Whittaker 01 The Enemy We Know (4 page)

“
Um… No, that won’t work. I have my meeting tonight. Something happened yesterday—”

“
Ok, how about Thursday? Will that work? Listen, hon, I gotta scoot. I need to make a run through the house and make sure it’s all set.”

Robert was a perfectionist. He liked having at least a half hour alone before a house showing to tweak curtains and flick dust. I’m pretty sure he rehearsed his spiel, mumbling to himself and practicing his jokes, but I could never get him to ‘fess up to that. We said goodbye, and I hung up feeling guilty for bothering him and pissed at myself for feeling guilty.

Lisa was right, as usual. Mary Kate was the only one available to sit in with Carrie and me. For several reasons, however, she wasn’t the best choice. I wished now that I had talked to Marshall about her snooping, but it was too late now. She was already knee-deep involved anyway. Under strict orders to be seen and not heard, Mary Kate was nevertheless thrilled to be my sidekick. Carrie signed the HIPAA release form, and I had my witness.

When I’d first met Carrie I’d been astonished at the perfection of her doll-like appearance. Blonde and blue-eyed like so many of northern Wisconsin’s population, her features were delicate rather than hardy. Despite her situation and appearance, however, she was tough in the gritty, persevering style of her ancestors.

She wore a navy blue windbreaker to ward off the spring chill, jeans, and tiny white sneakers. She’d scraped her hair back in a no-nonsense ponytail and wore less makeup than usual. Dressed for flight.

As we took our usual spots, wedging Mary Kate into the corner, Carrie offered up a wan smile. “I feel like I should apologize, but I know what you’ll say.”

I waited, smiling gently.

“
You’ll say I’m not responsible for him, for his actions.” Sighing, she leaned back in her chair, casting her eyes to the floor. Not counting Mary Kate’s fidgeting, we sat in silence for a few heartbeats. It was the calmest I’d felt since Wayne stormed the citadel.

“
But the whole thing is
embarrassing, you know?” Carrie continued. “I never expected to be one of those women caught up in this kind of crap. You always hear stories and you think you know how you would react. Like, ‘I’ll never let any man pull that crap on me!’” Her voice took on a pseudo-tough tone as she mimicked the imaginary response. “But you just don’t know until it happens.”

“
What don’t you know?” I asked, keeping my voice a soft murmur.

“
You don’t know about the love, for one thing. I loved him. I still do. And he loves me. It wasn’t always like this, you know. I think it started when his dad died. And, even now, it’s only…” Her voice trailed off.

“
Only what, Carrie?”

“
Only when he drinks. When he’s not drinking, he can be so sweet. And before his dad died, he could drink and, you know, no problem. But now…”

“
Hasn’t it been getting worse? His drinking, I mean?” A rhetorical question: we’d been covering this same ground for weeks—months—now. Carrie’s need to defend the worthiness of her love for the before-dad-died Wayne kept her mired in both the past and the relationship. This kind of ambivalence was the most frustrating part of dealing with abused women, professionally or personally, but as part of the grief process, it didn’t go away just because people got irritated with it. Carrie’s biggest weakness wasn’t fear or denial; her own compassion trapped her.

“
I can’t believe he was seeing you the whole time. He told me he was seeing a counselor, but I couldn’t find any record of it so I didn’t believe him. Do you think it was one of those silent pleas for help?”

The image of the knife broke my concentration and I shut my eyes to keep Carrie from seeing my anger. At thirty-two, I was too young for menopause, but I got a preview as my body flashed heat. I heard a puff of air—not quite a snort—from Mary Kate’s direction. We’d talk about that, too, but at least the distraction helped me rein in my temper.

“
Anyway, I never expected him to come after you, that’s for sure,” Carrie continued. “Are you really okay?”

“
I’m okay. I’m glad you weren’t here. I think it would have been worse, in that case. A
lot
worse.”

She didn’t answer right away. Lately, we’d gotten to the point where she didn’t automatically offer up excuses for Wayne, but his eruption into the office raised more than just safety concerns. Carrie’s worlds—her life with Wayne and our work here—had collided, and we had passed from a theoretical examination of Wayne to a very real one. It shifted things for both of us.

“
I think you’re right.” Carrie said. “I know you are. Anyway, that’s why I’m taking off now. Coming here in disguise, spying on me,
attacking
you. I don’t know what he thought it would accomplish. It’s all so creepy. He’s getting worse, not better.”

I debated telling her about the accusations Wayne had made and decided to go ahead. Better she hear it from me.

“
Are you aware that Wayne told the police that he and I were sexually involved?”

Mary Kate stirred uneasily, but held her silence. Carrie’s eyes teared up. She looked away.

“
He also told them I cut myself.” I pointed to the livid, red line on my neck. “That I was angry that he wouldn’t leave you.”

Carrie sat in silence, still refusing to look at me
.
I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Despite the circumstances, it was possible that Wayne’s hold on her extended clear from his jail cell. After several tense moments, she said, “At least if I leave now, while he’s in jail, I’ve got a head start.”

Not exactly a response, but at least she wasn’t heading home to slip a nail file into Wayne’s favorite chocolate cake. “Do you have a safe place?”

“
Yeah, but I’m not telling you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that… Well, you need to be careful now, you know? He’ll come after me. It’s like a game to him, only worse. And he’ll be after the people who might know where I went. I already told my mom, but she’s mean enough to hold him off. I’m not worried about her.”

“
But you are worried about me?” Shit. So was I.

“
Yes. Just, you know, be careful.” She rose, even though our time wasn’t up. “I need to get going. I still have some packing to do and some last-minute stuff. You know?”

“
I know.” I stood, too, not quite ready to see her leave but knowing it was for the best. “You be careful, too. Don’t assume anything. From what we’ve seen, he’s no dummy.”

“
There’s one more thing.” Misery etched lines into her face, aging her. I stood awkwardly, waiting. “He wants me to bail him out. I won’t. I promise. But he might get someone else to.

I studied her eyes carefully, wanting to believe her.

Despite the doubts raised, we hugged goodbye. Tight. Fear of the same thing, the same man, bound us together more surely than even the mystical nature of a counseling relationship had.

By the time the clock swung around to announce the start of my Wednesday night women’s meeting, I was limp with exhaustion and sick from headache. I went anyway. Nowhere else on earth did a group of people exist who knew the real
me the way these women did. If there was any dirty secret they didn’t know about me, it was because I hadn’t thought to tell them yet. Or I’d been in a blackout and didn’t remember it myself. With any other set of women, my recent attack would have shocked—maybe even repulsed—people. Not this group. AA’s women are not strangers to the violence men can dish out. And some have dished out a little of their own.

Our Wednesday group was a traveling meeting. Members volunteered to host the meetings at their home for a month at a time. Like any long-running meeting, individuals drifted in and out over the years, but a core group of eight or nine were there for the long haul. Any one of this core group knew me well enough to call me out whenever I tried to take the easy way out of a problem, whether it was lying, denial, avoidance, or whatever. Of course, they didn’t call it those things; they called it “bullshit.” And then they’d laugh.

This month we met at Charlie’s house. Charlie, a retired librarian, had been sober eight years. Her kids had grown and moved out, but she’d raised them as a single mom and had spent much of her sobriety learning to accept their forgiveness for nights she drank herself to sleep long before story time. I liked it when she hosted the meeting because her house had aged like its mistress: relaxed, sprawling, comfortable. Safe.

In the weeks following my last drunk, I’d considered asking Charlie to be my sponsor. Since she already sponsored two women, I’d asked Sue instead. I didn’t regret it, either. Charlie’s easy-going nature was soothing, but even though I loved to wallow in it, I needed someone more willing to kick me in the butt every so often. Sue had seven years, nearly as long as Charlie, and was considered in AA parlance to be an “old-timer, hard-liner.” Now retired, she’d taught ninth grade, scaring the crap out of otherwise belligerent teenagers. She scared me, too. Underneath her gruffness, however, she was as soft as Charlie, and they were good friends.

Charlie’s house smelled like lasagna and raspberry-scented candles. Although most meetings at the club still allowed smoking, it was up to the hostess of the month whether or not to allow smoking in her home. Charlie didn’t. She’d quit smoking years ago, and it was one of the few things she refused to bend on.

Those of us who still smoked understood why Charlie didn’t want to stink up her house, though only on a theoretical level. I tried to hide the slightly whiny emotions created by the constraints.

Recognizing my childishness didn’t stop me from feeling deprived, however, so I sublimated my nicotine craving into a sugar rush by grabbing a brownie the size of a paving brick. I almost made it to the best seat in the house—an oversized armchair—but Stacie scooted in, snagging it out from under me. I almost landed in her lap, which would have served the wench right. Laughing, she scrunched down, snuggling her butt into the puffy softness. Sitting in that chair was like being hugged by a cloud.

As I settled into the rocking chair next to her, I couldn’t help but notice it was all hardwood and motion. I coveted the puffy chair.

By six o’clock, the women ringed the perimeter of the family room, and Charlie got the meeting rolling. This time I volunteered to go first. Leaving out names and other identifiers, I described the happenings of the day before. As I spoke, their faces turned toward me in the soft light, heads nodding in sympathy, eyes mirroring the fear I described. No one in that room was a stranger to the powerlessness evoked from the brutality of a drunk, angry man. We’d all been there.

An unusual hush filled the room after I finished speaking. Stacie, my sobriety twin, went next. A fifth-generation drunk, Stacie had chosen to break the chain before it broke her. “Dead or insane” wasn’t an AA catch phrase for her; it was her family’s legacy.

“
Hey, girls. I’m Stacie and I’m a grateful alcoholic. And I’m even more grateful that you’re okay,” she started. “When I hear something like this, it’s a good reminder of how dangerous alcohol is. At least, for me. I used to think a drink would help me relax, you know? It did at first, too. But after a while, all it did was make everything ugly inside me come out bigger, badder, and uglier. I couldn’t stand to be with other people for fear they’d see the real me, and I couldn’t stand to be alone either. I hated myself so bad! It just got too ugly to take.

“
Today, at least, I can look in the mirror and like what I see. Well, not in a swimsuit, but other than that…”

Amidst the laughter and mock groans filling the room, Stacie signaled to my sponsor Sue, next in line. While I would never call Sue frumpy (to her face), most of her clothes were at least a decade old and shrieked “school teacher.” She hated makeup but refused to go without, settling the impasse by wearing badly applied, clumpy mascara and lipstick in various shades of brown.

After rattling off the ritualized, “My name is …” AA greeting, Sue wasted no time. “Get a restraining order.” The room hushed. “Don’t screw around with this guy, no matter what your dingbat boss says. They don’t have a right to tell you to back off. That’s crazy. We let too many people off with slaps on the wrist, and look where that’s gotten us. If he wants treatment, he can get it in jail.

“
And you watch yourself,” she continued, spearing me with a no-nonsense gaze. “That girl may say she won’t bail him out, but don’t count on it. Besides, if she actually whips up the courage and takes off, it won’t be pretty. First thing a guy like that will do is head for the nearest bar and the coldest beer. You make sure you’re not his next stop.

“
Anyway, my day was good. That’s all I got.” She sat back with an abrupt jerk, tossing the conversational baton to her couch mate, Charlie.

“
Geez, Sue, tell us what you really think, huh?” Charlie laughed. “But I agree with you. Mostly, anyway. I’m not sure a restraining order is much use.” Charlie raised her hand traffic-cop style when Sue surged forward. “My turn now, you can tell everyone I’m wrong after the meeting.”

“
Won’t be the first time,” Sue said.

“
Oh, shut up. My point is that a restraining order will only leave a paper trail. It’s not a safeguard. Get it or don’t get it. Either way, what’s important is to be careful and stay alert. I know you have special training and all, but words won’t stop a knife. And no matter what, stay sober.”

“
Well, I don’t like the idea of involving the authorities,” Betty said next. Deeply religious and prone to anxiety attacks, her still-drinking husband had made the eighteen months of her sobriety a living hell. “I can’t see how a piece of paper will do you any good, and it will probably just make the guy even madder.”