“Tabbi, I need your undivided attention. Take a few deep breaths, and let me talk to you.”
She nodded.
“Six years ago, when you were telling me about your early life—all of it— you said one day that it was time you told someone besides Bo—the only other person who knew—about Bubba’s father.”
Her cup slipped from her hands and into her lap, spilling all over her. If it burned, neither of us knew it. Cleaning it up wasn’t a thought because she’d turned to stone.
“You don’t need to say anything. I’ll talk, Tabbi. You were thirteen years old when you married a man named Matthew Gladstone to get away from your physically and emotionally abusive preacher-man father. Matthew was an older man with children older than you. He beat you without provocation, regularly and mercilessly.”
Tabbi’s mouth gaped. Then snapping it back together she said, “You can’t do this to me.”
“I’m not trying to do anything except recall a conversation from six years ago.”
She shook her head, and her eyes saucered. “I asked you that day not to take notes of that session. I wanted to leave that information behind me forever.” The cup rolled off her lap and onto the floor.
“I didn’t.”
Her head continued its don’t-do-this motion. “You couldn’t possibly remember all this. I can go for months, and it’s starting to become years without Matthew Gladstone crossing my mind. He happened to me when I was a stupid kid.”
“I don’t sit around trying to keep an active memory filled with every detail a client has ever told me. But Bubba tried to kill himself. Incidents like that tend to aid recall of mentally-stored material.”
She shoved her palm toward me like a weapon, willing me to stop.
“I need to say more.” I took a deep breath. “It took you years to work up the courage to leave Matthew. You met a guy named Robert Grey who you believed would be better to you than Matthew.”
“Well, he wasn’t.”
“And as I recall, Matthew—though he may not have been a whole lot better—worked hard every day and showed no sign of prejudice against other races.” I lifted my water bottle from the table and sipped. “You haven’t seen him in seventeen years. Truthfully, you don’t know who he became.”
“And I don’t want to know.” She stared through terror-filled eyes. “You can’t do this to me, Catherine. You cannot do this.” She shrunk down tiny on the sofa, as though she wanted to disappear.
“Tabbi, I’m not doing anything except recalling a conversation.”
“A confidential conversation.” She tried to look indignant, but instead looked crushed.
“I haven’t forgotten that for a minute,” I said. “I would like to continue, or please feel free to jump in anywhere. It’s your story.”
She shook her head but listened.
“By the time you could leave Matthew and move in with Robert, you knew you were pregnant. You told no one. Not Matthew. Not Robert. Well, you didn’t tell Robert until you could make him believe the child belonged to him.” I hated this. “When your doctor named your due date, you knew for certain the baby could not be Robert’s. So, you birthed a seven-pound premature boy. Bubba has believed every day of his life that Robert Grey is his father, and we both know he’s not.”
“Stop, please stop. I was a child for heaven’s sake. What does this have to do with my life now?”
Her face had been wiped clean of any trace of makeup. All remnants had been transferred to soiled tissue. She groped her hair.
“Everything.” My heart broke for her.
Sometimes I hated my job.
“For God’s sake, Catherine, haven’t you been telling me for years that it’s possible to forgive myself for my mistakes? Wasn’t it you who taught me to like myself again?”
“I was the one,” I said, “with one exception. I told you the day I heard this story, this kind of secret wouldn’t stay hidden, indeed, shouldn’t stay hidden. Everyone on this earth has the right to know who his father is.” I scooted to the edge of my chair. “I pleaded with you then, if you’ll recall, to fix this. I offered to have Bubba and you come to my office together, so we could tell him together. I promised to hang in as long as necessary for both of you—all of you, your whole family to be okay.”
“You think my family would be okay if they knew this mess?” She neared hysteria, working her nails into her palms. Obviously, she had been rubbing her hands together a lot since the trip to the hospital. Her normally well-manicured hands looked raw.
“Not immediately, but for the one-millionth time, I will say that our secrets keep us sick. We stay ill over what we won’t talk about,” I reminded her. “I’m making the same offer to be here for all of you now.” I touched my brow with my index finger. “Tell your son who he is, Tabbi.” She looked up. “I believe the time has come for you to tell him the truth. It’s not a panacea, but for heaven’s sake, it’s a start.”
“We have been ’round and ’round this before. Nothing has changed,” she insisted.
“How can you say that?” I started ringing my hands. “How can you think that? Bubba sat on that same sofa earlier today with taped-together wrists, grieving himself to death over a lie.” I hoped I didn’t sound judgmental. I didn’t feel judgmental. What I did feel like was running to the bathroom myself to avoid this conversation.
“And you believe that telling him about every little dirty detail of my life would make him better?” she shrieked. “Oh, Catherine, who else is in this building? Who can hear about everything that has ever happened to me?” She reduced her volume with the questions.
“If we weren’t here alone, I would’ve warned you earlier. All of my clients are gone, and Alicia left at 6:00 … it’s you and me, Tab.”
She looked emotionally and physically exhausted. “Katie,” she said. “I feel like I’m sinking into every nightmare I’ve ever had.” She slid further into the sofa, reminding me of a rag doll. “What do you want me to do?”
I knew we couldn’t continue much longer. “For tonight, I want you to consider telling Bubba the truth.”
“The truth …” she said with the small, flat voice of a disappointed child. “When?”
“Soon. He’s fragile, and I believe the truth will help him.”
Her lips trembled. “And what if it hurts him? He could do something terrible.”
“Like slit his wrists?” I asked gently.
“Bo.” She jerked up straighter. “Bo won’t have it. He’ll never allow Bubba to know about Matthew. None of my children know I was married before Robert.”
“Bo is your husband and your children’s stepfather. I respect that. He loves them. I’m sure of that.” I folded my hands together, then rested my elbows on the arms of my chair and my chin on my hands. “But Bo is not Bubba’s father and shouldn’t be the one to make this decision.”
Every inch of her rejected that statement. Her body tensed, and her head shook back and forth. “I would never have survived without Bo. None of us would’ve.” She shuddered. “Who do you think called the ambulance this morning and stayed with me at the hospital until the doctor released us? Bo. That’s who. It’s always him who helps me with everything.”
“Like I said, I have the greatest respect for that relationship.” I held my right palm up, extended it almost pleading. “But a stepparent shouldn’t be the one to make a life-altering decision about your son.”
“This could blow up in our faces. Bubba could freak,” she lamented. She shook her head side to side the same way Bubba had earlier then stood as if to leave but sat back down. She fastened pitiful eyes to mine.
“At least he would know the truth,” I said. “We don’t owe our kids everything, but we do owe them the truth.”
“I cannot do this without talking to Bo. If he’s okay with the idea—and he won’t be—I’ll consider telling Bubba.”
“Then go home, check on Bubba, talk to Bo, and get some rest. Call me tomorrow?” My eyes grabbed
hers, waiting for an answer as, outside, the music of crickets grew louder.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Her body trembled beneath my hug. I knew I’d asked a lot, but her kid’s life could be riding on it. Stakes too high for me.
I unlocked the front door and let Tabbi out, then re-locked behind her. My own legs trembled. My neck screamed with tension. And I needed some real food.
I walked down the back steps praying, “God please keep Bubba safe tonight. Don’t let him hurt himself.” I looked up. The sky had turned dark, cut by the new security light in the backyard Jordan had insisted on. Comforting, especially on days when I’d looked upon such terrible pain.
As I pointed my car toward home, the faint vestiges of Tabbi’s spilled coffee wafted around me. I rubbed my fingers down the front of my damp skirt, all the while believing she’d do the right thing.
Chapter 17
I held a pent-up breath I hadn’t realized I’d held for twelve hours until I released it, seeing Bubba already seated in my treatment room when I arrived the next day. Thank you, God. I made a hasty trip to the front office to greet Alicia and to find if there were any new emergencies. I always knew from her body language the minute I saw her. She had this fluidness to her posture when things were under control. Rigid or jerky motions or a grim set to her mouth meant that someone was in trouble.
“Hey,” she looked up and, as usual when all was well, she smiled. She held the phone propped between her left ear and shoulder, obviously on hold.
I wondered how many years it would be before I walked into the office to find Alicia’s head locked in a permanent clutch-the-phone position. She spent her life trying to help people who needed mental health services wade through the quagmire of the pre-certification process. Too often she found that—to the clients’ surprise—they had no mental health benefits, or they had minimal coverage that paid a mere pittance toward a session to receive much needed and doctor-referred treatment.
“Bubba is already back there.” She pointed toward the phone then made a circular motion to signal she was lost—on hold. I assumed she was attempting to contact a supervisor from what we routinely called “the burning pits of a devil’s hell.” My mom believed that’s where you went when you didn’t go to heaven. Alicia and I believed it’s where you go when you opt for an HMO.
I hugged her over her shoulder. “I know. I glanced toward him when I arrived. Did he seem okay when he came in?”
“Yeah, in a depressed sorta way. He got here thirty minutes early. He seemed jumpy when the phone rang, which is all the time, so I put him in your room. His chart is in your bucket.” She handed me a pre-cert form and a pen. “Sign this form for me before you head back,” she said.
I scratched my signature on the paper as I asked, “Did Tabbi call?”
She shook her head then turned her full attention to the phone. The devil appeared to be finally on line two.
I turned and walked to my treatment room where Bubba waited. “I’m glad to see you today, Bubba.” He had no idea how glad. He looked up at me without raising his head. I walked to the sofa and gently placed my hand under his chin, lifting it a bit. He looked a tad stronger. “Were you okay last night?”
“Yes.” He shrugged his shoulders. He wore another ball cap. This one said: I HATE EVERYBODY.
“Did you sleep?” The circles around his eyes appeared a smidge lighter.
He bobbed his head. “The doc gave my mom some sleeping pills in case I needed them. She gave me one … so I slept some.”
“I’m glad.” I released his chin, backed toward my chair and sat. “Tell me more about your family and your relationships at home.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, let’s start with easy stuff. Tell me about your house and who lives there.”
“How come?”
“I would like to understand more about you. Maybe get a mental picture of you living in your house.”
“That’s in the homework.” He shifted and pulled a wad of folded pages from his back pocket. “Here, just read it.”
Women and girls brought notebooks. Men folded homework and placed it in the pocket of their jackets or shirts. Boys shove multiple pages into their back pockets.
I didn’t reach for it. “Reading is fine. Begin please.”
He still held it toward me.
I refused to reach for it.
He looked indignant. “You want me to read this?” He looked at the pages then at me. He tried once again to hand the pages off to me.
“Yes.”
He huffed and puffed. “Not out loud.”
“Yes, aloud please.”
“What the hay?” He shoved the pages into his lap. If being peeved could be a shadow, the shadow covered his whole face.
“That’s not one of the questions.”
Bubba sat staring at me, a little angry and a little pitiful.
“Trust me,” I said. “You need to read it, and I need to hear you read it.”
“Do I start with the questions or just read the answers?” The clock clicked its usual rhythm in the background. We were losing time. Precious time.
“Questions are good.”
He started in a sing-song voice. “Describe the physical structure of your house. Where is your room?”
I nodded for him to continue.
“My house is a plain person’s house, you know, like not a rich person’s house.”
“Okay.”
I waited.
I knew he didn’t want to do this.
I waited some more.
He blew a pouty breath. “Downstairs there’s the living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and Mom and Bo’s room.” He sighed again, then his voice resumed a more normal tone. “Upstairs is three bedrooms: my room, Corey’s, and Rachel’s. We share a bathroom. We’re supposed to share it, but Rachel hogs it all the time. She also hogs the phone that supposedly belongs to the three of us.”
I fought to keep from smiling. “Keep going.”
“That’s it. That’s what I wrote.” He thrust his hands up, in a what-do-you-want-from-me gesture.
“Part B of that question says: describe the smells associated with your house.”
“I didn’t do that part. I thought that was stupid.”
“Then you can just tell me.” I flashed my this-will-be-okay-if-you-will-trust-me smile.
“Like, this is supposed to help me or something?” He slapped his palms down on his jean-clad thighs and looked out the window. Scattered paper fell to the green-carpeted floor.
“It can’t hurt you,” I urged. “Give it another try.”
He gathered the papers from the floor, his fingers dragging in the effort. “Whatever.” He would look at me then out the window. Me, then the window.
I sat quietly until he realized I could wait as long as it took.
“Okay. Sometimes like dinner. Mom’s a good cook. So’s Bo. Sometimes it smells like dinner, and sometimes it smells like pine cleaner.”
I smiled at him and waited. “Okay.”
“What?” he said. “What?”
I kept smiling and waiting.
“Okay. Mom and Bo both smoke inside the house. There’s a gray haze hanging over everything. The furniture and curtains are yellow. Bo drinks beer before I get up, and he’s still drinking after I go to bed. He reeks of alcohol. So, between the smoke and the booze, my house smells like a bar. That’s it. My house smells exactly like a bar.”
“I wondered how you could get away with smoking pot in your bedroom with your parents at home.”
“There’s the beauty. In a bar, it’s hard to distinguish one man’s vice from another’s.” He cocked his head, arched his right brow, and attempted a smile that looked more like a smirk.
“Who do you talk to at home?”
“Corey.”
“What do you talk to him about?”
“Brother stuff.”
“What did Corey say about you cutting your wrists?”
; “Mom said he got drunk when she told him. He was puking when I went to the bathroom this morning. He just looked up from the commode, wiped his mouth, and said, ‘you’re killing me man.’ Then he flushed the toilet, stood, and stomped out.”
“Does it hurt to know you hurt Corey?” I already knew the answer.
“Yes.” He looked out the window again.
“You began with question two.”
“Do what?”
“You started with question number two,” I said. “You haven’t read question one to me. I would like to hear it now, please.”
“I didn’t do question one,” he informed me. “That one was stupid too.”
“Tell you what … on your way out, drop new questions in the suggestion box. But for now, humor me. It asks, ‘What is your full name and is there any special significance attached to it?’” I watched his face closely. “We can do this one orally too.”
“You don’t have much of a life, or you have too much time on your hands, or something, if you need to sit around and ask questions like this.” He sounded angry again. “And you had to go to college for years to learn this, right? This is like first stupid grade.”
“I have enough of a life not to slit my wrists,” I said gently.
“This question asks about my name. You already know it.”
“I haven’t heard you say your full name.”
“Well, good morning class.” He looked at me. “Good morning, Mrs. Landers.” He looked to his right. “Theodore, do you have your homework?” He looked back at me. “I did it, Mrs. Landers, honest I did, but the dog ate it, honest he did.” He looked to his right.
Bubba’s animation was priceless. He didn’t realize he gave me a glimpse of a person who might be alive inside his somewhat emaciated body. “So, you are a fan of Beaver Cleaver?”
“What else is there to watch at three in the morning?”
I smiled. I wanted to hear him say his name. But I could wait.
“My name is Robert Stupid Norman Stupid Grey Stupid Junior.”
I made a circular motion with my right hand. “Stupid,” I said to help him get his anger on the table.
“Yes,” he corrected. “I meant Junior Stupid. Let’s get this right. My name is Robert Stupid Norman Stupid Grey Stupid Junior Stupid.”
The Children of Main Street Page 16