Chapter One

Session One:

            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.