I entered the room and held out my hand to introduce myself. Had there been a mistake? A joke? I dropped my hand for a second. I thought someone had set a mannequin on my sofa. The face was white … ghost white. Bright red glossy lips were painted on. Blunt-cut, shiny black-wig hair had been perfectly styled with even blunter bangs that stopped just above stark black brows. The mascara-coated lashes looked inches long. A hand rose toward me, and a husky voice—the kind of husky that sounded practiced—oozed through the lipstick-lined mouth. “I’m Tracia.” The hand glided back. She sat expressionlessly.
Was she for real?
If this was a Botox-induced look, she’d been injected from hairline to toenail.
I shook her pale hand. “I’m Catherine Collier.”
“I assumed as much. You look like a Catherine.”
I attempted a smile and seated myself wondering what a Catherine looked like. There were numerous motivations behind slamming a therapist during the initial introductions. Sometimes clients didn’t want to be there and felt external pressure to make the appointment. Sometimes they feared I’d eventually say something they didn’t want to hear and wanted to fire the first shot. Sometimes it was plain lack of trust. Usually not toward me—they didn’t know me well enough—but rather, toward people in general.
“I’m glad to meet you,” I said. “You’re … Tracia?”
“Yes.”
“Most people call me Katie.” I wrote the date and time beside her name at the top of the note sheet. As I scribbled—stalled—I took in other details of this sculpted person. Even after she spoke, it didn’t seem as though I sat in the room with a living, breathing woman.
I have sat across from a myriad of faces. But not like this one. I first thought this gal looked Gothic, but that wasn’t accurate … not really. Not the typical vampire look. There were no black fingernails and no safety pins in her ears. It appeared she’d reached for Gothic but grabbed hold of plaster of Paris.
Tracia folded her hands in her lap in slow motion.
“How can I help you?”
“I despise my husband.” She didn’t blink, and she sure didn’t stutter. “He’s a liar. He’s spineless. Weak. Whiny.” She took an exaggerated breath but held the same rigid posture.
“I see.”
“I doubt that you do,” Tracia said. “But … whatever.” Her eyes combed me.
Had I reached out, I could have touched the anger hovering around her.
“He gets on my last nerve. He lies about money. He lies about pistachio nuts. He lies about conversations between Derrien and himself.” She raised one brow the tiniest bit. “Derrien lies too.” She stared at me. “Nothing surprising about that.”
I cleared my throat, wanting to start over, to somehow help Tracia relax. Surely, I could establish a more comfortable emotional temperature.
“How does one lie about pistachio nuts?”
“Jim—my husband,” Tracia said in a voice that stayed soft and sultry but still rang with passion, “could screw up the moving parts of a nickel. The man is dumber than dirt.”
“Okay,” I said, looking at her, trying but failing to read the lack of her expression.
“He knows I love pistachio nuts. I asked him specifically, on the way to the lake last weekend, if he’d packed my pistachio nuts. He said yes. He lied.” She leaned toward me and spoke with throaty passion. “Lied. Lied. Lied. No. Nuts,” she said. “I searched through everything. No. Nuts.”
This kind of passion wasn’t about pistachio nuts.
“Jim would never admit he lied about simple pistachio nuts.”
“Don’t you think he meant to pack them, then forgot, but thought he had?”
“Pa-leeease,” she answered.
I laid the mechanical pencil on the antique chairside table, folded my hands and placed them in my lap on top of her chart. I leaned back in the chair, reached for the yellow tube of Carmex laying on the table next to me, spun off the red cap, and glossed my lips. “Tracia, why did you come to see me?”
“What?” She arched her brows.
I raised my brows to match hers.
“I’m in the middle of telling you why I’m here.” Her brown eyes were crystal clear, cold, and mean as a viper.
I felt the chill. “You,” I countered, “are in the middle of a diatribe about pistachio nuts that couldn’t possibly be related to the reason you are sitting in front of me.”
“Well … it’s …” She cleared her throat. We waited for a long time. She perused every part of me, looking as though she wanted to eat me. “Okay … it’s about men. They’re all nuts.”
“Okay.
“I’m very unhappy.”
“That’s true,” I said. “You are unhappy.”
“I hate Jim.”
“Okay.”
She looked at me for a long minute, appearing as surprised as she could, with a plaster-looking face. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m not supposed to hate my husband?”
“Not for now.”
“Aren’t you a Christian counselor?” Her brows lifted. “I came here because I was told you’re a Christian counselor. I must have a Christian counselor.”
“I’m a Christian, and I’m a counselor.”
We looked at each other longer.
“I hate Jim.”
“So you said.”
“I really hate Jim.”
I couldn’t help but notice how, when she spoke, her facial muscles never flickered. “Has divorce become an option you’re considering?”
“Never.” I found her lack of facial movement distracting. “Divorce is not an option.”
“I see.”
“I doubt that you do.”
“Help me to see then.”
“I’d never married. I was thirty-eight years old … thirty-nine now. I was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church.” she said, maintaining the mannequin pose. “My parents have been praying for me to get married for years.” She sighed. “For most of my life I wasn’t interested in God, or church, or the whole Christian thing. Certainly not the old married-with-children expectation I was reared to be part of. I had no white-picket fence or tree-with-a-tire-swing aspirations.”
“I’m listening,” I said, glad she was finally saying something that seemed to really matter.
“I grew tired of running from my roots.” She stirred, using the tiniest movements on the sofa, then crossed and uncrossed her trim legs. “It is difficult to live without your family’s approval. I felt desperately lonely—for my family, I mean. I had people around me, but I guess the older I grew, the more I needed my family’s approval.” She sighed again. “Is there a person alive who isn’t negatively affected if her mother thinks she’s a sinner?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, like I said, I just got tired of running.”
“It must have been difficult for you,” I said honestly.
“Sometimes it seemed easier to follow other people’s dreams.” She sighed hard and long. “My brother invited me to a revival at his church last year, and I went.”
“Was that a good thing?”
“Oh, yeah. I received Christ as my savior. I changed … things … and have been going to church since. It’s important to follow God’s will.” She stared through me. “I’m married now. God does not like divorce.”
“No, He doesn’t.”
Sitting in that chair, I’d listened to many stories of spiritual conversions that had changed lives and perspectives. Typically, the stories were told with hope or joy or something. Tracia’s face and tone seemed resigned. She sounded sentenced to church, God, and family expectations.
“I joined the same church Jim attended. When I saw him, I thought I could make it work out.” Disillusionment painted her icy features. “My family has wanted me to be a mom for … well … forever. I discovered Jim was a widower with a small daughter, and I decided … I decided …”
“That he could be your ticket to heaven, and pleasing
Mom and Dad in one fell swoop,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you are unhappy,” I said. “You also sound angry.”
“I would be fine,” she said, “if Jim would be a real man … a real husband. If he would tell me the truth, if he would be responsible about money, and if he would make Derrien toe the line.”
Another silence dropped over the room … one as long and heavy as Texas humidity.
Ultimately, I said, “You stated earlier that all men are nuts. You don’t care for men at all, do you?”
“You’re smart,” Tracia said.
I needed another thirty seconds of assessment time, but I felt certain about where this conversation pointed. I tapped the backs of my sculptured nails together … thinking. “So … is Jim your first heterosexual relationship?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I have a friend, and she’s a girl.” A smile slipped between her stiff lips.
“A friend?”
“Just friends … now.”
I spent most of the hour with Tracia filling in sketchy details of her adolescence and early college years. She smiled when she talked about enticing a heterosexual teenage girl to try a lesbian experience for the first time, an issue I didn’t care for at all. Even if there was no issue of sexuality, there was a huge issue of sexual predator and sexual prey. An issue of lonely college kids away from home for the first time, feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable.
I sat and listened, amazed that Tracia could believe—and she really seemed to—that God would like her better if she married a man with a child. God—in her view—seemed okay with the fact that her girlfriend came around her home and remained her best friend and confidante, as long as they weren’t lovers.
She shared details of her not-so-sexual life with Jim. “He’s a fumbling joke.”
“I’m sure you’ve explained that to him.”
Her eyes traveled over me. “Endlessly.”
I didn’t have to like every client, but some level of respect was important in a therapeutic relationship. When I released it, I realized I’d been holding my breath.
Then someone tapped on my treatment-room door.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. No one that I wasn’t expecting rapped on my door. Alicia would only knock if someone stood on a building ledge or threatened to eat his gun. Or, oh dear Lord, if something had happened to Jordan, Bailey, or one of my parents. I thrust my right palm toward Tracia, signaling her to stop talking, and tried to slow my heart rate.
“Please, excuse me for a second,” I said. “There’s evidently an emergency.”
“Just my luck.” Tracia opened her purse and fetched a red heart-shaped mirror and checked her lipstick.
I scooted from my chair and swung open the door, only to find Alicia looking stricken.
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” She wrung her hands. “I need you to handle something.”
I instinctively pulled my office door closed behind me leaving Tracia alone for a minute.
“What’s wrong?”
“Catherine,” Alicia said, “This child…” She stepped to her right.
Derrien crouched on her knees in the hallway behind Alicia, shuddering in a puddle of water. The bathroom door stood open, and the toilet bowl gushed a hardy stream.
Taking three quick strides, I stood beside Derrien. I didn’t know what had upset her so, but I laid my hand on her shoulder.
Alicia grabbed the plunger and managed the flow, then walked away to give us privacy.
Derrien fell apart. She rocked back and forth kneeling in the wet carpet with small hands that clutched convulsively at her chest.
Her body trembled. I removed my hand and knelt beside her in the water-soaked carpet whispering her name. “Derrien?”
She turned to look at me. “Please don’t punish me,” she pleaded.
Something awful and real had settled in her eyes.
“I won’t punish you.” I kept my voice soft and calm. “Why would I punish you?”
She still trembled, colorless.
“Derrien?” I whispered again. I couldn’t tell if she saw me. Her eyes looked around me, through me.
Water soaked through my skirt. “We don’t punish here,” I assured her. “Why would you be punished?”
She patted her fingers into the saturated carpet. “Because I did this.”
“Do you mean this water from the commode?”
She nodded her head, over and over. Like one of those head-bobbing birds I’d seen behind the back seat of old cars. Vacant eyes stared at nothing.
“No. You didn’t do this, sweetheart. The commode overflowed.” I crept closer. “Derrien, they do this sometimes. I bet Alicia already has a plumber on the way.” I watched her to see if my voice registered. “This isn’t your fault. No one will punish you or anyone else.”
Silent tears trickled down white cheeks.
“Derrien, no one would punish a child because a commode overflows.”
She wrenched cold eyes from some distant place inside herself to focus on me. “People do.”
“People shouldn’t.”
“Well, they do.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to sleep in the shed tonight,” Derrien said.
Confused, I said, “Okay.”
“I’m afraid of the shed at night.”
“Of course you are,” I said. “Me too.”
“There are bugs and mosquitoes in our shed.”
“When and why are you in the shed at night?” I asked gently, managing a quasi-casual tone.
“When I’m bad.”
My mouth smiled. “Then I bet you never have to go.”
“I go.” She looked away from me again. She intertwined her fingers and raised her pinkies, pressing them together in a here’s-the-church-here’s-the-steeple position.
I wondered what this child could be thinking, knowing that children resort to extraordinary coping mechanisms to block out emotional or physical pain. Sometimes they say their times tables, or recite nursery rhymes while they’re being beaten or molested.
I said to this little one, “Open the door, and here’s all the people.”
She jerked her head around to stare at me. “How did you …?”
I smiled and configured a church with my hands. “I used to be eight.”
She tried to smile.
“Who sends you to the shed?”
“My …” She stopped.
“It’s okay.” I dismantled my church and laid gentle hands on her shoulders again. “Who sends you to the shed, Derrien?”
“I don’t know.” She looked frightened. She scanned the hallway, as though she wondered if we could be overheard.
“When do you go?”
Her eyes darted around.
Something tormented this child. “When do you sleep in the shed?”
“When I forget to flush the commode.”
What? Tell me it’s when you sneak out the window. Tell me it’s when you spit at your teacher. Tell me it’s because you slap your stepmother across her plaster face. But you forget to flush the commode? “Who sends you, girlfriend?”
“I send myself by forgetting to flush the commode,” she breathed.
“Okay.”
“It’s just the rules. It’s my fault. I know the rules.” She looked at me. Like a good soldier, she’d internalized these rules as her own. “The rule is to eat dinner then go to the bathroom. I can’t flush the commode then because of water pressure.”
“Water pressure,” I parroted and waited, pressing lightly against her arm.
“Then I get in the tub.”
“All right.” Outrage crouched within my heart.
“Well, then I get out.”
“I hope so.” My mouth smiled again.
“That’s when I’m supposed to flush the commode.” Derrien released a
sigh.
“You can’t flush the toilet immediately after you use it? It would seem easier to remember.”
“Water pressure,” she reminded.
“Of course,” I acquiesced.
“It’s just the rules,” Derrien said. A new touch of pink fluttered on her cheeks. She trembled a tiny bit less.
“We must have rules,” I said. “Who makes the rules at your house?”
I heard Tracia open the door behind me, but I stayed on my knees beside the child.
“Is there a problem? I …” Tracia looked down at Derrien and me, on our knees in the wet hallway. “What is this?” She gasped at Derrien. “Are you the emergency?”
Tracia leaned down and tried to clutch Derrien’s arm, but with lightning action, I gripped her hand. Don’t even think about it.
Chapter 22
Standing erect, Tracia spit words like bullets. “I should’ve known better than to think you capable of sitting in the waiting room for one hour without causing trouble.”
“There’s no trouble, Tracia,” I said. “I would appreciate it if you’d return to my treatment room. I’ll join you momentarily.” I pointed to the door.
“That’s. My. Daughter.” She spoke as if she lived in penury, and those three words had cost her eight-hundred dollars each.
“I know. I’ll be right with you.”
“Derrien,” Tracia said before returning to the treatment room, “you are in sooo much trouble. You won’t be sleeping in your room tonight.” She rocked the hinges on my door, slamming it behind herself.
My skin felt covered in fire ants.
Derrien hadn’t glanced at her stepmother. She started to rock back and forth again, and the fresh color drained from her cheeks. She exchanged it for a gray pallor, and lavender-blue circles crouched beneath her eyes.
She wore the hopeless face of a child of war.
“Derrien,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
The tiny ghost-like child cringed and rocked, but didn’t respond.
“Derrien, if you can hear me, I can help you.”
Her rocking slowed.
“I promise I can help. I don’t know for now where you will spend the night, but it will not be in the shed.”
The Children of Main Street Page 20