Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  “What were you doing there?” I asked.

  “Well, believe it or not, we consider someone attacking you a crime. Understandable, maybe, but still a crime. When that happens, they generally let the police know so we can serve and protect and all that law-and-order stuff. I guess I don’t need to ask if you’ve remembered any more details of the attack.”

  Strangely, his sarcasm had a lifting effect on my spirits. Only people who really love you will use your worst moments to score on you. Besides, he knew I was crying; it probably unnerved him.

  “I can see why you and Sue get along so well,” I said through my sniffles. “Is being a smartass a new interrogation technique?”

  “No, just a facet of my own scintillating personality. Besides, Sue’s mad at me again.”

  “Understandable, maybe, but still a mistake.”

  “True, very true. So let’s start over now that we’re all on the same page. Hello, Ms. Whittaker, this is Officer Durrant. I’m following up on the unfortunate incident yesterday evening. How are you feeling?”

  “Like dog poop. Thanks for asking.”

  “You’re very welcome. Have you been able to recall any additional information relating to said unfortunate incident?”

  “I remember being scared. Or … no, wait, that was earlier.”

  “Scared of what?” His tone instantly reverted to cop-voice.

  “I don’t … I think someone was watching me.” Snatches of images clicked through my mind like a stutter-stop slide show: running in the dark; flashbulbs exploding; the newspaper photo of Clotilde, Astrid and Lachlyn standing next to the Devlin House sign; snarls of bright red yarn twining like snakes around my feet. I knew, taken as a whole, the images didn’t make sense, but they felt true. True, but not factual—what the hell did that mean?

  Durrant had no clue either.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  I hadn’t been to an AA meeting since Saturday, but I wasn’t well enough to go, despite Wednesday nights being my favorite meetings. The thought of enduring the shrill cacophony of women’s voices made my head pound in anticipation. I told myself I wanted to be rested before the shelter’s staffing the following day.

  I should have realized I wouldn’t escape that easily.

  My phone rang just after 8:30 p.m. I’d fallen asleep on the couch and woke up with a drool slick on the cushion. Siggy hovered on the arm rest, eyeing me in a state of catly disdain. This from an animal who licks himself.

  “‘lo?” I cleared my throat.

  “Seriously? It’s not even 9:00 and you’re sleeping?”

  “Sue?”

  “Why aren’t you here? And why didn’t you call me to set up your Third Step meeting? What’s going on? You know what? Never mind. Put the coffee on.”

  Click.

  I stared blankly at the phone receiver as my brain processed the ugly fact: Sue was coming… and she was pissed.

  With everything going on, I’d been lax in keeping her updated—a big no-no with sponsors. For all she knew, I’d been on a wild drinking spree. Sponsors hate being the last to know those things. Part of me felt slighted that she might not trust me, but then again, I’d only been sober a short time and lately, with Regina’s death and all, I’d slacked off on more than just staying in contact.

  A tiny voice—one so new to me I barely recognized it—niggled at my conscience. Why not be honest? I hadn’t been working the Program since before Regina died. I’d have to ponder that later.

  Right now, I’d need all the mushy, bruised cells in my brain to figure out what I was going to tell Sue, especially when she noticed my banged up cranium. After supporting me through the aftermath of last summer, she wouldn’t take kindly to hearing how entangled I’d become with Regina’s death.

  She already knew about my initial reluctance to acting as Regina’s professional executor, and she knew that I’d needed Beth’s support to stay involved with the shelter. Come to think of it, she knew about Blodgett’s assault, too; she’d also helped me track down Pete Durrant so I could find out what had happened. But unless Pete told her about the attack on me last night, she didn’t know that I’d been hurt, too.

  Lying was not an option. Sue knew me too well and had long ago developed shit-detection to an art form. I needed to find a way to tell her the truth in such a way as to not let her discover what the truth was.

  My head hurt.

  Besides, she was already knocking at my door. I shuffled across the fake hardwood flooring to let her in.

  “Well, good evening, sunshine! It’s so nice to see you again.” She came in like Wisconsin winters—deceptively serene, potentially fatal—her cheeriness as illusory as the warmth of a December sun.

  I flinched as she pretended to buss my cheek with a social kiss. Flinched because Sue was neither social nor a kisser. I was afraid she was going to bite me.

  She walked over to the empty coffee maker, glaring balefully at it as though by force of nature she could will it to perk. Siggy appeared and started twining around her feet. Like most felines, he could tell when somebody didn’t like cats and exerted a version of passive-aggressive revenge. She nudged him away with her foot.

  “Oh. I forgot to make coffee,” I said.

  Sue turned the chilly gaze to me, making me flinch again. I cleared my throat. “Um. How about we sit in the living room?”

  Siggy followed us in and perched on the arm of the couch next to our guest. Ignoring him, Sue waited until we’d settled before starting in. “Letty, what the hell is going on? I haven’t seen or heard from you in days, and now you’re avoiding me.”

  “I haven’t been avoiding you!” Therapists don’t avoid. We just find things to do that take priority. “Taking on Regina’s case load was a lot more complicated than I thought. I know I’ve been missing some meetings, but—”

  “This started long before Regina died. It was hard enough getting you to do your Second Step, but every time I try to set up a time to talk about the Third, you beg off. When I tell you to call me to set something up, I never hear from you. The one time you did come over to my house to work on it, you got leprosy and had to leave.”

  “That was hives. I think it was the tuna fish salad I ate for lunch that day.”

  “Oh, bullshit. It wasn’t the tuna fish. Stress causes hives, too. Now, I have been very patient,” Sue said, pulling a saintly, beatific expression out of her retired-teacher’s bag of tricks.

  Unfortunately, it was true. She had been very patient—a characteristic I wouldn’t normally associate with my sponsor. A thought broke through my sluggish brain. “You love me.”

  “What?”

  “You must really love me or you wouldn’t be so patient.” I threw my arms wide. “Give me a hug.”

  “I’ll give you a smack on the head is what I’ll give you, especially if you keep trying to distract me.”

  Siggy jumped into her lap. Sue picked him up and deposited him on the floor.

  “Look,” she continued, after taking a deep breath. “You’re right. I do love you. If you aren’t ready to move on to Step Three, that’s fine, but you can’t work the Program if you don’t. In fact, it’s obvious that you’re not even fully committed to the Second. Maybe we need to go back to that one. If you don’t work the Program, then you will drink. And if you drink, then we say good-bye because I can’t sit around and watch that.”

  I was used to Sue being cranky. Frankly, her bitchiness was entertaining especially since everyone knew it masked a marshmallow heart. Quiet sincerity from her was distressing. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to be flip but everything that came to my mind was either an excuse or a joke. So, I kept my mouth shut for once.

  After several minutes, she sighed. Fear bubbled up inside me, finally forcing words out.

  “Are you firing me?” Sue hadn’t dropped me after I’d relapsed a few months ago, but she could have.

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “And I’m not trying to nag at you, but I need you to know
how serious I think this is. You can coast for a while, Letty. People do, all the time. But if a drunk doesn’t get right with herself and her Higher Power, she’s gonna drink. You need to figure out what’s stopping you from moving forward on this Step. Is it a God thing? Lots of people can’t stand the thought of God, or what they think is God. We can talk about that. But you can’t keep running away and, eventually, you might come to a time when you realize how badly you need that relationship. You can’t always do life on your own. You’re going to need someone and that someone might just be God. It makes sense to get to know him before you get to that point.”

  “How do I know if there even is a God?”

  “Ask him,” Sue said.

  “Ask him? How?”

  “Pray. If he doesn’t answer, he doesn’t exist.”

  “What if he answers?” I mumbled.

  Sue smiled.

  “But how do I turn my will over to something I don’t even understand? I mean, I believe in God, but …” I trailed off, realizing I wasn’t making sense.

  “Okay, stop there for a minute,” Sue said. “This is good.”

  Tears slid down my face. I told myself it was from my headache, which had grown exponentially during our conversation. Siggy abandoned his quest to irritate Sue, jumping into my lap and began inspecting my wet cheeks. His whiskers tickled.

  “This is good? What’s good about not knowing if you believe in God?”

  “You believe in God. You just said you did. You just don’t know if can you trust him or not.”

  “And what’s so good about that?”

  “You stopped running, Letty.” She reached over and patted my leg. “That’s enough for now.”

  I inhaled a deep, shaky breath. I felt weird—emptied, but peaceful. I felt better. Relieved, maybe? I’d felt the same thing the first time I’d sat in an AA meeting and admitted I was an alcoholic. I stroked Siggy, listening to him purr, a warm lump in my lap.

  “Feel better?” Sue asked.

  I nodded.

  “Good. Now tell me what the hell happened to your head.”

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  After Sue had dragged the full story of my recent endeavors out of me, I had my hands full convincing her not to kill me herself. I finally pointed out it was ungodly to kill your sponsee, but she took some persuading.

  The conversation was helpful, though, because it really showcased my rampant stupidity. At least one person, probably several, were dead and two attacked, and I was still running around like Nancy Drew-on-steroids, as it had so eloquently been phrased.

  I was out of my league. Maybe even out of my mind.

  Running to Blodgett wasn’t an option. In fact, a twinge of guilt—more like a cramp, really—reminded me of just how badly I’d been neglecting my friend. Instead of facing Diana, I’d been calling the nurses’ station to check on him, even when I knew they wouldn’t tell me anything substantive. I needed to make amends, but I decided to hold off until I could get the rest of this settled. Maybe, by then, I’d have answers. Maybe I’d be able to tell them that his attack had nothing to do with Regina’s death or the shelter. Or me.

  I made myself three promises: I’d hand over my suspicions to Pete Durrant, I’d pull out of the shelter before anyone else got hurt. And then I’d apologize to the Blodgett’s. I’d make it right.

  I tumbled into bed and slept like the dead.

  After sleeping so much the day before, I woke early. Way too early. I felt okay about my resolutions, but there were still too many dangling questions to feel truly comfortable. It felt like I’d been dreaming all night, but when I tried to focus on them, they floated away like spider webs on a breeze.

  Durrant’s call was another thing that had left me uneasy. Scared, really. The snatched charm proved, to me at least, that the attack on me was directly connected with Regina’s death. Any other day this might have felt like simplistic reasoning. Achieving it with a bruised, Jell-O brain made me feel like I’d been inducted into Mensa.

  Since I was doing so well, I worked on recreating the events that had left a blank spot in my memory. I found I had pretty good recall up until just after my meeting with Clotilde. Looking at my calendar had helped jog that loose.

  Edna, my suicidal client, was the easiest to remember. Details about her situation kept pouring in—her navy-blue dress; the afghan she’d been working on; God bless her, the refrigerator she’d cleaned.

  It was time for some music/hydro/aroma/chocolate therapy. I made a cup of rich, hot chocolate, ran a bath sprinkled with flowery bath salts, and after putting some light classical music on, settled in for a soak. I promised myself I wouldn’t push. I wouldn’t beat myself up. Bits and pieces of the blank areas, like confetti, started drifting back.

  The red yarn. I’d told Durrant something about red yarn. A crystal clear image appeared—Joyce and the blood red yarn spilling from her fingers. I shivered.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t remember anything after telling Joyce’s knitting group about the study. There were still holes, but I could only hope that more of it would come back.

  The image of Joyce stayed with me. I toweled off, hurrying to Regina’s files again. The copy of the newsletter was underneath the stack. I flipped to the board members. Joyce Trent.

  Google to the rescue, where I found another hidden history. There were a lot of hits. The first, an article from seventeen years ago, described the acquittal of Joyce Trent for the manslaughter death of her husband, Phillip.

  Her case, one of the first battered women defense efforts in this area, pulled a lot of media attention. The extent of her long-term victimization shocked the community, spawning questions about women’s rights and the unusual defense that was being used. Clotilde was quoted several times, and one whole article focused on Devlin House and the work done there.

  After the announcement of the jury’s decision to acquit, there was silence, broken only by one mention of the case at the year anniversary mark that coincided with a similar case. That woman was found guilty, I noted. Whether Joyce had wanted to be the poster child for women’s rights, which I doubted, she’d practically taken a vow of silence afterward. Nowadays, she’d have been booked on twenty talk shows and have had a movie in development before the jury even deliberated.

  With a start, I realized I was going to be late for the shelter’s team meeting.

  The side drive was full of the shelter staffs’ cars, although I hadn’t been around long enough to know who drove which car. I parked out on the street and entered through the back kitchen door, hoping to nab some much-needed coffee on the way through. No such luck.

  Giving up on locating a source of caffeine, I moved farther into the shelter. As I got closer to the group therapy room—the only room besides the kitchen large enough to hold all of the shelter’s staff—I expected to hear people talking; maybe, since it was early, to hear people shifting chairs and tables around trying to fit everyone in.

  But all was quiet. Too quiet?

  I opened the group room door cautiously, half afraid Lachlyn was going to spring at me like a demented jack-in-the-box—all freaky, bizarro clown face and maniacal laughter.

  She was there. They all were, including several women I’d only had minimal contact with, and all so quiet that at first I feared I’d interrupted a prayer service. But the feeling emanating from the gathering was not peace. A fission of emotion seeped through the air—palpable anger, a touch of fear? Whose?

  A half-dozen metal chairs had been added to the group circle. The staff sat frozen, utterly silent, all eyes glued on Clotilde who had pulled her chair back and away, creating a break in the circle, a sickle moon shape of women arcing around her. If she was serious about running for office, she could certainly count on a cadre of women helping her rise to power. An image flashed through my mind—female acolytes serving at the feet of their warrior priestess.

  “Hi, Letty!” A hoarse faux-whisper from the corner behind me made me squeak and jump in surprise.
As I flipped around, I heard the rustle of clothes as the entire congregation swiveled with me to stare at the source of the whisper.

  Paul?

  He sat tucked against the wall, segregated from the women and perched like a Victorian virgin—bolt upright, knees together, hands clasped in his lap—on the edge of his seat. Wide, anxious puppy eyes told me where the “touch of fear” emanated from.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Before he could answer, the hair on the back of my neck zinged up; Paul’s gaze jumped from my face to just over my shoulder. I spun around so quickly that I gave myself a free buzz.

  Clotilde stood directly behind me. Lachlyn had taken up a post at her side, apparently resuming her bodyguard persona. This didn’t seem like the time to point out they were both invading my bubble.

  “I see you two know each other.” Clotilde said.

  “Um, kind of. I mean, we have some mutual friends—”

  Suspicion curled around the barely suppressed anger already marring her face. Her eyes took on that blank, inward gaze that occurs when two disparate ideas combine in our minds to make a new whole. The light bulb moment. Only it didn’t make her look bright and sparkly.

  “I need to talk to you two. Go wait in my office.”

  “Now?” I asked. I’d been gearing up all night to announce my leave-taking and this seemed anticlimactic.

  “Now.” She spun on her heel and walked back to her chair.

  “Sure. No problem.” I struggled to play it off, but my face was suffused with heat and my voice shook. I’d never been sent to the principal’s office, but from the dread-heavy feeling roiling loosely around my bowels, I now knew what it felt like. I struggled with the urge to protest my innocence, especially strong since I actually was innocent.

  Lachlyn stepped back and gestured toward the door, effectively escorting us out of the room. She trailed after, apparently not trusting us to do what we were told. She was right; if she weren’t between me and the door, I would have bolted.