🎧 Chapter Forty-One | The Sacred “No”
When Silence Finally Breaks
What you need to know:
Jennifer knows she must resolve the ongoing divorce with Rick and move on with her life. But she’s been challenged to file a complaint with the state now, and the pressure is only going to continue. Will she give in, or hold her ground?
Chapter Forty-One
The Sacred “No”
Having taken care of my lungs and heart, Abrams works his needle-magic on my liver, spleen, and kidneys, and then sits me down for a final conversation that begins with instructions to stop drinking alcohol, eating wheat, and limiting my intake of sugar.
It’s funny that these restrictions would be blows and severe ones, but they are. I live on pastries, cookies, highly processed foods and who can call a day a day without a glass of wine?
“…and I want to recommend a woman who specializes in dream therapy,” he continues, ignoring the stunned expression on my face. “She doesn’t take new clients, but I’ve spoken to her and she’ll make room on her calendar for you.”
Sitting, once again, in what I now consider to be the “corner of wisdom,” Abrams passes over a sleek cream-colored business card. The name on the front: Elenore Ainsworth and under, degree specialty: depth psychology.
“Sounds expensive,” I say, sure I will never call this woman. Hell, I’m still reeling from my new dietary restrictions.
It is mid-December now and we are in the darkest part of the year. The days whisper short.
Sitting back in the chair, arms crossed, Abrams studies me a long moment. Those black wool slacks. A gray sweater. Though an older man, he has style. Very classic. Behind him, the shades of the double hung windows are slightly open and a hazy light filters through and softens the edges of the room, and him.
“You’ve made progress with me but until you get to the bottom of what’s driving this whole pattern,” he says, “I can’t keep you out of trouble. You’ve got to go another layer down. I suggest seeing her, and while you do, see me at the same time to integrate the work.”
Turning the card this way and that, I nod on what he says because this whole thing with Rick is screaming proof that there’s much, much more work to be done, but I’m also in the deep end of my own pool with this divorce and preparing myself for the worst. Merrill’s words circle around and around in my head: Make a choice. What can you live with? Nothing, I told him. I want the house. But with each passing day, my resolve crumbles. Rick always gets what he wants and he won’t stop.
“Did you research the site I sent you?” Abrams asks, cutting into this miserable realization. He’s talking about the Oregon Medical Board, where the complaint form came from. He had told me to, at the very least, do some research about the board and its policies that apply to acupuncture in this state.
“Yeah,” I say, lower the card to my knee, “but I can’t file that complaint. Not now. I’m trying to keep the house. If I do this now, it’s only going to make things worse and besides, I had a part in this whole thing…I can’t just point a finger at him without pointed four more at myself.”
“I won’t even touch on this last part. We’ve already discussed how you are nothing like Rick, but as for this divorce proceeding, didn’t you say you’re pretty sure your going to lose the house and have to pay him a settlement?”
“Well, that’s what he’s asking but my lawyer is going to try…”
“Your lawyer is an idiot,” Abrams interrupts and uncrossing his arms, now shifts to edge of his chair and grips his knees in the posture of a man making his point. “This is why you need Elenore. And now.”
Elenore’s card slips off my knee and drifts to the floor. I look at it there. Face down.
Meanwhile, Abrams continues to talk saying what he’s said before: I need to raise my voice, speak out, report Rick and in doing so, stand up for myself but I can barely hear him through the louder voices in my head saying, “Don’t say anything! No. No. No.” A long pattern of silence. A belief that to move on, no matter the injustice, is a form of safety.
Abrams clears his throat and I startle, as if I forgot he was there, then rock forward in the chair, swipe up the card.
I expect he’s going to keep hammering me about this complaint but instead, he peers at his watch. “I’ve got another appointment,” he says, stands up, smoothing the front of his slacks. “I hope you’ll call Elenore and that you will file that complaint. It’s time.”
I reach for my purse, tug it into my lap, and drop Elenore’s card inside and here comes the same internal fury I felt toward Mr. Trent: Jerk! What do you know about me, really? I’ve made it this far in my life, I can certainly make it now without him or this Elenore.
Abrams rests a hand on my shoulder then, and I look up into the face of someone who is truly looking out for my best interests. A man of integrity.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says, the weight of his hand warm on my shoulder, “you’re doing fine.” It’s an echo of what I wanted to tell Jo just the other day and the feeling in the room is not anger anymore, but something bigger. Gentle. True.
He leaves me then, strolls out of the room and closes the door behind him. Then his voice rises from the hall. “Hi. Come on in,” he says to the next person who waits for his help.
In that quiet, I rock the chair forward and back another moment. I wish I could just stay here, curl up, and hide, but life doesn’t work that way. It’s time to make decisions. Come on, Jennifer, I think. Let’s go. I finally stand up and head for the door.
I stop at Whole Foods, pick up a bottle of sugar-free sparkling cider because Abrams is whack if he thinks I’m not going to drink something resembling alcohol after that appointment.
Steve has the kids that evening. The three of them holiday shopping. I park in front of the house but rather than go in, lock the car, and hoof the two blocks to my office.
Passing Annabelle’s, I pause before the draped window. That BBQ smell in the rising smoke from around the back. Inside, the wait staff sets the tables for the dinner service. The clink of glasses and silver.
Like I haven’t picked up my knitting since the accident and hurting my arm, I haven’t stepped into Annabelle’s since that day Rick left. If he told Cal, he most certainly told his cousins (and everyone else) of my violent attack, worse, how I’m now raking him over the coals in the divorce. Like his wife before me, I’m the next perpetrator in his version of events. Rick, the victim and me, the next woman who doesn’t get him.
But I do get him, probably better than that first wife, and more, Abrams gets him which is why he’s pushing now. He knew what he was doing to you. He knew every step of the way. And worse, he’ll do it again. Stop him.
Shoving my hands deep in the pockets of my coat, I continue down the sidewalk. At my building, I take the steps two at a time and let myself into my office.
The classes I’ve been teaching in this space end in another week and then I move out and start up at The Tin Pot Collective across town.
“That is great news,” the Cowboy Poet said on the phone when I called to take him up on the offer he made last summer. “We’re going to get you on the January schedule right now. Send over your resume and a few class ideas. New York Times bestseller? Do I have that right? Ye-haw! Send a photo. We’ll take care of the rest.”
I cross to the shared kitchen. Microwave. Counter tops. A refrigerator. Digging a can opener from a drawer, I snap the cap, pour myself a glass of fizzy apple juice. That rush of bubbles like celebration. Into my suite, I set the glass on the table, hang up my jacket and sling the strap of my purse on the back of a chair.
Finally, finally, I search for and find that complaint form given me days earlier. Shoved in the back of a drawer. Now, it’s on the table and I smooth out the creases.
I take up the glass, sip at the too-sweet juice, missing that fuzzy buzz that takes away resolve and stare at the form. Fill me out, it’s saying to me. Get going. And one of the things I’m required to include, if I do fill it out, is the records of my treatments with Rick.
If one other woman is helped by this, it will be worth it, I tell myself. And in the end, I suppose that’s why I set the glass aside, grab my phone and make the call.
“State Natural College,” a woman says. Voice crisp. Professional. I can see a version of this woman at the big reception desk. No doubt, she’s also tapping at a computer keyboard, and passing files to the doctors who hurry over. That tiny waterfall on the counter.
“I was a patient at your clinic in 2007,” I say, rotate the glass on the table, that rough sound on the wood. “I wondered if I can order up my medical file?”
“You bet,” the woman say. “Name? Address?”
I give her both, hear her tap at a keyboard. That plastic sound.
“Dr. Rick treated me,” I say. “But, of course, he’s no longer there.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “We keep records even when the doc leaves.”
“He told me it was gone.”
The typing pauses. “Gone?”
“Missing?” I ask. “I don’t know.”
“Not possible,” the woman says, back typing again. “Got you right here.”
I flatten my hand on the table’s surface. “You do?”
“Not technically. Looks like your file’s in the warehouse, in a box, but we’ve got it. I’ll go out there myself. Once I get it, I’ll pop it in the mail. Or you can come to pick it up.”
“Mail,” I say, the idea of going back to that clinic like a knife in my gut. “To my office, though.”
“You bet,” she says. “Give me the address. It’ll go out tonight.”
It doesn’t go out that night though. Over the next week, two more calls come in from the woman I spoke with at Rick’s clinic. On the first, she told me that she was unable to find the file.
“I’m not giving up,” she said. “Give me a little time.”
On the second, she said she found it—voice victorious. “It was jammed in the back of a box from 2002,” she added. “Someone must have made a mistake.”
Oh, yeah, I think. There’s been a mistake all right.
“I’m going to messenger it over right now,” she continued. “You’ll have it today.”
An hour later, a knock on my office door.
I open to a guy with Chad on his name tag. A buffed, young guy with a buzz cut in a dark blue uniform. Chad waits while I sign a receipt and passes me a thick envelope.
Besides, there is no record of our working together. Not now. Is that what Rick said that day in the garden of awakening orchids a million years ago? If I had to testify in court, I’d have to admit I’m approximating what he said but the meaning was clear. Rick knew what he was doing. He did. And while none of his actions discount my own, I did not vow not to get involved, romantically, with traumatized patients. I did not sign agreements to that effect or attend trainings on such matters. Rick did. Probably still does right now. So yes, what he did was wrong. And yes, he will likely do it again. And again.
When is enough enough? And this seems to be the core lesson of this entire journey. My skewed understanding of limits and boundaries.
Closing the door, my office is a blank slate of empty walls and shelves. Taped boxes stacked against the wall. Curtains off the windows. Carpet rolled. Art wrapped in cardboard.
Tugging a chair from the table, I open my file and within the pages are written mostly in Chinese. Unreadable, but at least the dates prove I was a patient. PTSD written quite clearly. Sexual trauma, too.
I photocopy each sheet.
When done, I attach the complaint form to the pile, slide all this into a legal envelope, affix a label and attach the appropriate postage.
It is cold out but I leave my office without a jacket, walk the half block to the mailbox at the corner.
A block away from where I stand is that corner where I shoved Rick on that terrible night when I drove back from Tacoma. She’s just a little girl, I had said, weeping and out of control. Now, at the mailbox, I still don’t know what I was saying to him but I trust that I am a step closer by telling this truth. I’m drafting on Abrams insight and understanding while also fully aware that this complaint, filed at this time, will blow everything up. Any chance of keeping the house will vanish. Rick could, and might, sue me (for what, I don’t know but that’s what I’m thinking) or worse, he might come after me in a much more aggressive way. Who knows? Who knows? And standing there, I’m scared at what I’m about to do to myself and my kids...and yet…
A cop car flies past, flashing blue and red lights. Behind me, the rich nutty smell from The Heart Cafe. Across the way, kids let out from an alternative school—nudging and shoving at one another.
On the mailbox, the time of collection is posted at 2:00 p.m. It’s now 1:45 p.m. And, life goes on all around me to include the vision of another hurt and confused woman sitting in the waiting room of Rick’s clinic, hoping to heal, and being called to follow him down a long hall to an exam room.
I grab the cold metal handle. Tug. The mailbox door whines open. I slide the envelope into the mouth of the box, hold it there on the edge for a long moment. And in an act of blind faith, shove it inside.
The envelope thuds to the bottom of the mail box with a reverberating sound. A little bomb about to go off.
I let go of the door and it clangs shut.
Next:
Chapter Forty-Two - As Within So Without. As Above So Below.
In the wake of detonation, Jennifer seeks refuge in an unlikely place - a room with a retired fireplace and a therapist who reads dreams like maps. But maps to where? As her external world crumbles, an internal landscape emerges, populated by giants who pay in wadded dollar bills and children who sleep in alcoves. Sometimes the only way forward is to finally look back...
