The cobra abuser is much scarier. They are sly and smart and quiet. Their intelligence overrides their emotion, and they constantly calibrate their actions. When the cops arrive on the scene, cobras are respectful and levelheaded. They will apologize to the officers for the miscommunication, the misunderstanding, and calmly show all is well. To the untrained eye, they are good citizens. Cobras abuse in a systematic, manipulative, and clever way. They know how and where to hit without leaving bruises, and have the control to do so. They also know that creating fear in others is invisible. And once a cobra has their eyes on you, they will never let you go. They will stalk their prey, even if it means their own demise, until that prey is dead. To survive, a person abused by a cobra has to flee, change identity, never stay in one place for too long, or the cobra ex will eventually resurface.
In my professional opinion, Gertrude was a cobra. When I first tried to discuss this with Jason, a couple weeks after his birthday, he defended her completely. She was young back then, didn’t know how to be a mother. She left him, but she always loved him. She talked to him on the phone and sent him gifts. There was nothing abusive about it! Of course I knew these calls and gifts were her way of never really letting him go. Her way of selfishly leaving him, yet keeping him on a long leash just in case she wanted to yank him back one day. A very cobra thing to do. To cut all ties forever would have been healthier for him. But Gertrude didn’t care about Jason’s emotional well-being.
When I pushed on and mentioned this, Jason was quick to point out that his mother has been there for him every single day for the past ten years, and that isn’t something to take lightly. Then he threw some of my own therapy back at me: “Like you always say, there’s no point in regrets or guilt. So why would I punish her for what she did then when our relationship now is amazing?”
Hearing this made me deeply sad for him because it was a textbook response from an abused and neglected child desperate to be loved by the one person who doesn’t have the capacity to love. But I wouldn’t do to Jason what that therapist Gloria did to me, and try to convince him that he was a victim. I couldn’t force him to see anything. I would just have to hope that with some time he would see that his mother was toxic and realize he was strong enough to not need her.
After much discussion with the baker I had hired, I had ended up ordering Jason a light and airy dark chocolate chip angel food cake sweetened with applesauce. Everyone at the party loved it except for Gertrude. She only took one bite and in her charming Southern accent said it was a pity that I had spent so much money on something that tasted like cardboard. Of course she beamed at everyone else, and only whispered this to me. Even though it was eighty-nine degrees and sunny, I felt a chill as I realized I was now officially in the crosshairs of a cobra. I knew as long as I stayed in Jason’s life, my own would be under siege.
CHAPTER 25
GABRIELLE
After I was licensed, it was time for me to get my very own office. I chose a space in a high-rise on Biscayne Boulevard, near the Venetian Causeway, with a gorgeous view of the bay. The rent was affordable, as long as I quickly got clients and kept them. I was willing to bet on myself. The office had an old black overstuffed chair, for the therapist, and a plump merlot-colored love seat, for the patient. There was no coffee table creating a barrier between the two, which I liked. It seemed more intimate. Small side tables were perched near the chair and the love seat. For the tissue boxes.
The sunlight coming from the large window was so bright and gorgeous I knew I would only need to use the overhead lights for late-night sessions. I had already learned my lesson about not bringing in beloved personal items, such as my lamp. I placed a blooming orchid on one of the side tables. I sat in my new old chair, looking at the empty love seat that would soon be filled with all sorts of people, and I was happy.
My first new client was Gabrielle R. She came to me for post-traumatic stress disorder. She was twenty-two, had also grown up on Miami Beach, had gone to college in the Northeast and then returned back here to set up her adult life, hoping to be a professional writer, currently paying her bills by bartending. She was extremely pale, had black hair, and wore deep bloodred lipstick and matching nail polish. She told me that she was sensitive to the sun, basically allergic, so she had to stay away from the beach during the day, but she loved all things Miami otherwise. Especially the nightlife, when only the moon was out and she could frolic in tank tops and miniskirts and expose her porcelain skin. Instead of just looking like a pasty loser in junior high, she opted to turn her paleness into a lifestyle and went full goth. As she talked, I thought of Hannah’s clothing line, Vampire in the Sun, and told Gabrielle all about it. She was excited to check it out. This was all the easy getting-to-know-each-other banter before the real therapy began. Unlike in police interrogations, in therapy there is small talk.
A month earlier, while she was on a first date with a guy named Derrick Roberts, a man with a gun came into the Thai restaurant Gabrielle had chosen and shot up the place. Her date dove on top of her to shield her from any bullets, and it worked. She was unharmed, physically. Derrick was shot three times in the back, bled out all over her, and died within seconds.
Gabrielle explained to me how she usually maintained a no-dating-customers policy, but Derrick had been charming and confident yet not cocky. He had a commanding jawline, and his lips seemed to be asking to be kissed. He never drank too much, and he was quick to help ward off unwanted advances from the men who did. So after several weeks of seeing him sit in her section, Gabrielle had asked him out. And after a moment of hesitation, he had said yes.
She has reviewed that moment of hesitation on his end over and over and over again. She has relived the decision to go to that Thai restaurant when he had first suggested Italian. She has tortured herself going over every second of her life leading up to the moment that Derrick’s body went slack on top of hers.
I started by telling Gabrielle that it was brave and wonderful that she wanted to come to therapy to talk about this terrible trauma, especially so quickly. Just like setting a broken leg in a cast, the sooner a person can set her emotional injury in the right direction, the faster she will heal. And I also said, “It’s not your fault that Derrick died. It is the fault of the man who came into that restaurant with a gun and shot him.” Gabrielle’s eyes glistened with tears. “I know that. Logically. Intellectually. I know that somewhere in the back of my mind. But swirling in the front, pressing against my eyes, emotionally that fact seems like the farthest thing from the truth.”
Gabrielle was smart and aware of herself and connected to her feelings in a way that made me hopeful. She was ahead of the game, already able to distinguish logic from emotion. In so many ways, she reminded me of me. I liked her very much, and I was sure we could work through this trauma together. The last thing I ever intended to do was to bring even more trauma into her life. But how was I to know that my own nightmare was only three years away? And that all those who surrounded me would get dragged into my misfortune?
CHAPTER 26
PUSH