Tuesday Night Miracles (35 page)

Then she remembers the unopened envelope, rips it open, reads it, and thinks that this just might be the first day of the rest of her life.

My God it was a night and a half! Kit is mentally and physically exhausted from the class and the conversation and the dozens of revelations, but she’s unable to get to sleep. She has moved all the furniture back into place and made herself about ten pages of mental notes.
Clean the carpet and couch. Take down the damn drapes so more light can come into the living room. Brighten up every room with new paint. Apologize again to Peter for being so moody and treating him as if her problems are his fault
.

Maybe she’ll turn the house into her second project—her first project being herself. Maybe Peter will help her. Maybe her daughter will show up and help, too. Maybe an elephant will fly out of her left ear. Why not? Now that she has this new, and absolutely fascinating, assignment from Dr. B., Kit is even more charged up.

Kit shuts the dishwasher door and wanders back into the living room to make certain she has picked up everything. She walks past the couch and into the kitchen and decides to sit at the table and have an ice-cold beer. It’s ridiculous, she realizes, because it’s probably twenty degrees outside, but she’s so thirsty she could drink a keg by herself.

There’s not one damn beer in the fridge when she pulls it open. Normally, this might upset her, what with the unwritten family rule that whoever takes the last of anything has to restock or refill. The toilet paper is always the worst. Kit feels as if she’s the only woman in the entire world who ever puts a new roll on the holder. Everywhere she goes, she does this. Restaurants. Gas stations. Other people’s homes. What is up with that?

She closes the refrigerator and heads into the garage, where a stash of beer is always kept, and realizes that she’s really, really tired. It’s one of those exhausted-wanna-drop feelings that make you feel woozy, but her head is spinning from the meeting.

First there was Leah’s story. Kit figured all along that the story must be pretty bad, but she wasn’t prepared for what she heard—the depth of sadness and sacrifice that Leah must have endured, the asinine family demands, and then the mother, of all people, never helping her.

Kit knows one thing for certain, and that is she would do anything, absolutely anything, for her daughter. As she rummages in the back of the frigid garage looking for the beer, she can’t imagine abandoning her rock-picking daughter. She knows that if anyone messed with Sarah her father would turn into Rambo. What kind of people do those things?

Kit is no fool, and she knows some people still live in the Dark Ages, and that there are women, maybe even on her block, who are living as if they have been captured and are being held against their will. She knows that change and chance aren’t always easy, because she has been struggling with those things herself.

And, beyond Leah this past evening, it was as if all of them, herself included, just said to hell with it and did what Dr. Bayer has probably wished they could have done all along. They cooperated and shared and talked openly, and there wasn’t one fight or slap or evil word exchanged. Or was I dreaming? Kit wonders. Am I that tired?

She locates a twelve-pack, hoists it onto her hip as if it were a baby, and all but runs back into the warm house. She sets it down on the floor in front of the refrigerator, and before she pulls open the door she sees her reflection in its smooth surface. She has one hand on the door handle and suddenly she can’t move. The broken light above the sink is still flickering, and when she leans in it’s as if her own eyes are blinking on and off.

The stopping and standing still is what pushes her into a realization that is as simple and pure as the first snowfall of winter. Time. These days following her mother’s death have been a gift of time. Time to think and grow and prune off the ends of her life that she has let grow and fester like a tangled root in a flourishing garden. And what has she done?

Kit looks into her eyes so deeply she thinks she can see the inside of her brain. What is wrong with you? All these days and weeks, and now months, when you have buried the grief over the death of your mother in anger. All these moments when you could have focused on yourself and who you need to be now, for you and for Peter. All this time, so damn much time, when you could have designed a new life plan, thought of this change as a sweet gift, and let go of all the weight you’ve been carrying around your entire life. All the chances you’ve had to finish reading the note. You are such a baby!

Kit closes her eyes and drops her head against the cold door. She’s suddenly filled with a confused mixture of hope for what she can still do and be, and sadness for what she has given away, what she has been on the verge of losing. The flickering light suddenly stops and decides to give it up, and the kitchen is plunged into total darkness.

Kit pulls open the refrigerator door, throwing light into the room, places the beer on a shelf, takes one for herself, closes the door, and opens the bottle by using the handle on the door. This makes her smile. The first time she caught her daughter doing the same thing, she yelled at her. Then she started doing it all the time because it was so easy and convenient. Just like time. It’s right there, so use it.

She closes the door, checks to make sure the other doors are locked and the front porch light is on in case Peter comes home early. Then she walks up the stairs, sits on the top step in the dark, and realizes that her head is also spinning with ideas, plans, and possibilities.

Tomorrow Kit may start a new everything. “May” being a key word, because she’s also remembering what her oldest brother once told her. Life, he said, is kind of like a case of beer. You have to take it one bottle at a time.

40

It Ain’t Over Until

O
livia is pacing in the kitchen and Phyllis is having a hell of a time trying to keep up with her. The eat-in kitchen has a small table in the center that Olivia uses for storage more than anything else, but for the past forty-five minutes she’s been using it as the center of her racetrack.

Phyllis is so confused she’s thinking about barking. What is happening around here? Late nights and extra treats all the time, and Olivia hugging her and whispering right in her ear. She’s gotten down on the floor and all but crawled into the dog bed three times in just the past few days.

Now it’s this jogging in the kitchen thing. Doesn’t this woman realize how short Phyllis’s legs are? Phyllis would almost rather be outside, where it’s snowing lightly, than running around the table like this. She is absolutely exhausted and totally confused.

And not unlike Olivia, who has been pondering what to do with the latest bag of befuddlement from her Tuesday-night warriors. Why in the world she didn’t hang up her professional hat in September before she got the bright idea to experiment with these women is now completely beyond her; she’s pacing in her kitchen like a woman who has gone off her manic medicine.

It’s Saturday afternoon. Usually this is the best day of the week for Olivia and Phyllis. Phyllis gets to go in the car and stick her nose out of the passenger-side window. The smells! The dogs she sees at the stoplights! The tiny pieces of hamburger she gets when they stop for lunch! The long park trail where they walk for at least two hours!

There has been none of that today, and Phyllis has about had it with Olivia’s endless nervous energy and this horrendous disruption of the normally glorious Saturday schedule.

Phyllis barks once when Olivia rounds the corner and accidentally knocks over a stack of magazines.

Olivia is absolutely stunned. Then she stops, which is exactly what Phyllis wanted.

“What?” Olivia almost shouts.

What? Stop!
Phyllis barks again, immediately setting a new record for the number of barks in one hour.

Olivia is out of breath and when she looks down at Phyllis, who is absolutely not wagging her tail, but whose mouth is open and whose tongue is dripping because she is so damn hot from running in the kitchen, she realizes what she has been doing.

“Oh, Phyllis, thank you.” Olivia drops her head so that her chin is touching her chest, lets her arms fall, and closes her eyes so that she can even out her own breathing.

She needs to get a grip. She desperately needs to slow down. She needs to clear her head and think rationally. She should have retired when she had the chance and addressed her own damn fears about moving, finally acknowledged her love in a public manner, and, once and for all, set herself free.

Before she drinks two glasses of water, Olivia fills up Phyllis’s water bowl. She wishes she could give Phyllis a beer or something. Good Lord! She’s been running around the table for close to an hour!

Then Olivia manages to slow down her own pulse by doing a bit of deep breathing. She has got to get herself under control. And if she can get herself together she will maybe even be able to salvage part of her day off.

Day off! What a joke. The morning started out fine enough, with an entire pot of her favorite French roast coffee, a stack of unread newspapers, cinnamon-raisin toast, and an inside view of the first snow of November.

Phyllis liked that part of the day. They stayed in bed a long time. Olivia kept on her bathrobe most of the morning and then broke her rule about sharing food and Phyllis got the sweet crunchy crust from the toast. It was going to be a banner day for sure, even if it snowed three inches and the wind continued to howl.

But just after Olivia dressed, and the snow started to slow so that they could go on their weekend drive and hike, Olivia’s cellphone destroyed the morning silence and everything changed.

The first call was from Kit, and it was by far the easiest.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my life and mistakes and blaming others,” Kit explained, haltingly, as if she wasn’t really certain she should even be calling. “I wish I could go back, erase some of the things I’ve said and done, some of the people I’ve hurt.”

“We all wish for that, dear,” Olivia responded gently. “The important thing is to move forward and not to make the same mistakes.”

“I understand that more than ever, thanks to you,” Kit said. “There’s another issue, something I should probably talk through with a professional. Could that be you?”

One part of Olivia was absolutely elated that Kit had stepped up and realized that she might have deeper issues that needed to be addressed. And in a different time Olivia would surely have loved to take her on in private therapy. Actually, it was a fabulous idea, but Dr. Bayer was trying, or so she thought, to slow down, to make a huge life change herself, and how could she do that and help Kit?

Olivia all but froze on the phone. Her clinical heart so wanted to work with Kit, who, given her past history and present life situation, was making remarkable progress. It was clear that Kit liked her, trusted her, and was willing to open up even more. That wasn’t an easy thing for anyone to do.

So now what? Olivia was hoping against hope that she could release these women before Thanksgiving. She was getting better at letting go herself, and sometimes at night, when she dreamed, she was by the ocean, holding hands with her lover while Phyllis romped through the bushes looking for the multitude of bugs, insects, reptiles, and spiders that live in Florida.

She ended up telling Kit that she would have to check her schedule. Kit was clearly deflated and Olivia was torn.

Then, swear to God, fifteen minutes later the phone rang again, and this time it was Grace.

Grace wanted to go to confession, and she was also asking for more help. Dr. Bayer sat with her head in her left hand as Grace talked.

It seems as if she has breached a huge ethical barrier. She read Jane’s files at the hospital and discovered things about Jane that she clearly had no right to know. Things that revealed the ugly truth about who Jane really is and the lie she’s living.

“I was angry,” Grace admits. “We had a disagreement that night during class, the night Jane was attacked, and even before that I had gotten into her file. I mean, I have a right to do that because I work there, but it wasn’t right.”

“And you’re telling me this now because …?”

Dr. Bayer’s open-ended question was for both their sakes. What in the name of God was she supposed to do about this?

“I feel bad and I’m trying to clean my slate here and be honest and put some of these things behind me, and frankly, I don’t know what to do,” Grace admitted. “Last week’s class changed me. I see things now that I should have done differently. I’m embarrassed and I need to know if I can stay in the class, if there is anything I should or could do to make this up to Jane.”

“Does Jane know?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Bayer is thinking it’s a miracle Jane hasn’t tried to kill Grace. Maybe this class is more effective than she could ever have imagined.

“I also have some other issues, as you know,” Grace continued. “My daughter is gay and I’m having a hard time with that.”

Well, that was news. Sweet hell! Is there any issue, problem, or psychological hang-up these women don’t have?

“And, of course, there’s Evan.”

Of course
.

Dr. Bayer thought that if she drove to the airport immediately she might be able to catch a flight out of Chicago for Tampa within the hour.

Instead, she put everyone on hold. She told Grace, just like she told Kit, that she needed to think and check her schedule and that Grace should continue to stay positive, not say a word about the documents she had read, and continue to work on everything else having to do with the Tuesday-night class. Dr. Bayer told Grace that she needed to process everything and that it had been a good thing, a good step forward, for her to pick up the phone and call.

Then she started running around the table.

Years ago, when her own life was spinning out of control, and until she tied it down and moved forward, Olivia calmed herself by writing down the pros and cons of every decision. She would take a lovely, fresh, lined notebook and spend a few minutes writing down her wild thoughts. Then she would organize them so that there was a question at the top of the page and then a plus or minus column.

Later, she would learn that this was called force-field analysis, and as a problem-solving tool it has never let her down. If this were any other group, she’d also get on the phone and call her supervisor. She can just imagine what that conversation would be like. A kind of hilarious revelation of partial failure.

But what’s the worst thing that could happen? She would get fired for being experimental? Lose her pension? Be blackballed from the annual clinical-psychology conference? Lose face with her fellow colleagues and all the clients who might hear about what a mess she had made of this wild women’s anger group?

Hardly, she told herself, almost believing it. She could recite worse actions and activities by people in her field without blinking. Sleeping with clients. Stealing from clients. Using clients to gain professionally or personally. Sharing information without observing proper protocols.

Well, the list could actually be endless, Olivia realized, feeling better for a moment. She has always believed that good intentions outweigh botched-up actions. She examines her own heart on such a regular basis that she would feel absolutely fine if she had to have her head or intentions dissected by her boss or anyone else in her profession.

And there has always been this narrow passageway inside of her work and business world that allows for some transgressions. Clients who need a place to sleep for a few nights. Clients who need fifty bucks for a bus ticket. Clients who need you to mail a package to the children they’re no longer allowed to see.

Olivia has friends who do not hesitate to tell her about the mistakes she has made in her personal life. In fact, three of them are so upset with her right now because she didn’t retire at the end of summer that they sent her email messages to let her know they’re already drinking her holiday whiskey!

The thought of what she should have done, where she could be right this second, awakens an ache that shoots through the back of her head and travels down both arms. She could do without any of these recent problems—these brassy, demanding, angry women, the flipping snowstorm, and the three inches of white stuff that now needs to be shoveled off the front steps and the sidewalk.

But wishing be damned. Dr. Olivia Bayer is not the kind of woman who wallows too long. Phyllis and Buffy would never let her get away with it, and Olivia knows that she would feel like a hypocrite and be totally unable to look Leah, Kit, Grace, and Jane in the eye next Tuesday.

Tuesday. Three days away. And now these decisions to make on top of everything else the women have yet to do.

Olivia lets Phyllis outside for a few moments, then, apologizing for the delay in their Saturday drive, hands off a treat to appease her patient dog and settles in at the kitchen table.

Phyllis is happy for a moment about the treat, but she was expecting to get in the car. If Olivia thinks she’s starting to forget about routines just because the bones in her legs are stiff, well, she had better think again.

Barking is absolutely out of the question. Phyllis can tell that Olivia is into something. She’s sitting at the table, of all places, and not in her big chair. For a few seconds Phyllis looks at the soft bed next to the chair. Then she looks at the floor under the table. Then she looks back at the bed.

Finally she raises her head and sees Olivia rubbing the back of her neck, and the decision is made. She curls under the table and rests her paws on top of Olivia’s feet. After the crazy morning, Phyllis senses that she had better stay close to Olivia. She lets out a huge sigh and snuggles around the black socks Olivia has on. Maybe if she takes a little nap things will change.

Olivia loves it when Phyllis helps keep her feet warm, although she suspects that Phyllis is using her feet for warmth, too. Phyllis must think she has gone off the deep end. Maybe she has, but in her mind there’s still time to swim to shore.

Before she even starts to write, she realizes that part of her decision is really a no-brainer. There are plenty of great people who can work with Kit. Kit is smart and apparently more eager than ever to move forward. If she can control herself, Olivia believes that she could see Kit for an initial session and then hand her off to someone she knows.

If
is a crucial word here, and instead of leaping into her force-field analysis Olivia writes the word
if
down on the first sheet of paper. Then she starts drawing circles around it over and over again. Dr. Bayer may as well be running around the table.

She knows what she needs to do is draw a line under the word. This is where she stops. This is as far as you go, Dr. Bayer. This is also where Kit stops and moves in a new direction.