seemed unusually forthcoming this morning. I didn’t trust it.

  “So where is Karissa’s file?” I asked.

  Her face barely quivered, but her breath quickened and she paused several beats too long to be natural.

  “It isn’t there? I guess you’ll have to ask Clotilde.”

  At least she hadn’t insulted me by asking who I meant, but she didn’t look surprised either, which made me certain that Clotilde had filled her in.

  “Is she in?”

  Lachlyn glanced up at the wall clock: 10:02. “I’m sure she is, but I don’t think—”

  Before Lachlyn could voice her thought, I was speed-walking to Clotilde’s office. I pushed the door open, hoping to startle her. She sat at her desk working with an accounting file opened on the computer. She tilted the screen away from my view with a scowl.

  “Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”

  “Oh, gosh,” I said, smiling. “I just figured you for an open-door kind of person.” If I were ever to stop, I would miss lying almost as much as drinking.

  She smiled back—if gritted teeth counted—and folded her hands in fake patience. I bypassed the wobbly chair and leaned my butt-cheek on the edge of her desk, just enough to be obnoxious but not enough to be called on it. My inner bitch was amused.

  “One of Regina’s clients was in residence when Regina died. Her name is Karissa. She left the day after. What happened to her file?”

  “I have it,” Clotilde answered without noticeable pause. One corner of her lip twitched, however, a fleeting sign of contempt, and her hands squeezed sharply together as though she’d had a brief yet satisfying fantasy about strangling me. I scooted my butt two inches farther onto her desk just to egg her on a bit.

  “Any reason it wasn’t included with Regina’s other clients?”

  “She left abruptly, without a forwarding address. We have no way of contacting her, so it didn’t make sense for her to be included.”

  I let her words hang in the air between us—a therapeutic technique normally used to allow the speaker a moment of insight. Or, in this case, to emphasize how ridiculous she sounded.

  After a long, prickly silence, she flicked her eyebrows once in annoyance and pulled a manila folder from the bottom desk drawer. “If you want to waste your time, go right ahead. In my experience, these women respond better when their rights to seek or decline therapy are respected. Chasing after them can be dangerous. I don’t advise it.”

  “Dangerous?” Maybe my intrusive butt had pushed her over the edge.

  “For them, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  _

  Lachlyn was waiting in the office where I’d left her, lips two white slashes as though, in her impatience, she’d pressed hard enough to leach the blood from her face.

  “Found it.” I waggled Karissa’s file at her. This did not appear to elevate her mood as much as it did mine.

  “Wonderful,” she drawled. “How much longer are you going to be?”

  “Not too long. About another hour, maybe.”

  “Well, make it quick. I have work to do.”

  To my credit, I did not snap off a salute in response, but sat quietly and began to take notes. Lachlyn watched closely like she’d expected me to try to steal the paperwork. A ridiculous notion. Regina had already spared me the effort.

  Karissa Dillard’s file was thin. She and her children had been at the clinic for three weeks, and she’d seen Regina for individual therapy once each week. There was also a case note in Regina’s spiky scrawl for a group session that had taken place the second week. Four other group notes had been written by Lachlyn, another two by Clotilde and one by a Joyce-somebody. A quick read-through of the individual sessions didn’t turn up anything unusual. Regina and Karissa had focused on developing a safety plan and had begun to set goals. Nothing much more than that, which wasn’t surprising, given that they’d only met a few times. Besides, in this type of setting, much of the deeper therapeutic work would go on in the group sessions. Peers guiding peers, much like in AA I set the group notes aside for a more careful review and picked up the intake forms.

  Aside from a crossed-out phone number, the face sheet, where most of the contact information should be found, was conspicuously blank. A string of three “O’s” had been handwritten next to the phone number, which I deciphered as “out of order.” I copied them down anyway. Nothing else, not even an e
mergency contact number, had been filled in on the form.

  Except…

  I squinted at the paper. There had been another number. Now that I wasn’t scanning the form for information, I realized what I was holding was a copy. Somebody, possibly even Karissa, had erased a phone number from the original and then had the form copied. Whoever it was hadn’t managed to erase the digits completely, however. Wisps of lines rose like ghosts from the paper. I squinted harder. I could just barely decipher the area code: 7-1-5, but the rest was too faint. I thought I could see 2-4-7, but the first number might have been a three and the seven was especially iffy, morphing into a one or a nine depending which way I looked at it. The last number was completely indecipherable.

  I grabbed the other papers from the file, looking at them harder. All originals, as was the rest of the intake packet. As far as I could tell, only the front page, with the all-important contact information, had been altered.

  I looked up and found Lachlyn’s eyes boring into mine. Fine. She knew that I knew. I knew that she knew that I knew and all that gibberish. So no need to pretend.

  “Who copied this page?”

  “What are you talking about now?” Her eyes dropped briefly, flickering to her notepad, then back to my face.

  “This page.” I held it up.

  She didn’t even glance at it, although it seemed to cost her some effort to avoid looking at it. Her whole body was tense, but then Lachlyn always held herself like a coiled snake. It was hard to pick out the nuances of her body language since her emotions didn’t seem to fluctuate beyond anger or disdain.

  “Somebody copied it,” I repeated. “Why?”

  Rising, she strode to the desk and snatched the form out of my hand. She gave it a cursory glance, then tossed it back on the pile of papers strewn across the desk. “I would imagine Karissa did. Clients are understandably upset when they first come in. Don’t you get it? They’re in fear for their lives. They aren’t thinking clearly. She probably started to write down her abuser’s number and then realized it would be dangerous to use that one. So I imagine she erased it.”

  “So why make a copy?”

  “How should I know? I didn’t do the intake.” She stopped abruptly. Took a deep breath. “Look. You really don’t get it. We do good work here. We save lives. Regina was a part of all that practically from the beginning. She might have worked at your clinic, but this”—her finger stabbed down at the desk—“this is where her heart was. So go ahead. Do your job. Close out her files, whatever. But do it quick because we have real work to do here, and you and your snotty, little attitude are keeping us from doing it.” Spinning on one heel, she strode out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

  I sat in the silence of her abrupt departure, surprised to find myself feeling guilty. The pile of papers and reused, recycled manila folders stared up at me in reproach. She was right; this was where Regina’s heart had been. I knew that. Even Regina’s anger mirrored the other two administrators, although hers seemed slightly tempered. Possibly working at the clinic had given Regina a different perspective. At least it would have given her some respite from the work going on here. The really important work. Saving lives, yes.

  We saved lives at the clinic. We did. But the work here had a grittier feel, a realness that was hard for me to face. The people I worked with at the clinic had problems and they needed help, no doubt about that. The women here, however, were in literal fear for their lives, and their children’s lives, in some cases. I’d recently lived through similar circumstances, which I assumed was why Regina had reached out to me. Why, when we’d never even really liked each other, she’d saved me.

  The cheap furniture, bare walls, the cheeseparing approach to services, the miserly pinched pennies: all reminders that the shelter served people with no other place to go. No other resource. No voice. Only these bitterly dedicated women scrabbling to keep the place afloat on ever-reducing budgets, infrequent donations, and willpower.

  Were all of my suspicions wrong?

  A soft tapping at the door pulled me from the pity pot I was stirring. Astrid poked her head in. “I have a box for you.” She thumped a dilapidated box on the desk. “Regina’s things,” she explained. “She didn’t keep much here. Unfortunately, things have a nasty habit of getting stolen. I suppose it’s the children, mostly, but I don’t know. The moms are having such a rough time that it’s hard to say what they’ll do. I mean, they’re like in survival mode, you know?”

  I nodded. Shoving papers back into their files, I handed the stack to Astrid. “Can you make sure that Lachlyn gets these? She might be worried that I’d…well…you know.”

  “Steal them?” She laughed. “Yes, we’ve had a rash of that lately, too, haven’t we? The board is extremely upset with the situation. Will you be at the meeting Saturday morning?”

  “I plan on it.” Well, I planned on it now, anyway. “That was at what time?”

  “At 6:30, which is just crazy, but it’s the only time they could get a quorum.”

  “Sounds pretty official. They must be upset.”

  “Well, security is the most important part of our services. If word got out that we’d been missing files… ” She let the thought trail off, apparently unwilling to give voice to the consequences. “I can’t imagine what Regina was thinking of, can you?”

  “Maybe it was all just a big mistake,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I sat in my car trying to think of the best way to make use of the time I had before meeting Emma the next afternoon. My mind was in a swirl trying to decide whether my suspicions had any basis or if I was simply acting paranoid, a not unlikely state of mind after nearly being killed by my coworker. Why do therapists always avoid analyzing ourselves? I decided I needed a second opinion and resolved to get hold of Detective Blodgett sometime today. Aside from the “I’ll call you back” message he’d left two days ago, I hadn’t heard from him. Maybe he’d meant I should call him? Or perhaps he was working a big case and just got too busy. I’d wait another day and then try again.

  In the meantime, I decided to delve deeper into the files that were causing such uproar at the shelter. Regina had broken policy by removing them, and she must have had a pretty significant reason. I pulled my car into the sparse traffic of midday Chippewa Falls and headed back to the clinic to retrieve the files. I’d work at the library so Bob wouldn’t question why I was working on shelter business rather than the clinic’s.

  It had been years since I’d been at the public library. After finding a parking space on Bay Street, I took a moment to poke through the odds and ends in the box Astrid had given me. A coffee cup with a picture of a golden retriever on it; a framed, black-and-white picture of two young girls—Regina and Emma, perhaps; a worn copy of the DSM-IV, the manual we use to diagnose mental disorders; a handmade, dried clay mug that had obviously held pens and pencils.

  No calendar.

  I closed the flaps of the box, grabbed the files and headed in. It was just as quiet and restful as I remembered. That was good. I needed restful quietude. I found a study carrel in the corner of the nonfiction section and spread my things out.

  Regina had snuck six files out. Three were her clients, the other two had been seen by Clotilde and Lachlyn. Regina’s most recent file belonged to a woman named Monica Skolnik. I flipped the cover open and found myself confronted with a Polaroid photo detailing in exquisite detail the injuries one human could inflict on another. Monica’s eyes were so black and swollen that the only way I knew they were open was because of the glitter of blue trapped in the center of the blackened voids. Her nose, presumably intended as a Slavic ski slope, had morphed into a jagged slalom course, proof of having been broken more than once.

  Forcing myself to read on, I discovered at only twenty-three years old, she’d already been to the shelter twice; this latest time she stayed for nearly four months. I paged through her file, feeling sadness wash over me as I read the meager details of her young
life.

  She and her live-in boyfriend had two children, who’d been removed by child services more than a year ago due to the violence in the home. The kids were allowed regular visits with their mom at the shelter, but the court had ordered supervised visits for their dad.

  According to the case notes, Monica had been doing well in group and had managed to get a job as a receptionist at a local dental office. She’d also placed a deposit on a studio apartment. Things were looking up. Unexpectedly, however, she’d moved back with her abuser. Despite the professional language of the notes, the disappointment of both Regina and the other workers was palpable.

  Despite the fact that D-N-C was written in big block letters, I jotted down her phone numbers and address before closing the file. It was gut-wrenchingly sad, but I couldn’t yet see why Regina had felt the need to sneak the file out of the shelter. There didn’t seem to be any unethical behavior on the part of the shelter workers, which is what I had expected to find. No complaints had been filed, at least, not internally. I’d have to check with the state licensing board, but I doubted I’d get a clear answer. Maybe it would be smarter to have Regina’s lawyer check that out.

  I debated whether I should call Monica myself. Technically, I was supposed to review each client and determine the need for continued therapy, but with that big DO NOT CONTACT request, I could be putting Monica in danger just by contacting her. One look at her fractured face was evidence enough of that. Flipping back through the file, I found the address of the job she’d applied for. Perhaps I could track her down there and avoid the home situation altogether.

  Pulling the second file toward me, I took a deep breath before opening it to another white-bordered photo of misery.

  It took two hours to work all the way through the files. It would have gone faster if I hadn’t kept getting distracted by my own reactions to the horrible stories the files held. With each story I could feel myself understanding more and more Regina’s passion and how she or any of the shelter staff could become so dedicated to helping these shattered lives. And how they could become so bitter as well.