By the time
that I am seated and have been offered and given my refreshment of choice
(water), I think to myself only 58 more
minutes and then I can leave.
“Let’s
start from right after everything happened.”
I am
surprised to hear this. I look up at the woman sitting across from me. She is
well dressed in her business skirt and blazer that match. A blue button down
shirt can be seen underneath the blazer. I can picture her in her closet of a
million different colored button-down shirts and more blazers and skirts than
any woman could need. I imagine her picking out the blue one specifically for
me. She picked it to hopefully keep me calm because that is what blue is
supposed to do. It is supposed to be peaceful like the ocean.
Unfortunately
for her, she made a bad choice. I hate blue.
“No
starting at the beginning?”
“I have
heard you talk a lot about the beginning; I read the interrogation transcripts.
What I would like to hear is something new. Tell me what happened after you
were allowed back home.”
I curtly
nod and take a sip of my water. “Well, I came home, and I got in the shower.” I
pause waiting for her to say something about how the shower is symbolic of my
need to cleanse myself of what happened and maybe even, of that relationship
and move on in life, but she doesn’t interrupt me. She sits still allowing me
to continue, so I do.
“I got in
the shower and as soon as I did, I saw a light red tint to the water, knowing
that some blood must still be on me, even though, I thought that I had gotten
it all off.”
Again I
pause, waiting for her to ask me the typical question of “and how did that make
you feel.” When she doesn’t say anything, I think to myself that she must
either be really new or really good at what she does. With that thought in my
mind, I proceed cautiously.
“I start to
pull my hands through my hair to help the water wet it, and I stop right away
because it hurts. My hand had graced over the spot on my head that I was hit,
and I feel the caked blood. As the water starts to saturate my hair completely,
what was before a tint of red water becomes dark, and I realize that I must be
more hurt than I originally thought that I was.”
“I start to
reach for the shampoo and conditioner, but then I think that I probably
shouldn’t. I let my fingertips touch the tender spot on my head again, and once
I feel the pain, I resolve to definitely not wash my hair.” This is the first
lie that I tell her. It won’t be the last, but it is definitely the first. The
real reason that I didn’t shampoo or condition my hair wasn’t the pain because
I could have handled that. It was because I actually thought to myself
No. You are a widow now. You are a heart broken widow, and a heart
broken widow barely even takes a shower, let alone washes her hair in that
shower.
I know that
saying that I had those thoughts wouldn’t paint me in the best light, so that
is why I tell my first lie, of many to come.
This had
been my longest pause yet because of everything I was thinking about, so she
prompts me to continue.
“So you
didn’t wash your hair…”
“No, I
didn’t wash my hair. I spent a long time washing my body, though. I felt so
unclean, after everything that happened in the car…” I pause and take a few
sudden gasps of breath. Make it
believable, I tell myself.
I close my
eyes to take one final deep breath, but I can hear the scratching of the pen on
the paper that she is holding. I hope that she is writing down what I want her
to be writing down which is that it is hard for me to talk about the event, a
common thing considering it was so traumatic, and also so recent. I say a
silent prayer let her believe that, let
her think that… only 48 more minutes.
After another minute with my
eyes closed, she pushes me to continue. “I can understand wanting to feel clean
after everything that you had gone through that day.”
I open my
eyes and nod. “I felt it so strongly; it was a need.” When I start that
sentence, I think that it is the second lie that I am telling, but as I say it,
it feels right. It was a need, not for the reasons that she or the police would
think that I needed it, but I did. “Plus being at the police station for all
those hours made me smell weird… not like myself or like him.”
I throw
that in there because I want her to be surprised that I would bring him up so
early, and in such a good light. That sentence says that I want to smell like
him. A guilty person wouldn’t want to smell like him, of course not. They would
want to get away from his smell, which I did, but she doesn’t need to know
that.
She looks
me in the eyes, gives me a sad nod, and looks back down to write something on
her paper. I want to tell her to stop writing, that I don’t really need this
therapy and that we are both just wasting our time, but of course I don’t. An
innocent person wouldn’t do that, so I am not doing that.
“Anyway, I
stayed in the shower for almost an hour, and I washed all of my body and then
just sat down and let the water mix with my tears. It was refreshing to feel
the warmth on my body for so long.”
“What did
you do once you got out of the shower?”
“I looked
around our room and I got some clothes out to put on.” There it is, lie number
two. I didn’t actually put clothes on. I walked around the house naked for a
while. It was a liberating feeling being able to do that without the chance of
getting caught, but of course, I couldn’t say that.
“What
clothes did you choose to put on?”
Uhh, 30 minutes to go. “I put on my old
sweatshirt, well actually it was his in college, but once he stopped wearing
it, it kind of became mine, so I put that on, and some old sweat pants.”
“That’s
interesting.”
If there is
one thing I have learned about psychologists it is that you never want to hear
the word “interesting” from them. It usually means that they can’t understand
why you would do that, or say that, or have that behavior, and thus, it never
means something good. “Why is that interesting?”
She looks
at me, appraising my interest in her word choice, and I hope that my face
reflects confusion and curiosity instead of the anger that I am feeling. I
guess I pass the test because then she responds. “Well, it was the middle of
summer in Arizona. You hadn’t been to your house in almost two days, so I am
assuming that your house was probably extremely hot with no one there to lower
the air when the heat wave hit, plus you had just gotten out of an hour long
hot shower that undoubtedly heated you up as well as your house, and the minute
you got out, you chose to put on even hotter clothes? That just makes it an
interesting choice.”
Damnit. I
was right, she isn’t new at her job; she is very good at her job. I mean, is
she a freaking detective? I realize that clearly, I am not paying enough
attention to this. Normally I wouldn’t have made that mistake. I am too focused
on making the time pass, but that is okay, I can fix this. I nod a slow nod, as
if what she said makes sense to me and doesn’t make me nervous, worried, or angry
like it really does. “That’s true. I guess that was always what I considered my
most comfortable outfit, and when I was having a bad day, I always put it on.
Old habits die hard, right?”
She nods
and smiles, and I think that I have passed this test, but that was already one
slip up too many. I can’t let that happen again.
“You know what, we only have twenty
minutes left. I think that we have focused enough on the sad stuff for right
now. Why don’t you tell me something great about your relationship. Tell me
about how you and Henry first met.”
At first I
think that I must have said something that struck her because she is trying to
give me a break from the sadness and maybe remind me of the good times with
Henry, but then I realize that it is a test. She is trying to see how I will
react and remember the good times with him. Will they be tainted now? Will I
perk up and seem like none of the bad ever happened? I decide to go for
somewhere in the middle. I don’t want to seem like the heartless bitch that I
am, but I also don’t want to seem like I have already forgotten what he has
“done” to me.
I give a
small smile and nod. “I met Henry when we were both twenty-two. He was this
great looking young finance major, and I was a journalism major. We both took
some random elective in college, I can’t even remember what is was now.”
(I do remember; it was criminal forensics, we both had an interest in
crime and how people got away with it, but since the college we attended no
longer had our records, I didn’t need to tell her that. Telling someone you
took a class like that a few weeks after what just happened couldn’t look
good.)
“I walked
into the classroom and looked around for an empty seat. There wasn’t much room
left because I was almost late, and then I looked over and Henry smiled and
pulled out the chair next to him. I sat down there, and as soon as we talked,
we were friends, instantly.” I give a sad smile, figuring I better lay it on
thick. Let her think oh, she really loved
him back then.
“Did you know
then?”
“Know
what?”
“That he
would be the one someday?”
“No, I
didn’t. Henry always says that he knew right then that I was going to be his
wife someday, but I took more convincing than that.”
She nods
and writes something down, which makes me frustrated.
“Did you
two start dating right away?”
“No. We
remained friends through-out the class, and then when it ended, we still both
wanted to see each other, so he asked me on a date, and that was” I take a deep
breath for emphasis, “how it all started.” I pause for a second, breathing
slowly, and quietly I add “Our love story.”
“I’m sorry,
I didn’t hear that last part?”
I look up
at Dr. Stevens, and clear my throat. “I said our love story… that was how our
love story started.” I sigh. I really am
laying this on thick.
Dr. Stevens
nods, and looks at the clock. “Well, that is all the time for today. We meet
again next week, same day, same time, okay?”
I nod and
pretend to wipe away a tear; hopefully giving her the allusion that reminiscing
about meeting Henry has made me sad. I stand up, and let Dr. Stevens lead me
out of her office.
In the car,
I pull out my pocket calendar that I always carry. I cross off today’s date. One day of therapy down, only a year’s
worth, left.
