Chapter Thirteen
Dr. Johnson wore a floaty, feminine top today, but Penny still couldn’t get the image of a sergeant-major out of her head.
“So, what’s been happening this week?” asked the doctor, looking at Penny over the top of her glasses and smiling. Penny smiled back.
“Well, we found a ghost at my theater.” Seemed to be as good a place as any to start. It couldn’t make the doctor think she was any crazier than she already did.
“Interesting,” replied Dr. Johnson, one eyebrow raised. “What do you mean, you found a ghost?”
As Penny told the story, she wondered whether the doctor’s conversations were really code for something else, that she listened to Penny’s words for verbal cues of other things. She supposed that would probably be so - after all, psychologists are the ones who analyze the mind, and there would be no analysis without gathering of data.
“You seem to be a little bit absent today,” the doctor remarked, and Penny flushed.
“Just thinking about other things,” she offered, and then internally groaned. That was probably exactly the kind of thing Dr. Johnson wanted to hear.
“What’s on your mind?”
Penny gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Right now? I was thinking about how you must have to listen over and above just having a conversation, so you can get an insight into what a person is actually saying.”
“You mean me, as in therapists?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Johnson smiled and took off her glasses. “Penny, most of what you say in here comes directly out of you. I might ask a question to lead your thoughts in a specific direction, but my purpose in being here is only to facilitate you working your own way through your own thoughts. And if those thoughts become frightening, or overwhelming, or dangerous, I’m here to walk you back to a place where you can have control.”
Penny took a moment to consider the doctor’s words. She didn’t like the thought of someone else digging around in her memories. But the way the doctor put it, it was more like Penny herself was doing the digging, and that Dr. Johnson was just there to lend a hand with the shovel from time to time, or to dig her out if there was a tunnel collapse or something.
She chuckled at her own analogy then flushed when she realized Dr. Johnson looking at her askance.
“It's okay, I was just laughing at my own thoughts.”
The doctor raised one eyebrow but smiled back at Penny. “I know we haven’t really had time enough together to build much trust, but I hope you can believe it when I say I’m here to help. Not judge. Not tell you what to do. Just to listen, ask questions, answer your questions, and apply what I know to try to help you.”
The sergeant-majorishness seemed to melt away, and Penny found herself looking into a pair of sympathetic blue eyes.
She looked away. It was uncomfortable, this talking about yourself. Especially when she was the type of person who had always shrunk back, happy for everyone else to be in the spotlight.
But no. That wasn’t exactly true. It was only since the pregnancy that she had been that way. Before that, she was just as outgoing and talkative as Lydia and Desiree.
Penny desperately wanted to be that person again. Free of blame and guilt and having the courage and audacity to say exactly what she was thinking. But the very thought of it also terrified her. She had been so passive for so long.
Could she go back? Was it possible that Dr. Johnson would be the way back for her?
In that moment, Penny decided that she would try.
“I appreciate that, Dr. Johnson,” she said. “And I have to say, although the thought of dredging up all my memories and feelings makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I hope you can help me.”
The doctor’s smile widened, crinkling her eyes. “Good.”
Penny exhaled a long breath that she didn’t realize she had been holding.
“Alright,” she said. “Where do we start?”
“Have you had any panic attacks this week?”
“I don’t think I’ve had any since I was here last, but the underlying reasons for them are still there.”
Penny heard her voice tighten and tried to blink back the tears that threatened to fall. She didn’t need to start bawling this quickly into the conversation.
“Oh?” said Dr. Johnson. “Have you thought about what the reasons are?”
Penny nodded, her lips pressed together. “There’s a few things. The stress of keeping such a secret from my best friends. How much I’ve changed since the pregnancy and abortion.”
Okay, it was time. The tears started to drip down her cheeks, not one at a time, but more like a flood that had been building up in her tear ducts for the past thirteen years, just waiting for this moment to come spilling out. “And the third thing is...”
She gulped and pursed her lips. She didn’t want to say this out loud. Saying it to someone else would be confessing a secret she never, ever wanted to let out, ever since she realised it for herself.
“The third thing?” Dr. Johnson prompted.
“I wish I’d never had the abortion.”
To the doctor’s credit, her face stayed impassive, although Penny noticed her lips tighten, just a little.
“How long have you felt like that?”
Penny smiled sadly through her tears. “Since soon after the abortion, but I think it was even while the appointments were being made.” She took a deep breath, and then whooshed it out, accepting with thanks the tissue Dr. Johnson offered her. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
“It’s a sizeable secret to keep for such a long time,” admitted Dr. Johnson. “Did you want to talk a little about it?”
“Yes.” Penny surprised herself, but now that she had let the cat out of the bag, she actually really wanted to talk. “When I first told my parents that I was pregnant and wanted an abortion, they were so good to me. They basically screened me off from all the negativity that might be there. They took over organizing doctors’ appointments and clinic appointments and things, they drove me wherever I needed to go, and I was never alone going through any of that stuff.”
The doctor nodded. “The support of your family during that time must have been a great relief.”
“It was,” agreed Penny, “only by that time I was wondering if it was the right thing to do, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice anymore, that I was being swept along and that things were too far along for me to change my mind.”
The scalding tears continued to flow as she took her mind back to that time, thirteen years ago. Shocked by her boyfriend’s abandonment, scared of telling her parents and her friends that she was having a baby, but just as scared of having a termination, it had seemed the obvious choice for someone as young and clueless as her to make. She wasn’t ready for parenthood. Blind Freddie could see that.
“So, I just did what I was told, went to the appointments I needed to go to, and the abortion happened around me. It was only when they started the suction that my mind started screaming at me.” Penny rubbed her face with her hands, not caring if she ended up with mascara from one side to the other. “I thought about the child, and the fact that I was taking its life away before it even had a chance to do anything. I thought I could be terminating the next Picasso or Mozart. I could be killing the person who was supposed to come up with the cure for cancer, or diabetes or something. But even if they were only going to be a regular person, who was I to decide if that person lived or died?”
Sobbing outright by now, Penny covered her face with her hands, her words muffled. “But by then it was too late. It was all over.”
Dr. Johnson left Penny to sob for a few moments but came to sit beside her and pat her shoulder, murmuring noises of comfort that weren’t really words, just soft sounds.
When Penny’s cries started to settle, she pulled her hands away from her face and looked at the other woman. “I pushed my feelings down deep. There was no way I was discussing it with anyone. I didn’t want my parents to feel any of my guilt, and I resented them for pushing me along, even though I knew I was what I’d asked for and I just didn’t want my friends to know anything about it. So, I insulated myself a bit, you know, boxed myself in a bit, became way more passive than I wanted to be. But by doing that, I could forget about my baby. But now? The thoughts are coming just on their own. And I think I need some kind of closure to make it all go away. But how do you get over the fact that you killed another human being - and not only that, one that you helped bring to life in the first place?”
Dr. Johnson nodded in sympathy. “It’s going to be tough, Penny. What we’re looking at here is bringing your memories to the fore, acknowledging them, and forgiving them. And the only person who will be able to do that will be you.” She smiled. “But I can certainly help.”
“Can you? How?”
“Oh, I have a few tricks up my sleeves,” Dr. Johnson said airily. “Ways of working through your own feelings and letting yourself acknowledge and let go. But,” she leaned forward and took off her glasses, “I do think there are a couple of other things you will need to do as well.”
“What’s that?”
“I think eventually you’ll need to come clean with your parents and friends.”
Penny blew out a big sigh. “I’m not sure I can do that. I mean, I could probably talk to my parents, but my friends don’t know anything about this at all.”
“Well, let's start with working out how you might approach your parents, then, can we?”
“Okay.” Penny grimaced. “It’s not going to be easy, is it?”
Dr. Johnson smiled. “Probably not, but with a few strategies, I think we might be able to make it easier for you. Did you want to do that? Work through how you might approach them?”
Penny nodded, hoping for the first time in a long time that maybe she could get a handle on these feelings. With a smile, she launched into discussion with Dr. Johnson.