16
I was surprised my father was alone when he came for me. I’d thought he was bringing Dana with him. He had called before he set out and then called when he was close, so I went out to the lobby to wait for him. I had told Marcy and Claudia that my father was taking me to lunch and spending most of the day with me. Both went on about their own fathers and how the visits they would get were clearly “guilt” visits. I avoided giving them as much detail about my parents’ breakup as I could, leaving it cloaked in the typical generality: “They couldn’t get along. They had developed different tastes and just lost that magical thing that had first brought them together.” I could truthfully add that compromise was not in my mother’s vocabulary.
That set them off talking more about their own parents. Even though Claudia’s had not divorced, she still had stories that rivaled Marcy’s, describing what it had been like living in a war zone. They both made it sound as if they had to navigate thunder and lightning from the moment they woke up in the morning to the moment they fell asleep at night. The most I would say was “Yes, it was something like that before my parents divorced.” It seemed to be enough, at least for now, but it made me wonder just how shocked they would be if they knew the truth about me. The world I had woven around me here was as thin as the membrane of a chicken egg.
I rushed out to my father when he pulled in and got into the car before he could get out to hug me. He looked surprised but leaned over to kiss me hello.
“Everything all right?” he asked. “You look like you want to make a getaway or something.”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to have to deal with some of the busybodies. I thought Dana was coming, too,” I said.
“I’m picking her up while you’re in with Dr. Alexander. As it turns out, she’s not far away. We’ll be taking you to lunch after that. I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it with her yet, and I didn’t want you to be any more uncomfortable. But she knows everything,” he quickly added. “She’s been a great person to bounce things off. You’ll like her for sure.”
“Does Mother know I’m doing this?”
“Oh, no,” he said, starting out of the parking lot. “The less detail she knows about the entire situation, the better for her right now.”
“But does she know that Haylee might come home for Thanksgiving?”
“Dr. Alexander advised me not to say anything until after you and she meet,” he replied, and looked at me. “It’s seriously in your hands, Kaylee. Without your okay, I won’t permit it.”
“What about Haylee? Does she know it might happen?”
“I’m not sure, actually. Probably not,” he added. “I would understand if Dr. Alexander believed that promising something that might not happen would result in a setback.”
“Setback? Then you really believe she has made progress, changed, and accepted responsibility?”
“She’s different,” he said.
“How?” I pursued, forcing him to convince me.
“I would never have used this word for her, even before the terrible thing she did to you, but I’d say she’s meek. I won’t say meeker, because she’s never been even slightly humble. I saw it in you, this milder, modest side, but never in her, and when I mentioned that to your mother once, she nearly bit my head off. To her, it was impossible that there would be such a dramatic personality difference between the two of you. All she would agree to was that you might be a little better at hiding what she called ‘super confidence’ than Haylee was, but it was a difference only she could see. Even I couldn’t see it. I was simply not around the two of you enough. That was always her argument.”
I was silent. Mother wasn’t far from the truth when it came to that, but I thought his not being around enough was her fault. My father wanted to avoid the confrontations that would inevitably be there. In her eyes, he was bound always to make a mistake in the way he treated Haylee and me. No matter how slight an error, it was still a serious issue for Mother. Forget to kiss one of us hello, forget to ask one of us the same question about school, or forget to give one of us a similar compliment, and she would pounce like a wildcat. Who could blame him for trying to slip in and out of our lives as unnoticed as possible, especially when we were very young?
“What does Dr. Alexander want to hear from me?”
“I honestly don’t know, Kaylee. You know how this psychiatrist, therapist, or whatever she calls herself can be. She wouldn’t confide even in me for fear I’d have you prepared or something,” he said. “If I hadn’t seen changes in Haylee myself, I’d continue to call it all voodoo.” He smiled. “Let’s not dwell on it. You’ll know soon enough. Tell me about this boy you’re seeing.”
“His name is Troy Matzner. His father is the CEO of a major telecom company, Broadscan.”
“I know it. Powerful company, international. That’s a big job.”
“They live in a mansion once owned by a coal baron here. It’s like the estate of a king or something.”
“So you’ve been there? What is the family like? Brothers, sisters?”
I swallowed down all that I normally would want to tell him, but I was afraid that he wouldn’t want me to associate with someone who was also suffering from deep psychological wounds. The whole reason he had arranged for me to be at Littlefield was to be around healthier teenagers who led what we could call a “normal life.” That way, I’d have less time to remember and relive my own miserable events.
“His father was away on a business trip, and his mother had a previous engagement, so I didn’t meet his parents. He has a younger sister, but she’s in a private school, too.”
“Oh. Nice house?”
“Over-the-top nice.” I was comfortable talking about the house, the paintings, the dual stairway, and Troy’s father’s office, but I skipped mentioning the indoor pool. Just thinking about it made me blush.
It was at times like this when I missed having a mother or even Haylee when we were close and could honestly share things. I wasn’t what anyone would call a feminist, probably, but for me, it was true that women had things they were comfortable sharing only with other women. Even a daughter, no matter how close to her father, couldn’t bring him into that territory.
I wondered how fathers, even in this day and age, centuries in time and thought from the Victorian era, reacted to realizing that their daughters were no longer virgins. Was the first reaction always disappointment, sadness? For fathers especially, it was a double standard, I thought. If I was a son instead, I could imagine him smiling, recalling his own first time, and then quickly warning me to be careful.
But how would he view the girl his son had been with? Would she drop seriously in his estimation and respect? Would he believe, even hope, that she was temporary? And if they did go on together and eventually get engaged and married, would he always harbor that little disrespect he had felt for her? Would he rather have had his son come to him for advice, asking him if he should remain with a girl who wouldn’t do it? What advice would he have given? If she doesn’t think of you as special enough to do it, drop her now? Or would he say, She sounds very special, son. Cherish her?
We were always worrying about what our girlfriends would think of us. We knew our mothers would be concerned and stress protection, but we avoided thinking about our fathers’ reactions. Was it simply out of embarrassment, or were we truly ashamed? For so many girls I knew, having their fathers’ respect was of primary importance, even more important than having their mothers respect them.
“Sounds like quite a house,” my father said. “But you’re not really telling me much about him. Troy?”
“Yes. His sister’s real name is Jocasta. His mother was into Greek mythology or something.”
“No kidding? That’s . . . different.”
“He’s very bright, a four-point-oh student. He’s very interested in international politics.”
“Better-looking than me?”
“Oh, it’s neck-and-neck,” I said, and he laughed.
Then he turned serious, and I knew what was coming. “Have you said anything, confide—”
Here we go, I thought. There was no skimming the truth here.
“He overheard me talking to you one night and checked me out on his own.”
“Oh?”
“But he wasn’t discouraged, and he’s not the type to spread stories. Actually, he’s a bit of a loner, a very serious person.”
My father nodded. He didn’t have to say it. I could hear him thinking it: If he knows your story and is still interested in you, he’s either quite the young man or quite strange.
“Hopefully, I’ll meet him next time I come up here. Maybe I’ll take you two to lunch or something.”
“Maybe. Tell me about Mother,” I said, hoping to change the topic. “I’ve called often. When she gets on the phone, she gives me monosyllabic answers to everything, and she still doesn’t ask me much about Littlefield.”
“I stop by periodically. Irene tells me she’s doing better. She looks better. She is caring for herself more and has more energy.”
“Good.”
He looked at me with that expression that said, There is a little more to it.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?”
“To tell you the truth, Kaylee, it’s a little eerie.”
“Why?”
“She seems to be preparing for Haylee’s imminent return. You’ll find she’s done some work on her room.”
“Haylee’s?”
“Yes. She’s changed the decor, the bedding. There are new curtains, and yesterday she had a new rug installed.”
“Different from mine?”
He nodded.
We were both silent.
“That’s good, Daddy,” I said, after considering what it meant.
He smiled. “I think so, too, and so does Dr. Jaffe. For whatever reasons, she’s letting go of her obsession with the two of you. Actually,” he said, turning to me, “I think she’s accepted some of the responsibility. It only took nearly eighteen years.”
“It took more than just time,” I said.
He dropped his smile. “Yes, of course.”
“Now, you tell me more about Dana,” I ordered. “And tell me how serious it’s become.”
He saluted. “Yes, boss,” he said, and began.
I listened, but my mind clung to thoughts about my mother. Was she really ready to accept the differences between Haylee and me? If only she had done so years ago, none of the terrible things might have happened. How easy it would be for me to hate her, but how warm and hopeful it made me feel to learn of the changes coming over her.
I did pick up enough from my father’s descriptions of Dana to realize he had been developing a wonderful relationship with her. She sounded unselfish and sensitive but, as he wanted to be sure to point out, fun to be with. Sometimes, I thought, if you were willing to share your vulnerabilities with someone, you could find someone you could be happy with. You wouldn’t be alone anymore. No matter how many friends you had or how popular you were, if you locked up that troubled part of yourself, you would always be alone. I knew that few girls my age would be this wise. The journey I was forced to make to come to this point was not one I’d wish on my worst enemy, but nevertheless, it was there: something good from something so horribly bad.
“Almost there,” my father said about an hour later.
I was prepared to see another impressive house. After all, Dr. Alexander was an important psychiatrist at the correctional facility. I had never asked my father much about her personally, but now, when we turned down a side road and passed one modest home after another, I wondered about her. Was she married? Did she have children? I asked my father.
“To be honest, I never inquired about her, Kaylee. None of that seemed important.”
I nodded, but I disagreed. I didn’t care how professional she was or how many degrees she could list after her name. If she was someone with a family, her view of what had happened to us had to be different from that of someone who lived alone, who maybe never had a serious romantic relationship, and who had only professional relationships with young people. Everything doesn’t come out of a book or a laboratory.
When the GPS announced we had arrived, I thought I had some answers. Her home was a single-level with a nice stone front, but it looked small to me and had only a single-car garage. We pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment. Outside, there were no signs of young children, no playthings. The lawn was well kept, with unpretentiously arranged bushes and flowers. She lived alone, I thought. I looked at my father and imagined he was coming to similar conclusions.
“It’s the sort of house someone might have inherited,” he decided. “Could be a starter home, very young family. She’s not that old.”
“I don’t remember her wearing a wedding ring.”
“Whatever. She’s the one who wields the sword,” he said, and opened his door. “I’ll just get you started and then go for Dana, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and got out.
She had obviously been keeping an eye out for us. The front door opened before we reached it over the short but neatly tiled walkway. Unlike the way she dressed at the institution, she was wearing a forest-green waffle-knit sweater and dark green jeans with a pair of navy wool boat shoes similar to a pair Marcy had. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She looked relaxed but still had that smart, fashionable, and attractive look. My mind raced. Why wasn’t she married? Or had she been? What was it like for a psychiatrist who fails in a marriage? Was that like a fat physical trainer or something?
“Hi,” she said. “Right on time. Thank you for bringing her here,” she said to my father.
“The miracle of GPS.”
“I know.” She smiled at me. “You look well, Kaylee. Come in. Please.”
“I’m going to leave her with you,” my father said. “I have to pick someone up. What do you figure, an hour?”
“At least. I have some nice cookies and some great tea or whatever you like,” she told me.
I looked at my father and raised my eyes toward the sky. Cookies?
“I’m okay,” I told him. He nodded.
“See you then,” he said, and started away.
Dr. Alexander stepped back for me to enter.
The simplicity of the outside was reflected in the interior as well. Nothing in her small living room appeared particularly expensive. The pictures on the wall were all prints that looked chosen more for decor than for art. In fact, I thought they were quite bland depictions of country scenes, nature. The house was well kept but not nearly with the obsession Troy’s mother enforced. I saw she had a book turned over on a side table and a cup and saucer beside it. There were magazines on the coffee table, and a jacket had been thrown over the back of a large cushioned chair across from the sofa. She moved quickly to pick it up.
“Something to drink?” she asked. “Soda? Tea?”
“I’m fine.”
“Please,” she said, pointing to the chair. She hung the jacket on a hook in the small entryway and returned to sit on the sofa. “So, all is going well at your new school?”
“Yes, I like it very much.”
“Very wise decision to change schools,” she said.
I really didn’t want to talk about myself. I had done enough of that with my own therapist and my father. I also was afraid I had become one of those special cases for psychiatrists, one that would be cited in textbooks or something.
“Does anyone you treat ever really get better?” I asked aggressively, to make it clear that I wasn’t here for myself.
I could see that her training enabled her to deflect the slings and arrows in my tone and question.
She shrugged. “I think it’s a matter of degree rather than stamping someone with approval and saying he or she has been completely cured. Some are like cancer patients and go into remission. We hope it will last, but there is a high percentage of regression, too.”
“And where does my sister fit into that analysis?”
She smiled. I was forcing her to get right down to it. No dilly-dallying here.
“There are, and I suspect always have been, significant differences between the two of you, no matter how you were raised and what you were told. Your sister is nowhere near as direct, for one,” she said, and leaned forward. “She subtle, she’s conniving, and she’s very clever. She has an excellent eye for reading the situation and adjusting it to her benefit. But,” she said, sitting back again, “I suspect you knew all this.”
“It doesn’t sound like you think she’s improved.”
“Honestly, I’m not completely sold one way or the other, which is why I think you’re important in this now. I can observe and confront her in therapy forever and not have the insight you have when it comes to her and, I imagine, she has when it comes to you. That much about the two of you I will grant your mother.”
“You’re going to blame her, too?”
“I don’t think it’s of any real value to us now to assign blame. I always found guilt to be a tricky thing. Nothing is really black-and-white when it comes to that.” She smiled. “It doesn’t help to say ‘the devil made me do it,’ either. I think the thing about our relationships is how much we share in creating them and the results that follow. When they’re negative, the relief we experience comes only from being honest with ourselves, first and foremost. If Eve wasn’t vain, she never would have listened to the snake.”
“But who made her vain?”
“So we continue to spread the guilt around, look for ways to escape the truth about ourselves. To get to the point, I think your sister has cut back on that. I’m not saying completely, but maybe enough to face and accept responsibility. With that could come regret, and with regret comes a desperate need for forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?”
“Which brings us to you.”
“And what you want to know from this visit is if I am capable of forgiving her?”
“Something like that. You have to want to, of course. You’re in control, Kaylee. What you want and what you do will determine how this eventually goes for yourself but also for Haylee and your parents.”
“So no matter what I suffered, the pressure shifts to me? I’ll receive either compliments or blame?”
“Isn’t that always true? In the end, the victim either decides to go on hating, seeking revenge, or he or she lets go. The victim has to accept that society has dealt justice, but to continue wanting more only keeps the violence and abuse done to him or her alive. Don’t you want to bury it, too?”
I looked down. I was determined to be hard and reluctant, no matter what, but the reasonableness of what she was saying was too overpowering.
“She has to be sorry,” I said. “To be really sorry.”
“Oh, I agree with that. And no matter what tests I put her through and what the opinions of my associates, to my way of thinking, especially in this case, only you can decide if she is. What I will tell you is that she has suffered, too. The catatonic condition you witnessed was triggered by her inability to face the truth, the responsibility.”
“I thought she was angry that I didn’t look as devastated as she’d hoped,” I said.
“That, too, but whatever the main cause, it was a form of escape. We had to treat it, and it didn’t last. All the self-deprecating things she has done while in the institution only reinforced my diagnosis,” she said.
She paused. I looked away. Strangely, I wanted and didn’t want to hear all this at the same time.
“Sure you don’t want something to drink?” she asked.
“Maybe just some water.”
She went to the kitchen. I looked around the living room more closely and saw a picture of people who had to be her parents. I didn’t see pictures of any brother or sister.
She returned with a glass of water.
“Thank you.”
She waited for me to drink. “I think Haylee has made a turn in the journey,” she continued. “How far and how strong a turn is something we’ll have to see, you’ll have to see. What I want to stress here is that your opinion will matter most to me, Kaylee. Before you return to school, your father will bring you back to see me. I’d rather we met here again. Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
“But first we have to decide if you’re willing to have this happen.”
“I think my mother is anticipating it.”
“What do you want?” she insisted.
“I want to return to being five years old,” I said.
She smiled.
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t deny that I’m curious about her.”
“Would you, could you, accept her apology and welcome her remorse?”
“If it’s true, yes,” I said.
She leaned back again. “You’re both quite remarkable, despite how you were raised, but even though you were the one who truly suffered a life-affecting experience of horrid proportions, I think you’re going to be fine, outstanding, and more successful. Any visions of what you’d like to do?”
“Maybe what you’re doing,” I said. Her eyes widened as she smiled with surprise. “Now, you tell me something about yourself. What brought you here, to the place you’re at?”
Her smile didn’t fade as much as it was replaced with a look of vulnerability that only someone much, much younger might have.
“I was one of those children who never stopped asking why from the first day I could. Most of us have this quiet acceptance. Things happen, and we go on, but doing that never satisfied me. I was particularly aggressive in school. Most of my teachers actually tried to avoid me. My hand was always up after they said something. I was once sent to the principal because I was too disruptive with my demands to know the reasons behind rules. So it seemed natural for me to go into psychiatry.”
“I don’t suppose that made you popular with girlfriends and especially boys.”
She laughed. “No, it didn’t, but I learned how to control my inquisitiveness.”
“You were never married?”
“I was engaged once, but my fiancé collapsed under the scrutiny.”
“You caught him cheating on you,” I said.
“Something like that. You are going to do well,” she added. “I’m impressed. How is your social life at this new school, since we’re getting personal?”
“It’s good. I’ve met someone.”
For a moment, I wondered if I might not tell her everything about Troy. She was a psychiatrist, after all. Maybe she could offer some advice, but then I thought that would be a kind of betrayal. Troy was keeping my horrible experience secret. How could I not keep his?
“That’s great,” she said. “Again, I’m impressed. Dr. Sacks has done well with you. Well, I don’t know about you, but I would like to sample the cookies I made. I followed my mother’s recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip. How about it?”
“Maybe one . . . or two,” I said. “Where are your parents?”
“My mother passed away a little more than two years ago. Cancer. My father works on a cargo vessel, and since my mother’s death, he takes every assignment he can. He says travel keeps the lid on grief. This was their house. He signed it over to me, and for now it’s enough.”
“Life’s not easy, is it?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “But neither is the other option. C’mon,” she urged. “Let’s have some tea or coffee and talk about your school a little more. You’re more interesting.”
“Classic avoidance,” I said.
“Yes,” she confessed, smiling. “C’mon.” She reached for my hand, and I rose.
When my father arrived, he found us both laughing and sampling cookies in the living room. The look of shock changed quickly to a smile of relief.
“You can come to pick up Haylee anytime Thursday morning,” Dr. Alexander told him.
“Okay.”
“Bring her back on Friday morning. I’ve only been able to manage the one-day pass for now.”
“Fine,” my father said.
“Let’s give Kaylee a chance to think through the experience. You can bring her back here on your way to her school on Sunday. I’ll be here all day,” she said.
He nodded and looked to me.
“Thank you,” I told Dr. Alexander. “Your mother had a great cookie recipe.”
She nodded, and my father and I left. Dana was in the car. I got into the backseat quickly. Dr. Alexander waved, and my father backed out.
“Hi, Kaylee,” Dana said. “I’m Dana Cartwell.”
I didn’t shake her hand so much as grasp it and smile.
“Well, I guess that went well,” my father said.
“Yes,” I said.
The momentary silence that followed hammered home that I didn’t want to discuss it in front of Dana. She was still a stranger to me, despite how well he and she were getting along.
For most of the time after my father had left the house and gone through with the divorce, I didn’t like to think of him being with someone else. It didn’t bother Haylee. She saw that it did bother me, so she teased me a lot, imagining him going around with “probably a much younger woman.” She said men were like that, especially during a divorce. Their egos needed to be stroked. When I asked her how she was so sure of it, she answered the way she usually did: “I just know.”
The implication was clear. Haylee believed she had better instincts than I had and was far wiser when it came to male-female relationships. Maybe she was wiser, but I didn’t have to believe her or think about my father and another woman if I didn’t want to. Now I had no choice.
At lunch, I relaxed a bit and revealed more about my visit with Dr. Alexander. Dana mostly listened and spoke only to reinforce something my father said. But afterward, when we had left the restaurant and I happened to glance into the front window of a clothing store and saw an attractive sweater, she picked up on it faster than my father and suggested that we take a look at it. Fortunately, the store had a chair and some magazines so he could be occupied while Dana and I sifted through some unique fashions. I couldn’t help myself from fighting against liking her, but she was very relaxed with me, and I found that the effect of female company, doing things a mother and a daughter should be doing, was stronger than my instinctive resentment of anyone taking some of my father’s affections.
She actually persuaded me to buy a different sweater and then plucked a matching cap off the shelf and convinced my father it was absolutely necessary. He wasn’t really going to resist anything anyway.
On the way back to Littlefield, Dana talked more openly about herself, her youth and school. She and my father joked about people at the company, and for a solid hour, I thought nothing about why I had made this trip and what was soon to follow.
They both hugged me when we parted in the dorm parking lot.
“I’ll get up here by eleven on Wednesday,” my father said. “I’ll pick up Haylee early on Thursday and let her see her new room and settle in before Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Okay.”
He gave me another hug and kiss. “I’m really so proud of you,” he said.
I tried desperately to keep from crying, and he knew the best way to help me do that was to leave quickly. I waved to them and then hurried into the dorm. Thankfully, neither Marcy nor Claudia was there.
The first thing I did was call Troy.
“I’ve been waiting like an expectant father,” he said.
“Give me forty-five minutes to shower and change, and then come get me.”
“And? What happened?”
“The new baby’s coming. Whether she’s good or evil remains to be seen.”