The Wednesday Group (19 page)

She reads from her paper. “Since our marriage date, August 12, 2007, have you had sexual intercourse with more women than the two you've told me about?”

“Bridge, I'm not answering until we get there.”

“What the fuck difference will it make if you tell me now or when we're in his office?”

He slows for a light. “How the hell do I know? But what if it does? What if I answer now and somehow that affects the results and makes me look like a liar when I'm not?”

She sticks her hand out the window, hoping for a breeze. There is none.

“But you are a liar.”

“Look, say what you want to me now, if it makes you feel better. But I'm not answering any of the questions until we get to the office.”

The light turns green. The tires screech, and she stuffs the papers back in her purse.

Ramirez's office is a bland beige. She smiles, trying to show him that she's ready for this, and she can deal with whatever she might learn. Once again, he spends fifteen minutes explaining how to word questions, how long the test will take, and how important it is that they both have contingency plans if the results don't come out as they expect. Finally he asks her for the list of questions she's prepared for today. He puts on a pair of wire-framed glasses and nods as he reads. His hair is glossy black, probably from some gel people used to use in the eighties. It's his eyes that convinced her to return. They're reliable.

“Okay,” he says. “We still need to narrow this down. It seems unclear to me, Bridget, if you want to know if Michael has had intercourse with other women during your marriage, or if he has feelings for any of those women.”

“I guess I want to know if he has feelings for them,” she says.

Michael shakes his head. “I've told you I don't. Plus, Joe has explained you can't have such open-ended questions. I mean, of course I have feelings.”

“You make no sense.” She leans forward, wanting to get in his face. “You just said you don't, and then you said you do. Which is it?”

He sits back. “I don't have loving feelings. But I'm not a robot. So I have some feelings.”

Ramirez coughs. If he didn't have black hair, he might blend in with the decor. His pants and shirt are also beige. “Michael, you bring up a good point. Asking about feelings can be vague.” He looks at Bridget. “You may want to think about wording the question something like, Has Michael ever told any of the women that he loved them during the period in which you two were married?”

“That's too specific,” she says. He may have told them lots of other things that imply love, or lust or like. “Does he still think about having sex with them?”

“That's also a little tricky. It's better to stick with concrete actions.”

She looks at Michael. “Do you still think about having sex with Vivian?”

“No.”

“Never?” she asks.

“No, never.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That's why we're here,” Michael says.

“Right,” she tells Ramirez. “So I guess I'm just going to stick with the questions about whether he had sex with more women than he told me.”

“All right.” He jots a few notes. “So, Michael, are you comfortable with my asking you if you have had intercourse with more women than the two you have told Bridget about?”

He scratches his head.

“It's not a difficult question,” Bridget says.

He crosses his legs, then uncrosses them. “It's just that I can't remember all the time, and I'm worried if I say I can't remember, it will come out like I'm lying.”

“If you really can't remember and that's the truth, the test will validate that,” Ramirez says.

Bridget grips the arms of the chair. “How can you not remember?”

“Maybe I was drinking.”

She looks at Ramirez, who's watching her like she's some sort of porcelain doll. She's not going to fucking break. She just wants the truth. “So if he can't remember because he was drinking, then how do you ask?”

“It's something we have to consider. I don't know how much Michael drinks, but do you want your focus to be on that?”

“No,” she answers without hesitation.

“All right, so I think we should stick to asking if he's had intercourse more times than he's told you. Remember, this is only the first polygraph. We can focus on other issues in later sessions.”

“No fucking way,” Michael says. “I said I'd do one. What's this about more?”

“The literature I gave you strongly suggests sex addicts have a polygraph once every three months. I have clients who do it for themselves, not for their partners. It actually helps them stay sober. You can think of it like someone who has a weight problem needing to stand on the scale to remind themselves of their goal.”

“He didn't read any of the pamphlets you gave us,” Bridget tells Ramirez.

“I didn't have time,” Michael says, glancing away.

“But you have time to play the guitar and watch baseball.”

“Maybe you both need more time to think about this,” Ramirez suggests.

“He's just trying to get out of it. I knew he would,” Bridget says.

“I wouldn't be here if I was just trying to get out of it. I'm doing it for you.” He's about to comb his fingers through his hair but stops himself. She's told him it makes him look nervous. “For us,” he says.

She crosses her arms. “Fine. Then we'll just stick to the question about whether you had sex with more people than you've told me.”

His work boot taps the floor. “Um…” He runs his hand through his hair.

She feels like her heart is a pebble thrashing around in a tin can.

“There have been, haven't there?” she asks.

“I swear I didn't remember it until we got here. I guess I sort of put it out of my head. Is that something people do?” he asks Ramirez.

“It happens, yes. There are people who compartmentalize, and until they are forced to confront certain events, they are capable of forgetting. We normally see this sort of thing with post-traumatic stress disorder.” He brings his pencil to his mouth. “With dissociative disorders too.”

She wants out of this beige nightmare. Her heart hurts. She really thought this whole polygraph thing was going to help, to prove to her there weren't more lies. She's been so fucking delusional.

“Bridget,” Ramirez says, “you look pale. Are you sure you're all right?”

He sounds so far away. The pebble is thrashing. She wants to go back to that hotel on Huntington Ave and turn the air conditioner on high until the only thing she can feel is cold.

“I want to know if he ever brought any of the women flowers,” she finally says.

Ramirez writes that down. “That's certainly something we can find out. May I ask why that might be important?”

“It would tell me if he cares about them. If he brings them flowers, then he does have feelings.”

But she knows, as soon as she's spoken, that it's stupid what she's asking. Stupid and pointless. She told herself she'd leave him if there were more lies, and now she's sitting here in her pink summer dress knowing full well there were more, and she's still contemplating a way to rationalize staying with him. If he didn't bring them flowers, if it was really all about the chase, and the conquest, and not about love or caring, then maybe … But—no.

She can't. She can't take it anymore. She gets up and walks out, right to the parking lot. Heat radiates from the blacktop. The afternoon light is unforgiving.

Neither of them says a word on the ride home. Michael parks the truck in front of the house. Bridget hops out and hurries to her car in the driveway. No way can she be with him. He holds up his hand for her to stop and talk.
Now? Now, fuckhead, you want to talk?
She gives him the finger, backs out, and drives to the hotel on Huntington Ave.

At reception, she asks for a room on the first floor.

“I have two-thirty-four,” the woman says.

“Is that the first floor?” Bridget asks.

“Yes, it is, ma'am.”

That someone just called her ma'am and that a first-floor room is in the two hundreds is just the cherry on top of this day.

Bridget crashes onto the bed, yanks a pillow from under the cover, puts it over her face, and screams at the top of her lungs. When she's done, her stomach feels like it has butterflies, but she's not nervous and she doesn't feel sick, even if she should after all the crap that happened today. She places a hand on her belly. It's there again, the gentle flutter—the baby moving.

 

SESSION SIX

Hannah's bed is strewn with clothes. In the end, she decides on a plain white sleeveless linen blouse, jeans, and gold hoop earrings, a simple, nonthreatening, blend-in-with-the-wallpaper outfit. She has to apologize to the group for her behavior at the bar last week. As soon as she's done that, she plans to sit quietly for the rest of the session. She recalls her first week of group, how she didn't want to get out of the car, how her instincts told her,
don't go
. She should have listened.

Adam and the kids are watching TV in the den. She pokes her head in. “See you later,” she tells them.

“You haven't left yet?” Adam asks.

She refrains from saying anything snide in front of Alicia. “Leaving now.” She waves good-bye.

She wants to be late. She wants them to be immersed in someone else's problem and not even notice her. Surprisingly, she's not the last to arrive. Flavia isn't here.

Hannah sits on the wooden chair and folds her hands in her lap. Bridget avoids eye contact. No surprise there. Gail has the beginnings of a scowl. No surprise there either.

“Gail,” Kathryn says, “is there anything else you'd like to tell us?”

She turns to Hannah. “I was talking about a trip to Ireland that Jonah and I have decided to take. It wasn't that important. What I'd really like to talk about is boundaries.”

Hannah's face heats. “I'm sorry about last week. I shouldn't have brought Jake over.”

“Maybe you shouldn't have had so much to drink,” Gail tells her.

She's right, of course. Still the scolding stings. “I'm sorry.”

“Are you worried about how much you've been drinking?” Kathryn asks.

“No. It's only when we went out after group that I drank, and I'm not doing that again,” Hannah explains.

“You have the right to tell him anything you want about your life,” Gail says. “But I don't want him connecting the dots and figuring out anything about my situation.”

“Really,” Hannah says, “I get it. I know I was wrong.”

Gail takes a deep breath. The buttons on her blouse strain. “We understand why you did it. We only need to make sure it doesn't happen again.”

“As I said, I won't be going again.”

“No harm done,” Lizzy says. “Please come out with us, though.”

“Thanks. But I just don't think it's a good idea. Not for a little while at least.”

“Probably,” Bridget mumbles. “Not like you really liked us anyway.”

Hannah looks straight ahead at the cream-colored wall. She's done what she came to do. There's nothing left to say. She had too much to drink. She acted like a jerk. If Bridget needs to interpret that as dislike, Hannah isn't going to argue.

“Are you okay?” Kathryn asks.

Hannah feels irritated. Her hands, still in her lap, clench more tightly. “Yes. I'm sorry I made a mistake and violated boundaries.”

“What I'm trying to get at”—Kathryn leans forward—“is why you would have too many drinks in the first place. That is often a sign that you're trying to avoid something.”

“You think?” Hannah says. Kathryn seems unflustered by the sarcastic remark.

“Yes, I do think that.”

“I'm always trying to avoid my life. As in right now. I only came to say I'm sorry. I really have nothing else to talk about.”

“Really? Nothing?” Bridget asks.

“Not that I can think of,” Hannah replies with a nonchalance she doesn't feel.

Bridget kicks off her flip-flops. One of them bounces on the carpet. “I don't think she trusts us. It's like she can't talk to us. About the real stuff,” she tells Kathryn.

Hannah shakes her head. “I talk to you.”

“You don't. Not really. The rest of us, we open up in here. We put our pain on the line.”

Bridget's right. Hannah is a coward. But she isn't about to let them see that. She sits taller. “I'm sorry if it's not enough for you. It's the best I can do.” She glances around the room. The only one who meets her gaze is Kathryn.

“I have wondered,” Gail says, looking at a painting, “why you haven't told us about your situation.”

“It's private.” Hannah crosses her arms in front of her, then realizes that makes her look more defensive. She drops them to her sides.

“I think we're touching on some very important issues here,” Kathryn says. “These addictions involve all sorts of secrets and lies, and they have a ripple effect, impacting many different relationships.”

“You know the old saying,” Gail comments. “You're as sick as your secrets.”

If she is trying to tell Hannah she's sick for not talking about her husband's transgressions, then so be it. Hannah nods politely in Gail's direction, then faces Kathryn.

“The thing is,” Bridget says, “you can tell that douche bag Jake about your life, but you can't tell us. How do you think that makes us feel?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” But then she remembers something—how that night she kissed Jake behind the bar she smelled something soft, like spring, but it wasn't that at all, it was Bridget's perfume. She'd been standing outside longer than Hannah had realized.