Walking on Broken Glass (29 page)

“Do I have to have a reason?” I bit the inside of my mouth. I needed to make an appointment with my dentist. If I couldn’t get happy gas, he wasn’t going to touch the inside of my mouth with anything silver that made whirring sounds.

“Do you not have a reason or do you have one you don’t want to talk about?” Dr. Sanders shifted to face me.

“That's a trick question. If I do go, I haven’t made plans because I haven’t discussed it with Carl.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, ever since you shared with the group how Carl managed the money in your house, including giving you an allowance, because he said you can’t balance a checkbook. He takes off work to drive you downtown because you get lost easily—”

“Wait,” I sputtered. “You wrote all this down?”

“Yes, that's why I have a pen (he held it up) and a notebook (which he also held up) at every session. To write down what people share. He also—”

“Enough. What's your point?” I couldn’t believe he’d mock me in front of everyone. I didn’t have to look around the circle to know everyone else was looking back and forth between him and me, waiting for the strike.

He leaned back in his chair. “My point is that you’re the epitome of a pampered little woman at home. I just don’t understand how someone with your almost perfect life is here.” He waved around the circle. “You’re Miss Patty-Peace-at-any-Price, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you call yourself?”

What was with this man? Had anybody checked his urine samples lately? I looked around and could tell by the downcast eyes that no one was jumping in on this. I was on my own.

“Why are you being so mean to me? Carl cares where I go and how I get there. So what? That doesn’t make him a bad person. I like and appreciate that he manages the money. He's good at it, and I don’t have to putz with it. He works hard, and he takes care of me.” I folded my arms across my chest in my best “how dare you dis me” posture.

“Well, we are all so glad you are taken care of. Aren’t we?” He smiled, and a few faces in my traitorous circle actually grinned along with him. “But there's the problem. You don’t get it, Leah. This isn’t about Carl. This is about you.”

He looked around the circle, in a way that was obviously for dramatic effect. Performance Art therapy. “I don’t see Carl here. Do you?”

“No,” I answered. I’m incredulous and confused.

“Me either. Maybe if you call him, he’ll rescue you from all of us.”

“What? You mean, call him on the phone? Why would I do that?” He’d baited me. I knew it, but I didn’t get it.

“No, I mean call his name from right where you are.”

“That's stupid. I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, yes you are. You need him. And I want you to call him. Let's just see what happens.”

He was never going to stop if I didn’t just do want he wanted me to do. Arguing with him wasn’t getting this over. “Carl,” I mumbled. Already I felt truly dumb.

Dr. Sanders laughed. “He couldn’t hear that if he’d been sitting next to you. Try a little louder.”

“Carl.”

“Louder.”

“Carl!” I shouted.

“Well, he's still not here. Guess you’re not loud enough. Maybe if you stretched your arms out while you called him. That way maybe he’ll see how much he's needed.”

I stared at him. A rolling heat traveled through my body. I felt anger and shame and confusion everywhere at once.

“Go on. We’re waiting.”

I reached out my arms into the empty space in front of me and shouted, “Carl!”

He made me call Carl three more times, each time louder and louder until, with the last scream, my throat burned. Tears streamed down my cheeks until my neck was wet.

Time four.

I stood. This time, my now shaking arms were straight against the sides of my body. I looked at Dr. Sanders. I channeled every ragged piece of rage and humiliation left in me into what I hoped he saw reflected in my eyes and face. Fueled by a current that surged through my soul, I told him, “I’m not doing this anymore. Carl's not coming no matter how loudly I scream. He's not coming. And I’m not going to do what you’re asking me to do just because you think you have power over me. I’m not going to do it.”

The room gasped.

Dr. Sanders walked over, gently placed his hands on my shoulders, and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to do exactly what you just did.”

I shuddered and sucked in air.

Old things pass away. All things become new.

A new life. Not just a new life within me. A new creation.

“Don’t compromise yourself. Don’t ever, ever, ever compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.”

Journal 11

My life changed the instant Alyssa was placed in my arms. I gazed at my daughter through my mother's eyes and my grandmother's eyes and all the eyes before who held their children before me. Linked by the maternal cord of knowing how my mother felt holding me. The link of truly understanding how absolutely you had been loved.

Two days later we were home. A family.

Carl adored our daughter.

And he adored me for giving her to him.

I knew that for at least the first month, the doctor didn’t want us to have sex. That freed me to be affectionate, to remember the times when every touch did not have to consummate itself in the bedroom.

Carl was patient.

Until he wasn’t.

The last night of week four, Carl expected me in bed.

I was. So, when Alyssa awoke, I brought her into the bedroom.

At the end of week five, Carl expected me in bed every night. When Alyssa awoke, I’d stay in her room and nurse her. Some nights I told Carl I heard Alyssa, and Carl would find me asleep in the day bed of the nursery. Carl didn’t understand and would ask me why he didn’t hear our daughter cry. I’d tell him mothers are wired that way.

At the end of week six, when Carl expected me in bed, I expected to be just drunk enough to be there. When Alyssa awoke, I threw back the covers to get her.

“I didn’t hear her cry,” Carl said and wrapped his arm around my waist to pull me back into bed.

“Of course not,” I said. “You’re a man.” I put my hands over his to move them, so my body could catch up with my heart, which was already walking to her room.

“If she was that upset, we would both hear her. She can cry for a little while. She’ll be fine. You need to pay attention to me for a change.”

Carl never heard Alyssa cry. I heard her cry from the first time she whimpered. Carl touched me until Carl finished. I was just enough drunk to fall asleep.

The next morning, Carl went to work. He thought I must have checked Alyssa during the night.

I woke up very late that morning. I thought Carl must have checked Alyssa before he left for work.

I opened the door to Alyssa's bedroom. Laura Ashley wallpaper. Handpainted murals. Pink and delicate and exquisite. Just like their daughter.

I tiptoed to the white spindled crib. “Good morning, princess.” I picked up my daughter. Her body wasn’t warm. Her face was blue. Her breath was gone.

Alyssa was dead.

My scream reached into hell, and the devil laughed.

My scream reached into heaven. God grieved.

I couldn’t stand, or talk, or run. I stumbled and tripped and crawled like a rabid animal to the telephone.

Nothing would ever be the same.

I dialed 911. I couldn’t speak.

I called Carl. He heard the gasping, heaving, groaning. He recognized my voice. He called the police. He thought some intruder might have hurt us.

I was alive. Alyssa was dead.

Where was the intruder?

When Carl got home I stared at him with eyes so full of hate I cried venom instead of tears. I beat his chest with my fists until they were bruised and swollen.

Later, the doctor said it wasn’t our fault. He said Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the leading cause of death for one-month-olds to one-year-olds.

I told the doctor I didn’t need a leading cause of death. I needed my daughter.

We left.

I told Carl, “You killed her. You wanted to have sex more than you wanted me to take care of our child. I will never forgive you. You killed our daughter.”

M
y exit from Brookforest would be two days early.

The staff allowed me to “trade” my weekend pass for the early out on the conditions that I leave with the name of someone from an AA meeting who would be my sponsor, commit to ninety meetings in ninety days, and have an extra session with Ron.

Carl had no problem with the early release. Neither did I, but I knew the real reason, and I waited for Ron so he’d know too.

I sat in the chair facing his desk, propped my feet on the edge, and rifled through the Jolly Ranchers basket picking out my flavors for the hour.

“Shouldn’t you be eating a bowl of real fruit instead of those bullet-sized teeth breakers?”

Ron walked in and dropped his backpack on the sofa. He pulled his cell phone out of his jeans’ pocket, pushed a few buttons, and set it on top of his desk pad. For a minute, he stood near his desk, head down, patting his pants pockets like he was waiting to be beamed up somewhere. “I think I’m ready now,” he said.

“Are you talking to me or whoever's picking you up on that spaceship you’re waiting for?” His face scrunched so that it truly looked like a question mark. “I thought you were about to take off for a minute. You meditate standing?”

“Oh, that. I guess nobody's usually in the office to watch me get ready for the day. It's my mental checklist pause—cell phone out, keys in, anything else I need to remember or want to forget—maybe it is a meditation.”

I nodded. I remember school mornings. School keys here. Car keys there. Lunch. Coke Zero. Check. Check. Check. Check. Breathe in, Mrs. Thornton. Breathe out, Leah.

We volleyed the quiet between us until I was ready. Ron's invitation was obvious in his eyes. I trusted Ron, but even that didn’t push the terror away, terror that enveloped me in suffocating thick darkness. It pressed itself on me, its oozing hot breath on my neck. I’d carried it inside for years. Learned, over time, I could gorge it with alcohol until it would drop its hold on my spirit. My spirit. Hollowed out and stuffed with grief and fear.

I had to summon it, confront it, and destroy it.

Sober.

The darkness stirred in me.

It was time.

Journal 12

I am Leah.

I was ten years old. I did not understand what happened that morning. I started bleeding. Watery red stains on the white towel. Bleeding between my legs. Something was wrong. Some place inside me twisted and cramped. I was scared I’d made this happen. Maybe I shouldn’t tell. But what if all my blood came out? What if it wouldn’t stop?

I opened the bathroom door. Stuck my head out. “Mom? Mom? Can you come here?” Nothing. “Mom. I need to show you something.” My father hollered back. “Mom left for work. Hurry up in that bathroom. You and Peter are going to be late for school.” Whatever this was, I knew I couldn’t tell my father. Not about bleeding from there.

I folded a clean washcloth to fit between my legs. Wrapped it in toilet paper. I begged God not to let me die. And I dressed and went to school. My teacher let me go to the bathroom before lunch. I flushed the bloody toilet paper. Rewrapped my wash cloth. I became aware of an odor I didn’t recognize. I walked back to my desk and wondered if the smell followed me. If Ben sitting next to me and Cathy behind me smelled it too. Musky like an animal smell. At lunch I stayed in the cafeteria. I read a book. I didn’t want to walk outside with my friends for fear the washcloth would fall out.