Salter, Anna C (2 page)

If not paranoid, what? Battered spouse. Possibly. Battered spouses are often in pretty bad shape, and they are sometimes afraid their husbands will find out they are seeing a therapist. An estranged spouse might be stalking her. But there was something in her level of fear that I had never seen before, not even in a battered spouse. I didn't think it was battering.

"I can't talk about it." She was crying. "But I need to know if I'm ever going to get better. It's been five years. I don't think I'm going to get better. I can't go outside, and I haven't been alone without Keeter since then. And sometimes I think he's in the house, and I know he's not because Keeter is just sitting there, but it really seems like he's there." She paused and cried for a few minutes.

"I didn't used to be like this," she said. "I was never like this. I was a nurse," she said as though that identity was now light-years away, which it probably was.

Rape? A violent, stranger attack? Maybe. I had seen some people in pretty bad shape from that, but never this bad. Something had shattered her whole sense of identity. She was hiding in the dark hair and the overweight body— which I'd be willing to bet she didn't have before —hiding in the house and behind the Rottweiler, but what besides rape would make someone hide like that?

"Most people get better eventually from almost any kind of trauma," I said. I didn't say how much better. Some don't get a whole lot better, but it probably wouldn't help her to hear that right now. "I don't know what happened, and I know you can't tell me right now. But when I learn a little more about what you've been through, maybe I can give you a better idea of time." This woman needed whatever reassurance she could get, even if it was just a vague, most-people type.

"When I talk about it, it makes it worse."

"I'm sure that's true. It kicks off the flashbacks, right?" She nodded. "Tell me about Keeter," I said. She looked up, surprised. She looked at Keeter and then at me. "She won't hurt you," she said. "She's very well trained."

"She looks very well trained," I said. She had to be because it was only her training that was controlling her; this lady sure wasn't emotionally strong enough to control an attack dog right now. "I didn't ask because I was worried," I said gently, which I think was true — although I did know a dog trainer once who was attacked by a Rottweiler while she was sitting behind a desk signing its owner up for a class. The Rottweiler had gone over the desk straight for her throat without any warning. I glanced at Keeter again.

"I asked because you can probably talk about her without kicking off your flashbacks since she wasn't part of whatever happened to you. You got her, afterward, right? So she's related to what happened, but she wasn't there, and maybe I could learn a little bit about your symptoms without triggering anything if you talk about Keeter and your relationship with Keeter."

She looked at me thoughtfully. I was glad to see she could pull out of herself for a moment. It was a good sign, small, but good. "I've been to counselors before. They always want to talk about what happened."

"But you can't, or you start to fall apart, right?"

"Yeah, but then they just let me talk about anything."

"We'll go at this sideways," I said. "We won't hit it directly at first, and we won't go away from it entirely either. We'll get as close as we can without tearing things up for you. Okay?"

She nodded and sighed, looking ever so very slightly relieved. "I do know a little bit about this problem," I said gently. She was lost and frightened, and she needed to know the person she was asking for directions had a clue which way to go. Otherwise, the anxiety about being lost would make the problem worse.

"What's a seizure dog?"

"Well, she's trained to press a button on the phone, which dials a number for medical help, and also, she takes me home if I'm out somewhere and get confused. I've had seizures all my life, but I didn't get a dog until a few years ago. My first dog was a little terrier, and she was wonderful, but I didn't feel safe afterward. I wanted a dog who could protect me too, and I know Keeter can, it's just ... I just don't feel safe anymore, even with Keeter."

"So Keeter's a protection dog who's also trained to deal with seizures?" She nodded. It must have been something, trying to train Keeter to let help in instead of keeping people away if Camille was hurt. The two jobs didn't seem all that compatible, and I wondered which way Keeter would go in a pinch.

Camille's shaking had stopped, and I realized it was more likely anxiety than cerebral palsy. This woman was a train wreck, but what kind of train had hit her and how was she ever going to tell me?

"I was never like this," she said. "I was a nurse," she said again. "I was an ICN nurse." She looked up, and I saw her face fill up. That is part of what happens with trauma: People end up grieving their own lost lives. Camille couldn't get used to not being who she had been.

And who she had been was probably a whole lot different than who she was now. The Intensive Care Nursery is one place where nurses never get stuck putting patients in and out of examining rooms. Half the preemies are critically ill at any given moment, and codes are as common as visitors. ICN nurses have a ton of responsibility and do some procedures restricted elsewhere only to doctors.

"Tell me about being a nurse."

Her hands stopped twisting the shredded Kleenex in her lap, and she sighed. 'T had a rotating shift. I could have had an escort to the car. I mean, I was on the night shift, and I got out around midnight, and some of the other nurses would call for security to escort them to the parking lot. But I was just never afraid, and security would take twenty minutes, half an hour to come. I just didn't want to sit there. So I always walked down." She stopped abruptly, and when she spoke again all the fluency was gone, and she sounded almost aphasic.

"I just never ... I didn't expect ... I know I locked the car ... It was still locked when ... I still don't know . . . mummy, oh, mummy." Her face had paled, and her eyes were scanning like she was watching something. Keeter stood up, looked at Camille then looked at me. Keeter had a hell of a job. How was she supposed to know whom to attack? I was just sitting there, but Camille was clearly reacting like someone was coming after her with a knife.

Keeter distracted me, and I didn't redirect Camille quickly enough. By the time I opened my mouth to get her back to safer ground she had stood up and was turning to the door. "I have to go," she said.

"Wait," I said urgently. "Don't go yet. Let's pull this together." This was no way for her to leave. I take seriously the idea that therapy shouldn't make people worse. I like to think people leave my office in at least as good shape as they came in. If Camille left now, she would have a dreadful day of flashbacks and fears.

She paused and turned back toward me.

"I want you to imagine a safe place. Sit down for a moment," I said quietly.

She stood a few minutes longer, and I said nothing, just waited. You can't just order trauma victims around; they have to make their own decisions. Finally, she perched hesitantly on the edge of the seat. I guess you'd call that sitting.

I opened my mouth to ask her to shut her eyes and then realized what a stupid idea that was and said instead, "Just imagine any place you'd feel safe —a garden, a fortress, a boat, anything. It doesn't have to be a real place. It can be anything you can imagine." If she could do it, it would bring down her autonomic arousal. Her heart would quit pounding, her palms would quit sweating, the racing thoughts would slow. It would distract her from the threatening imagery and decrease the chances she'd spend the day having flashbacks of whatever had happened to her.

She looked in the distance for a moment and then at the floor. "There isn't any place that's safe," she said. "There isn't any place he couldn't be."

"Then imagine a place where you would feel a little less afraid, however improbable a place. A cloud, sitting at the right of God, surrounded by tanks, whatever." I waited for her to think it through.

"A grave," she said, finally. "Maybe there." I hoped against hope she'd laugh ruefully, but she didn't. Instead, for the first time a fleeting look of peace passed over her face at the thought. I felt my heart drop. When a grave is the only place people feel safe, sooner or later they try to get there.

After she left, I thought it over. It sounded like rape, but it didn't sound like rape. Something more had happened, not that rape wasn't bad enough, but I had always been impressed with people's ability to recover from some pretty terrible traumas. Most women who are raped regain their ability to function more quickly than this lady had. Someone had been waiting in the parking lot that night, and something had happened —something worse than rape—but what?

I was still musing when the phone rang. Carlotta, my longtime best friend despite the fact that she had wasted a six-foot frame on modeling, for God's sake, instead of basketball, was on the line. She was a lawyer now —at least she had come to her senses and gotten a real job. Funny how you can tell if something is good news or bad just by the sound of the voice. I didn't like it when Carlotta's voice sounded like it did now. Once she had given me some very bad news, indeed, and ever since then, I cringed when I heard that sound in her voice.

"What's up?" I said.

She sighed. "Have you seen the papers?"

"No," I said, "What's in them?"

"Why don't you go get one? I'll meet you for lunch. You'll probably be able to talk by then," she said.

I glanced at my watch. It was 10:30. "No," I said evenly. "You're scaring the shit out of me, and I don't want the anxiety of racing around looking for a paper not knowing. What happened?"

There was a pause. "I'm sorry," she said. "Nobody's died." I realized I had been holding my breath as I let it out. "It's just that Willy's out."

"Willy's out? Willy's out? Willy is not out. What? How the hell could he get out?"

Carlotta started to speak, but I kept going. "How could Willy get out? Have you been in a maximum security prison recently? Those things are fortresses. He could not have gotten out. This is a joke, Carlotta. Just the sort of trick that son-of-a-bitch would play. He likes to give me a heart attack."

There was another pause, and I realized this was just what Carlotta had been trying to avoid. I was screaming at her as if she had personally smuggled Willy out of prison. I shut up. After a moment Carlotta spoke.

"He didn't escape, Michael. He won on appeal. The court remanded the case back for a new trial and released him in the meantime."

"What? On what basis?"

"Suggestibility. The court ruled that some of the social worker interviews of the abused children were leading and suggestive."

"I don't believe this." My decibel level was rising again, but what sane person's wouldn't have?

"There's more. I don't think the case will see court again, but look, I don't have time to get into it; I've got a hearing. Go get a paper, and I'll see you at Sweet Tomatoes at noon." Carlotta hung up. How could she leave me hanging like that? Why wouldn't it go back to court?

Carlotta had joined the county prosecutor's staff this year, which meant, even though Willy's case hadn't been in our county, Carlotta could probably get the prosecutors on the case to talk to her. I wondered if she had called them already and that's how she knew it wasn't going back to court.

Alex B. Willy was out of prison. I had never known Alex B. Willy out of prison, and I didn't care to now. When I met him three years ago, he was starting a thirty-year sentence for child molestation. That was long by today's anemic sentencing standards for child molestation, but it had come to light in the sentencing phase of the trial that Willy had had quite a string of victims.

He had turned out to be swimming up to his ears in narcissism, and he had delighted in telling me about all the offenses he hadn't been caught for. As bad as his known track record was, the truth was worse: Willy was not a simple, manipulative. get-the-children-to-trust-him-and-then-molest-them-pillar-of-the-community-dime-a-dozen child molester. Willy was a sexual sadist. What turned him on was hurting people, children, to be specific.

I made it to the corner and stared at the machine holding the Upper Valley Times as though it were a mortal enemy. God damn that son-of-a-bitch. No sane person would have put him on the street. I finally came up with the quarters I needed and jerked the paper out. I couldn't wait to get back to the office, so I just stood there and went through the paper until I found it.

MINISTER WINS APPEAL.

Appleton, NH —The New Liampshire Supreme Court ruled today that Alex B. Willy was entitled to a new trial on charges of first degree sexual assault against a minor. In a case that many felt was marked by overzealous prosecution and naive faith in the credibility of children's testimony, the court ruled that Mr. Willy's accusers, a six-year-old boy and a seven-year-old boy had been subjected to leading and suggestive questioning by county social workers during their investigation. The Supreme Court held that the lower Court had erred in permitting the children's testimony without first holding a "taint" hearing to determine whether the children's recollections had been too influenced by suggestive interviewing to be reliable.

The ruling stated that a new trial cannot occur until such a hearing takes place. Prosecutors must prove in the "taint" hearing that the children's recollections are reliable and were not unduly influenced by suggestive questioning. If they fail to do so, the state is barred from seeking a new trial.

Mr. Willy stated that, 'Tm just grateful for the chance to prove my innocence, and I am confident that a new trial will do just that. Hopefully, this dreadful ordeal will soon be over. I hold no malice in my heart toward anyone. I know the adults involved meant well, and the children, of course, were just children and as such were easily swayed by those around them."

Classic Willy. I could feel the pull of the words even in print. He sounded exactly like an innocent man, and the average person reading that statement wouldn't even question his innocence for a second. In fact, Willy sounded like a kind, innocent man who wasn't even angry about the horrible things his accusers had put him through.