Chapter 33

 

 

It was the following Tuesday before I finally got out of the house. Marta knew, she’d been with me for a long time now. She knew I wasn’t sick, but surprisingly she only gave me a pitiful smile, letting me know how dumb I was. She never mentioned my sudden illness that kept me upstairs unless she was out of the house. I smiled back, confirming her suspicions.

Drew and I never talked about the divided therapy, not that we ever did, but I thought maybe he would say something about how I defended Dawson. He didn’t, and I didn’t mention it either. He never gave me a time to be back, asked where I was going, or what I was going for when I told him I was meeting Alicia for lunch. Maybe that was a good sign and maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know, it just felt strained between us for whatever reason. I mean, nothing had really changed, and I doubted that Deidra’s twenty minutes of one-on-one fazed him. Drew didn’t really work off of guilt or blame.

“I’ll see you in a while,” I said, reaching up to kiss him.

“Okay, see you later,” he offered, kissing me. What the hell? I needed more than Deidra. Drew wasn’t asking a million questions, demanding to know my every move, or insisting anything. He was just letting me go. I didn’t like it. Why didn’t I like it? I should have been jumping for joy. I wasn’t. I felt rejected. This was so fucked up.

“I love you,” he said with warm words to my lips and a pat on my ass, beckoning me to leave him alone so he could work. That was it. Just like that, he let me go without one dominating order. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

“I was beginning to think you were avoiding me,” Alicia said, standing. My eyes went right towards the counter. Yes. He was working. Now what?

“I would never avoid you. I love you. What would I do without you?”

“You know you can call and talk to me anytime, right?” Alicia offered.

“Yes, of course. How’s my baby girl.”

“Fussy. She got her first shots yesterday.”

“Ahhh, poor baby.”

“I know. Celeste walked her up and down the hall half the night.”

“I thought she looked tired.”

“What are you doing? Why do you keep looking at that guy?”

I took a deep breath. I needed Alicia. I needed her help if I was ever going to pull this off.

“Remember that key I found in the envelope?”

“No, Morgan. Let it go. You’re not going to go play detective. The safety deposit box is in Drew’s name. He’s the only one that can get in there.”

“Yes, but if I could pay this guy to cut his hair like Drew’s, wear a designer suit, and steal Drew’s driver’s license, it might work.”

“You have lost your mind. You think that guy is going to take a chance on going to prison for you, cut his beautiful hair, and impersonate Drew? You’re crazy. Stop it. You’re not doing this. How would you pay the guy anyway? Drew keeps you under lock and key and controls your checkbook.”

“With this,” I taunted with a very expensive necklace.

“Now you’ve really lost it.”

“Come on, Alicia. You’re the only person I have. Help me, please,” I begged.

“Morgan, what do you think is in there?”

“I don’t know, but it just doesn’t make sense. Why would Drew need a safe at the bank? There’s something in there that he doesn’t want me to ever find. I know it and I need to find out for myself.”

“You’re going to pawn your necklace to pay this guy? What if he says no?”

“Then I will let it go, but I have to try. He’s working in a sandwich shop. I don’t know how much this thing is worth, but I’m sure it would be enough to persuade him.”

“I’m sure of it too, but what are you going to tell Drew?”

“I’ve already thought about that. I wore it out of the house today. I’m going to whine about losing it when I get home. He’ll never know the difference.”

“You’re serious about this?” Alicia asked as my new friend placed our customary sandwiches in front of us.

“Very,” I replied, looking at the resemblance again. I smiled at the guy, hoping to inch my way in a little.

“Morgan, he really doesn’t look that much like Drew,” Alicia tried discouraging me.

“He does too. You’re the one that pointed it out. I bet if we get him a haircut, and put him in a suit, he would pass just fine using Drew’s identification.

“And what if it doesn’t work? How do you plan on getting Drew’s license from him? And Celeste already gave me hell for lying for you; you know when you sneakily used my phone to find out what you needed to get in.”

“What did you tell her? I don’t want her saying anything to Drew.”

“She won’t, but she forbade me to get involved. She sort of needs her job, especially now that I am a stay at home mom.”

“Drew can’t fire her. Technically she works for me.”

“Not really. You have no say in anything you do.”

That pissed me off. I didn’t like her insinuating things she had no clue about. Well, maybe a little clue, but I still didn’t want her meddling. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“I hate you. What do you want me to do?”

“Yes! And I love you.”

***

Now I really hated Deidra, no, not Deidra, I loved her. I hated these sessions more now than ever. We were pretty much finished with the dirty laundry, and Deidra wanted to dig deeper. I didn’t want to dig anything. Drew and I were already feeling the tension. We had for a couple weeks now, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Let’s talk about the harsh truth now,” Deidra began.

 Great, just what I wanted to hear, her view on the harsh truth. “I’m not sure you see the potential danger you are in, Morgan,” she began.

Drew got up and ran his fingers through his hair, pacing the floor. He didn’t say anything though. He let her continue.

“I’m not in any danger,” I assured her. “We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“Really? Now, I’m very interested,” Deidra snidely commented, crossing her arms and ankles, leaning against her desk. “Explain to me what you do have, Morgan.”

“I don’t know. You answer that, Drew.”

“No, Drew is not going to answer that. You always want Drew to do the talking. Let’s have Morgan do the talking today.”

I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to get out of there and meet Alicia. I was more concerned with how far she got with our new friend than I was hashing things out with Deidra. “You call it whatever what you want. Your opinion of Drew and me is just that, your opinion.”

“Okay, I’ll call it. You can stop me if I’m wrong. I think you’re with Drew for maybe a couple reasons. First thing, you don’t know any better.”

“I don’t know any better? That’s stupid.”

“Is it? I think it’s a very good possibility. You never grew up with that. You never had that role model in your life. You were lacking men that loved and nurtured their woman. You told me yourself that your father hit your mother.”

“He wasn’t my father, and this isn’t some damn movie where everything is a mirage. How many relationships have you been in? What makes you the relationship expert? You think because you went to school for a few years, got a piece of paper awarding you some degree, that makes you an expert?”

“Morgan?” Drew questioned my mental state, interrupting my rant.

I shot him a dirty look. Did he have any room at all to calm me down? I think not. What the hell was I getting so worked up for anyway? It was Alicia. I wanted to know what the hell was going on there, and it had me anxious as hell. “Go ahead with your observation of my life,” I calmly said to Deidra.

“Okay, let’s just say that’s only one piece of the puzzle. Let’s add another piece and I will speculate about it, that’s it. I’m not giving facts, okay?”

“Whatever, go ahead, speculate.”

“I think you have thought for a very long time now that you can change him.”

“Drew has changed.”

“Has he?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Yes. He has.”

“Why couldn’t you make it in last week, Morgan? Drew is never going to change. Drew has no reason to change.”

“I have every reason in the world to change,” Drew interjected.

“What? Give me one reason you have to change,” Deidra countered.

“Right there, sitting right in front of you.” Drew waved his hand towards me.

“Why would you change for her? You have everything you want with her. She is your biggest enabler. I see no reason you need to change for Morgan. She lets you tell her what, when, where, and how. She hides away, battered and bruised until the evidence has disappeared so nobody thinks ill of Drew. I’ve told you before, Mr. Kelley, I’m not here to bow down to you like most people do. If you don’t want the cold hearted truth, by all means, there’s the door.”

Drew didn’t move. Drew was caving. He knew she spoke the truth. Why wasn’t he demanding that we leave?

“Morgan, there is nothing wrong with you believing you can change your husband. A lot of women stay with abusive men because of that reason. You can’t change him, Morgan.”

“What good do you think this is doing? Are you trying to get my wife to leave me?”

“No, Drew. Not at all. I’m trying to get your wife to understand that she can’t change you. You have to change you, and whether you want to own up to it or not you have a short fuse when it comes to Morgan. Call it your buttons or whatever you want, but I am afraid for her. I don’t like her being alone with you.”

“I’m not going to hurt her.”

“You do hurt her, Drew,” Deidra pled. Drew looked at me with haunted eyes. I wasn’t sure what to say. He did hurt me, but it was okay. He knew when to stop, and the way he was after it, made it all worth it. Oh, god. What was I saying? I just told myself that it was okay for Drew to hit me because he’d be nice to me afterwards.

“Would you say that the times Drew has hit you over the past few months have become more frequent?” Deidra asked me.

Dropping my head, I answered in a quiet tone. “Yes.”

“Would you say that you’ve also changed over the last few months?”

“No, I don’t think so. Have I Drew?” I looked to my sad husband.

“You’re not silly with me anymore,” Drew admitted like it had just dawned on him.

“What do you mean?” Deidra asked while Drew and I stared at each other scared, afraid of what was happening to us.

“You’re back to just existing with me. I don’t want that.”

“What do you want, Drew? What does Morgan do that makes you happy? How do you want her to be?”

Drew shrugged one shoulder. “A couple months back, we left here after a pretty intense session. Morgan drove because I had a few drinks here.”

“Let’s go to McDonalds and get a happy meal.” I smiled, remembering my words and making Drew happy.

“I thought she needed comfort food, so I agreed. She literally ordered us two cheeseburger happy meals. We played doctor that night with the tiny toy flashlights. Mine broke in ten minutes.” Drew smiled at me with a crooked, gloomy grin. “I want that Morgan. I want the silly Morgan, the one that’s not afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Drew.” I wasn’t afraid of him, was I?

“I think you guys have something special, I think you have a love for each other that most people never know. I also feel like you’re in a romantic entanglement, treading on dangerous territory. You’re going to snap, Drew. Something bad is going to happen. I can’t help you if you think you’re fine.”

“I’m not fine.” Drew admitted.

“Morgan, you have to realize, you cannot change Drew. You can only change the way you react to him. We’ll work on a few exercises, so you know better how to handle the situations. Remember that it’s not you. It’s deeper than that, rooted in multiple layers of Drew’s emotions and perspectives, and you can’t argue with logic with an unreasonable person. I don’t want you to try anymore. Okay?”

“Don’t try to talk him down?” I asked.

“You don’t do that,” Drew stated.

“What do you mean? Yes, I do?” I asked.

“What happened last week, Morgan, when I hit you? What happened right before I hit you?” He looked at me, trying to get me to remember.

“You got mad at me because I didn’t want to give Nicholas his way.”

“No, after that, after I argued with you?”

“You’re going to blame me because you hit me?”

“No, Morgan. That’s not what I am asking you. I am asking you what you said to me right before I hit you. I’m just trying to get you to see the pattern too.”

“I yelled, ‘Fuck you,’ to you.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to be part of the exercise,” Deidra explained. “That’s probably not the best thing to come back with when you’re dealing with an abusive man.”

“Will you stop calling me that?” Drew asked.

“No. I want you to hear that word. I want you to hate that word and separate yourself from it, avoid it like the plague.”

“You don’t think leaving him is an option, do you, Morgan?”

“No.”

“It is. It’s always an option and there are lots of things you can do to keep him away from you, however, I know that’s not what you want. What would it take for you to leave him? What would be that last straw, the breaking point? Look at me, Morgan,” Deidra ordered when I turned to Drew.

“He came pretty close last week. He did it in front of my son. I’m not going to let him grow up that way.” I didn’t look at Drew. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see the realization in his eyes of me taking Nicholas and leaving him.

I didn’t like this part of therapy. It hurt too much and made me think about things I didn’t want to think about. I wanted to go back to our life stories. This part was tougher than I’d anticipated. I really don’t know what I expected, but hearing it put so bluntly made it real. Drew was abusive, and I enabled him. I let him have control. I handed it over to him like it was my duty. I fed fuel to his fire by permission.

My safe word was Nicholas. Whenever I felt threatened or afraid of Drew that was the safe word I picked. Deidra told me to use something comforting to Drew, something that he loved or cherished. There were only two things I could think of that he prized. One was me and one was Nicky. I didn’t want to choose my name, not when I was the one about to receive his wrath. Nicholas was the safer choice. He loved him so much and would never hurt him.