What you need to know:
Jennifer learns that her new husband (Rick), an accomplished doctor and overall good man, has many needs he would like her to fulfill. She works to balance the demands of her business and her children (from a former marriage) to meet Rick’s needs. One day, as she’s leaving for work, Rick pulls Jennifer aside to suggest that her son has been molested which turns out to be a way to punish her for failing him…let’s see what the therapist suggests…
Chapter Eight
Unexpected and Uncharacteristic
Maxine’s office is furnished with two cube-style chairs that face one another, plastic side tables stocked with boxes of tissues, a bar stool off to one side, a tangerine throw rug, and a case of Harville Hendrick’s books: Getting the Love You Want, Keeping the Love You Find, Giving the Love that Heals, Makeup Don’t Break Up, Wired for Love, Loving Your Companion Without Losing Yourself, The Couples Companion, and Receiving Love.
Rick and I sit across from each other in this space as we have since February. Maxine perches over us on her stool. A watchful guide.
“So,” Maxine says to Rick, pad balanced on her lap, pencil in hand, “I’ve heard Jennifer’s account. Why don’t you update me on your side of things.”
Rick looks from Maxine to me, then back to Maxine. His eyes fill with tears.
Maxine leans slightly toward him. With the tip of her pencil, she nudges his box of tissues closer.
Rick fishes out three in fast succession. Works the tissues under the frames of his glasses, setting them wonky on his face.
“I don’t…I don’t…I don’t know what the issue is,” he says, re-adjusts his glasses. “I don’t get why she’s so upset.”
“You say my kid was molested and you don’t know why I might be upset?” I say, voice sharp.
Maxine thwacks her pencil on her notepad. “Now, now, Stormy,” she says to me, scowling. “Getting upset solves nothing.”
I’m way past upset though. A white-hot fury is more accurate.
While Maxine couldn’t get us into a session for several days, she did talk with us on the phone that Saturday, told Rick that if Spencer had, in fact, been sexually molested, she would have to file a report with the state. Immediately. “It’s the law,” she said.
Rick, crying then too, admitted to inventing the story because he didn’t want me to work that weekend.
Maxine went quiet on the line for a long time, finally told us we should consider this moment “an opportunity for true growth.”
Her optimism never ceased to amaze me.
“Why don’t you each go to your separate corners,” she said. “Try to calm down until we meet next week.”
Hanging up, I took the suggestion literally.
Two at a time, I galloped up the steps to our bedroom, gathered Rick’s shirts, jackets, and pants from the closet. Back down the steps, through the house, down to the basement, I deposited his wardrobe onto the guest futon. A clatter of hangers. Next went his socks and boxer shorts. Last, his robe, slippers, sandals and shoes.
Rick trailed me during this stony re-organization.
“I just missed you,” he said. “Why can’t you understand?”
“Don’t talk to me,” I said, stomped to our room, shut the door, locked it.
I hadn’t spoken to him until this moment.
“Are you okay?” Maxine asks Rick. “Can we get to work?”
Rick wads the tissues in his fist. “I’ll try,” he says, voice strangely childlike.
Sitting up taller, Maxine rolls her shoulders back, tilts her head side-to-side. She’s like a fighter ready to step into the ring.
“How about you try a little validation to bring the temperature down,” she says to Rick, then glances over at me. “It’s clear this situation with Spencer is touching an old hurt in Jennifer.”
Rick considers me a moment, a blank expression on his face. Finally, he clears his throat and repeats what I said a moment earlier. “I can see you’re upset I invented a story about Spencer…” and so on.
“Well done,” Maxine says. “Now…a little empathy.”
Rick studies Maxine as if she will say more, but she waggles that finger in my direction as if I’m the one he needs to talk to.
“Um, she feels bad?” he asks, glances my way, then up at Maxine.
“Good. Good. Nice start,” she says, nodding so vigorously that the bobbed ends of her hair slap against her jaw. “But let’s remember your ‘imagine’ word where you tap into her history. Bring forward some of that tricky childhood that this particular interaction might jangle.”
Rick opens his hands, palms up, as if confused. That wad of his tissues a ball now.
She gives him a long look, seems exasperated, too. I almost say, “Welcome to my world,” but hold tighter to the arms of my chair.
“As I recall,” Maxine finally says. “Jennifer’s parents died when she was quite young. First her mom. Then her dad. You were seven and then nine?”
I swallow and nod ever so slightly.
“Then her brother died when she was in her early twenties,” she says looking at Rick, then me. “A suicide I believe?”
A rise of color in my face. Again, I nod as if to say, Yes. Yes. Let’s move on.
“There was physical abuse, too,” she says. “Sexual abuse as a young child?”
I incline my head, ever so slightly, in begrudging ascent to Maxine’s choppy accounting of my history, tell myself it doesn’t matter what Maxine remembers. What matters is what Rick remembers. I’ve written books about my life. Rick has read them all, cover to cover. My history is hardly a mystery.
“So, with all this in mind, Rick,” Maxine continues, “surely you can find a way to empathize with her anger?”
A long quiet over takes the room.
Rick closes his hands then, the tissues once more gone from sight like a magic trick is about to take place.
“I imagine she’s…unhappy?” Rick says.
A furrow of confusion works between Maxine’s brows and while she is many things…bossy, overbearing, annoyingly enthusiastic…she is never perplexed. She likes to say things like, “I’ve never met a marriage I can’t fix,” and “I haven’t lost a couple yet.”
Maxine scratches at her ear with the eraser end of her pencil. “That’s a good start, but Spencer is Jennifer’s beloved child. Her only blood family…other than her daughter, that is. It’s not a stretch to imagine she’s in a panic. More so if you turtle away pretending she’s not. You’re her partner, Rick. Your genuine empathy for her suffering is key to the success of your relationship.”
He looks at me again. His expression empty. His eyes, too.
Up to this moment, Rick has always been able to say the right things along the lines of the script. While his expressions of empathy have always been a bit tepid, he’s never gone totally blank.
Maxine prompts him again.
Nothing.
The session stalls out. A ticking quiet in the room. A moment where everything changes but so subtly, it’s hard to know it right now.
“Why don’t you step out for a moment,” Maxine finally says, motions toward the door.
Rick shifts to the edge of his chair as if he is being dismissed but Maxine holds up her traffic cop-hand.
“I mean Jennifer,” she says to him.
The fury, the confusion, the sense of terror all vanish in this unexpected and uncharacteristic move.
“I’ll only be a few moments with Rick,” she says to me, by way of explanation. “Fifteen minutes at the most.”
I shift to the edge of my chair, take up my oversized purse and walk out.
Next:
Chapter 9: The Empathy Hiccup
Jennifer learns that there is a new, and unexpected diagnosis for Rick. Is his condition fixable? Does Jennifer have the capacity to wait? Are the children safe with him?
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I am amazed that you've invited us in to your marriage counseling sessions. I don't think I can do that with mine. The revelation that continues to unfold is kind of terrifying.
Check your "as if's". Mind the time jumps, take us with you.
Did Rick already know your past, had you told him about being molested? Did she have your permission to dredge up your past in this session? It fits, kind of, but it also seems intrusive...?
Great read! I'm hooked.
Kuddos to you for not whacking him with that oversized purse. I would have. Jeeze.
I will keep this book in my thoughts. I hope it finds the perfect publisher that sees in it what you do. <3 Loving it so far!