Antonia's Choice (25 page)

Yancy swept the room with her eyes. “You could work in worse places. You said yourself you can't beat it for the money.”

“I would love to use my MBA to work as a hostess,” I said dryly. “What are you going to have?”

We both had the special entree and salads and talked for several hours, while businesspeople ordered and ate and left all around us and tables refilled with people who were there only for lunch and not for free therapy.

Yancy, on the other hand, was more interested in me than in the food. While I managed to get down the ratatouille and half a serving of French bread custard that melted right on my palate, she asked all the right questions to get me to yank out every nettle—and then soothed every festering mark it left.

“I'm sorry,” I said, nodding toward her untouched organic greens. “You probably don't need to hear about all this, but I can't
shut up when I'm around you. You'd think we'd known each other for years.”

“I
wish
I'd known you for years,” she said. “You're probably the most intelligent woman I've met since I quit work to have babies. Why do we mothers sit around and talk about piddly stuff?”

“I would love to be talking about piddly stuff.”

She shook her head slowly, a “bless your heart” just a breath away. “All right, so what do you need? How can I help with all this?”

“You've already done enough.”

“No, honey, now I am so serious. This sounds like it's going to be a long road, and I'd like to be there if you want me to. Do you promise me that you will call me any time of the day or night if you need something?”

“I don't know, Yancy—you don't need this in your life. You have two kids—”

She looked at me, hard, with her thyroid eyes. “Nobody ‘needs' this. But why try to get through it all by yourself? Besides, I like you, Toni. You make me remember that I have a brain.”

“Great, then you can think for both of us, because mine is turning to mush.”

“All right then,” she said. “Now I have a job.”

I had to leave in time to pick Ben up, though I put it off as long as I could. I still hadn't told him where I was taking him, which was cowardly, I knew, but I had at least spared myself an evening of screaming and “I hate you's.”

“Is it soccer today?” he asked before I even had him loaded into the car.

“Nope. Today we're doing something different.”

He froze, both hands on the booster seat, and glared over his shoulder at me. “I don't want something different! I wanna go to soccer!”

“There is no soccer practice today—it's Friday, Pal.”

“I don't want it to be Friday.”

I gave him a hike into the seat and pulled the belt across his lap.
“You're the only person on the face of the planet who doesn't. We're going to see a man named Doc Opie—”

“No!”

“Good grief, Ben.” I tried not to slam either door as I closed his and got into the driver's seat. “I haven't even told you about him yet. He's way cool—”

“No doctor! He'll make me take my clothes off.”

My hands turned to ice on the steering wheel, and my eyes would barely move to the rearview mirror. When they did, the terror on Ben's face went through me like an ice pick.

“It's not that kind of doctor,” I said. “This is a doctor who just plays with you.”

“Why?”

It was one of those times I wished my child weren't so bright.

“Because he wants to help you,” I said.

“Help me with what?”

I hesitated, pretending to concentrate on pulling onto the freeway and making my way down I-65 to 100 Oaks. What was it Doc Opie had said?
Quietly deal with the subject of the molest if he brings it up, but focus more on making his world a safe place for him to be.

“Help me with
what?”
Ben was clenching his teeth, just the way I did.

“Help you not to feel so afraid all the time.”

I held my breath. He was either going to scream—or he was going to scream. Recently, those were the only choices he had given me to deal with.

But he was quiet for a few minutes, almost until we pulled onto Murfreesboro Road, the last turn before Doc Opie's. Then he finally said, “What kinds of toys does he got?”

I let out all the air.
Cheated death again,
I thought.

YMCA girl—whose name, it turned out, was Alice—greeted us with a grin and a set of Legos. Ben barely had a chance to slide to his knees in front of them when Doc Opie came out and pulled up a bean bag.

“Ben,” I said, “this is Doc Opie, the way cool doctor I was telling you about.”

“How ya doin?” Doc Opie said to him.

I had to blink. He was talking to Ben as if he were sixteen.

Ben took full inventory of Doc Opie's face before he said, “Where's that thing doctors are supposed to wear around their necks?”

“You mean a stethoscope?” Doc shook his head. “I'm not that kind of doctor.”

Ben looked at me as if he were surprised that I actually knew something. I resisted the urge to say, “I told you.”

“I'm not going to do any of the stuff doctors usually do when you go to their office,” Doc said. “Mostly we're going to talk—”

“And play.” Ben looked accusingly at me. “You said he was gonna play with me.”

“That's what he told me,” I said. “You better ask him.”

Ben shifted his gaze to Doc Opie, eyes narrowed.

“It's the truth,” Doc said. “We're going to talk
while
we play.”

“About what?”

I squirmed a little. Ben was starting to sound like his father doing a cross-examination. It didn't seem to be bothering Doc Opie, who looked as if he were accustomed to being interrogated by five-year-old boys. Now
there
was a tough way to make a living.

“We can talk about anything you pick,” Doc Opie said. “And the best part is, you can say anything you want to me, and I won't tell anybody.”

Ben looked at once at me. I tried to look innocent.

“No tattling at
all?”
Ben said.

“No, not even to your mom—unless you want me to.”

That seemed to stir something in Ben. His fine little eyebrows shot up. “You mean—I get to decide my own self?”

“You bet you do.”

Ben considered that while I held my breath and watched him. What I would have given to know what was going on behind that furrowed forehead.

Finally, Ben gave the waiting room a flourish with his hand. “Are these the toys we're gonna be playing with?”

“Nah—I got better ones than this inside.”

“He does,” I said. “I saw them.”

Ben completely ignored me and slowly stood up. “Okay. Let's see 'em.”

“Follow me,” Doc Opie said.

Without another word to me from either one of them, they disappeared through the door that led to Doc Opie's office. I looked at Alice.

“That was easy enough,” she said. “I think our boys going to be just fine.”

“What do I do now?” I said.

“Kick back for forty-five minutes. You want a magazine or a bed?”

“A bed?”

“We have a little sunroom back here for parents who just want to put their feet up and close their eyes while their kids are in session. For some of them, it's the only real rest they get until Doc Opie can work his magic.”

“Lead me to it,” I said.

I didn't really expect to fall asleep, but the minute I stretched out on a day bed in the little greenhouse of a room, I zonked out. Alice had to wake me up to tell me the session was over.

I was bleary-eyed as I half-stumbled to the waiting room, digging in my purse for my keys. But Doc Opie invited me into his office, and Ben was too busy with the Legos on the floor to notice me.

“I've got the Ben-watch,” Alice said to me. “It's okay.”

“So—how did it go?” I said when I was once again ensconced in the papasan chair. I quickly put up my hand. “I'm not asking for details.”

“It's okay,” Doc Opie said. “It's natural to want to know everything that goes on with your child.”

“Now
it is. It's like I suspect every man he comes into contact with to be a potential child molester. I mean—not you.”

I could feel my face going red up to the tips of my ears, but Doc Opie just grinned at me. “Don't worry about it. That's normal, too. In fact, everything both of you are going through is normal behavior for two people in a situation like this.”

“Gee, that's good news,” I said, sarcasm lacing my voice. “I'd hate to think I was
really
going nuts.” I shook my head. “So…is there anything I need to know that you
can
tell me?”

“I think Ben and I are going to be able to work together just fine. He's still checking me out, which is healthy. I can't tell you that he's going to open up to me next week—or maybe ever—but from my experience I will say he's a good candidate for disclosing what's happened to him.”

“Okay.” I had a hard time swallowing. “So let me ask you this—why would he tell you and not me? I mean, aside from the fact that he thinks I'm Public Enemy Number One right now.”

Doc Opie's eyes drooped sympathetically. “That's the really tough part, but it's common with a child who's been abused by someone he used to trust. He's already learned to associate nurturance and love with eventual betrayal, so it's hard for him to trust anybody right now, especially you because you're the person who claims to love him the most.”

“I do!”

“Which is exactly why you've brought him here.” Doc held out a hand, palm up. “Besides that, he's angry, so he's being defiant with you, and besides
that
—” he held out the other palm—“he feels alone and unprotected and vulnerable.”

“In other words, he's a mess.”

“Yeah—but I've seen worse. I think I can help him.”

Panic was clawing at my throat, and I couldn't sit in the bowl any longer. I struggled out of it ungracefully and began to pace the room. Doc Opie didn't ask me to sit down and calm down, which was good. I might have decked him.

“It just sounds like too much,” I said. “How are you ever going to get through all of that when he's just a little boy? I mean, really—are you being straight with me? Is this hopeless?”

The doc watched me calmly. “I would tell you if it were.”

“Have you ever told anybody that about their child?”

“No, because it never is hopeless. And it's even less so in your case because you're so motivated to help him. Some parents expect me to fix their kid while they go on about their lives. It's like dropping
him off at Cub Scouts—they come back and want to see a merit badge that says he's cured.”

I stopped pacing. “You told me all this the other day. What I don't get is
how
do I help him? Everything I do is apparently wrong. There's no way I'm going to be able to erase this from his mind.”

“That isn't our goal. What we want to do is restore him to a normal level of functioning so he can find comfort in relationships again and be able to experience a wider range of feelings than fear and anger and hate for himself.”

I dragged a hand through my hair. “I don't even know where to start.”

“There's one thing you can concentrate on this weekend.”

I lunged for my bag and pawed for a pad and pen. Doc Opie waited patiently. I still didn't sit down, but scribbled furiously as he talked.

“Let him be in control of his own body as much as you can.”

I looked up. “You mean, like, let him pee on the floor?”

He gave me a half grin. “Does he
want
to pee on the floor?”

“I don't know.”

“Just think of it this way. The sexual touch is over, but the knowledge of the abuse is with him all the time and everywhere he goes. He thinks other people are in control of his body. Let
him
be in control of who touches him, who sees him naked, that kind of thing.”

“Do I force him to take a bath?”

“Tell him he has to get into the tub, but you don't have to be in the room with him, and he can wash himself.” Doc Opie pulled a piece of paper from his clipboard, drew a square in the middle of it, and showed it to me. “In the box are all the things that aren't negotiable. Take a bath. Go to bed. Brush your teeth.” He grinned. “Pee
in
the toilet.”

“Preferably with some decent aim,” I said.

“Outside the box are the things he can make decisions about. What's he going to wear? Is he going to wash himself, or are you? Which of three healthy foods you offer him is he going to have for supper?”

“What do I do, hang this on the refrigerator or something?”

“You can. The two of you will figure it out. It will get him talking. I noticed that he likes to make choices, so give him as many as you can where his own body is concerned.”

“Anything else?” I stood with pen poised. I was already feeling better having something concrete to focus on. At least now I could swallow.

“If you can, take him out this weekend to a store where they have a nice selection of stuffed animals and let him pick out one to be his Safe Animal. Don't make any suggestions—just stand back and let him decide unless he asks for your opinion.”

“Fat chance. Is that it?”

“I think that's a lot.” Doc Opie stood up and stuck his hands into his pockets, cocking his red head at me. If it hadn't been for the ears, he would have reminded me of a curious woodpecker.

“He's going to need total commitment and tending to from you,” he said. “I'm sure you've been a devoted mother or he wouldn't be the neat little kid he is. But you have to almost go into overdrive now. Not smothering, just completely committed. Put whatever you can live without in your own life on hold right now—your therapist can help you with that. Take care of yourself as you need to, and focus the rest on him. He needs you.”