“Not to all. But to as many as I could. I had a hard time turning down opportunities to glorify the Lord.”
“I remember that flying on planes was scary for you when you were in middle school. Are you still a nervous flyer?”
“Yes. It’s gotten worse over time, to be honest.” She hated flying. While in the air, she hovered on the verge of inner panic the whole time. “Are you familiar with the verse ‘Lo, I am with you always’?” Genevieve asked.
“I am.”
“I take that literally.” She ran her hand an inch above her arm rest. “Low, I am with you always.”
“Ha!”
“Every time a plane takes off or hits turbulence, it makes me incredibly anxious. I spend most of the flight counting down the minutes until we land or solving the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine in an effort to distract myself from thoughts of fiery crashes.”
“Yet you fly all the time.”
“Sometimes as often as four times a week.”
“The travel also deposits you in hotel rooms, which can be lonely places for some. Are they for you?”
Genevieve nodded.
“Tell me more about what was going on before the broken ankle.”
Genevieve pulled her hair forward and combed her fingers through the last few inches of the strands. “The stress of the deadlines sometimes feels heavy. I’m contracted to write one study per year, which means I have to write and research at my maximum pace.”
“Anything else?”
“I have a difficult time absorbing criticism. I’ve received lots of criticism from the secular market. Far worse, I’ve been criticized by fellow Christians who disagree with me.”
“Mmm.”
“I often feel like I’m caught in this weird place, feeling proudabout the studies on one hand and feeling sheepish and undeserving about the studies on the other hand.”
The older woman put away the spray bottle and hoisted herself so that she was sitting on the edge of her desk. Her Teva sandals swung back and forth beneath the hem of her long prairie skirt.
“When the audience applauds for me,” Genevieve continued, “or when people ask to take a photo or when TV stations call me, it strokes my ego, which isn’t good. It also makes me afraid that my prior studies were a fluke, that I don’t know what I’m doing, and that no one will buy or like my next study. Which isn’t good, either.”
“How long were these pressures mounting before you broke your ankle?”
“Like I said, things were mostly great before I broke my ankle. I don’t want to paint an inaccurate picture.”
“Yes, but for how long were these pressures mounting?”
Genevieve toyed with the three bands of her rolling ring. “Two years. No. Three, maybe.”
The doctor zipped a fingertip through the diffuser’s mist stream. “At any point during the past four years did memories or nightmares about the earthquake begin to increase?”
The gentle, conversational question collided with Genevieve, unsettling her. “Yes, actually.” A few years ago, nightmares about the earthquake began to sneak back into her life. Thoughts about the quake had followed. Which had fed more nightmares.
“Trauma never disappears, Genevieve. The things we’ve experienced are always a part of us. When we’re stressed, old traumas like to rear their heads.”
Genevieve sighed. “It sounds to me like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Take heart. It sounds to me like we’re beginning to get to the root of the matter.”
Almost a week later, Genevieve let herself into Sam’s laundry room. She closed the exterior door loudly. She moved around noisily. She banged the washing machine’s lid.
But alas. Sam did not appear.
