I’m starting to feel like I live here, Charlotte joked. She seemed sad. I imagine she had started to figure out why Bob had lost his magic.
I smiled but said nothing. Jenny walked past me and sat down on the sofa.
“I’ll be right back, Jenny. I just want to talk to your mom for a moment.”
Jenny said, Fine. She pulled out her phone like every teenager. It’s not possible for them to sit in the silence. Of course, the room was not silent today.
I closed the door, leaving Jenny inside. Alone. I spoke to Charlotte about the schedule and pretended to need an update on Jenny since that morning. She didn’t think twice about it. She pulled out her phone and checked some dates and times. I reminded her that I go to Somers on Tuesdays.
“Hello, Lucas,” I said. I shook his hand and met his eyes. I had not been seeing him as a patient, and he still looked at me the way children look at doctors. They are right to be apprehensive. Doctors mean something is wrong with you, or might be wrong with you. Doctors do things to you that sometimes hurt or make you uncomfortable. I did not take offense.
All of this took not more than three minutes. But that was all I needed. I said good-bye and then entered my office.
My computer was on, playing a looped commercial from Bob Sullivan’s dealerships. It was all Bob, his voice, over and over. Jenny wasn’t bothered by it one way or another. She smiled at me when I passed by and walked to my desk.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d left this on.”
It’s fine, she said.
I turned off the commercial, then walked to the chair across from the sofa and took my seat. “I like to watch the news sometimes. But I hate those commercials. I know your dad works there. I think I just hate commercials, period.”
She smiled and I settled into my chair. I was pleased with myself for completing this part of the plan, the mission. But then I saw her face. Her eyes. I lost my breath.
I have described my impressions of Jenny before, how I had been confused by the girl I saw the months between the rape and suicide attempt. How she did not present as a trauma victim. Certainly not a rape victim. And then, when the truth came out about her receiving the treatment, it all made sense to me. I think I even said that I felt relieved to know I wasn’t losing my professional mind. After I began my work with her, and if I’m being honest, after she met Sean Logan, she changed again. As her father said, the life was back in her eyes. The last time I’d seen her, that Wednesday, we had the breakthrough, a light piercing the blackout. The memory. I had seen the panic rip through her as she relived that one moment. I had seen a glimmer of pain and shock and horror. But then it all collapsed into exhaustion. When she left, it was hard to detect anything. Two days had passed. Two days of living with the memory.
I tried to smile politely as I studied her face. I could see it then. For the first time. I could see the rape in her eyes, running alongside the life.
“How have things been since Wednesday?” I managed to say.
Oh, what a horrible person I am! I could not believe what I had done. I could not believe that I had set in motion the most devious betrayal. I had opened up this path back to that night. The patient was on the table and I was about to infect her with the germs of a lie. I had the chance to give it all back to her, the truth in all its purity. But instead, I was going to go in with my evil plan and corrupt it to my own end. To save my son. To save my family. I told myself I could do just this little bit but keep the rest, find the rest, intact. But how could that be? This one corruption would be the end of the truth. The germs would cause an infection that would feed on the healthy flesh until it was all dead. The truth, dead. My despair was profound. The irony staring me in the face. If I pulled back now, my son would be questioned and I would be taken from my work. To save my son, I would have to defile my work. Do you see? Do you?
Jenny started to talk then, about the memory and how it had become clearer and clearer. The hand on her back. The hand on the back of her neck. The smell of the bleach. His penis entering her and the shock that followed as he pushed harder and harder, tearing her inside. The violation. The pain. The animal broken. Its body and its spirit. Broken. It was perfect, the way this memory was coming into focus. I am not sick to think this. But it was perfect because it was real. It had been there all this time, carefully preserved, and now it had found its way back. Not only as a series of facts, but in the past two days it had connected to the feelings it created. They were no longer floating inside her, the ghosts that Sean Logan had described. They had found their home, and now they could be recognized and, finally, processed. It was working! Jenny cried. She sobbed. I hate him! She screamed in my office. I hate him!
“Yes!” I said. I wanted to cry myself. I was overwhelmed by the power of what we had unleashed inside her.