“Speak for yourself,” she mumbles and then drops her eyes back to the floor. The light has dimmed in her eyes, and her lips form a thin, tight line, almost as if she’s zipped them shut.
“What about the money from the donations?”
“The ones you took under the guise of paying for your husband’s funeral? A few people have gotten together to bring a civil case to court, but there isn’t any money left. And…well, I guess not signing those divorce papers didn’t work in your favor. If you had, the judge would have granted you alimony or forced Dean to liquidate all the real estate to give you what you deserve, but…well, there just isn’t anything left.”
She doesn’t respond, and I spend a few more moments watching Shae gaze at the small, framed photo. I realize then how much I’ve given up for this woman, only to watch her destroy herself. I crossed boundaries somewhere along the way, but I did it with the purest intentions—because I thought if Shae only had a friend to confide in, maybe it would be enough. The trial and surrounding media storm took its toll, and I’m afraid I still haven’t recovered. I recognize that, at some point, I’ll need to close the case file on Shae and move on, but I’m not sure I know who I am or what I want if I don’t have this case to spin my wheels over at night with a bottle of wine. I’ve stuck my neck out for Shae, and she doesn’t even realize it.
I walk down the long hallway of the hospital, stopping at the nurses desk to check out and offer a friendly wave to the nurse before I exit the building and walk to the parking lot. I’ve been thinking about moving my practice up the coast. My brief time with Shae in Tahoe brought back a lot of memories, and I admit I’ve been yearning for the sense of peace the Northern California woods can offer. I’ve even gone so far as to reach out to a real estate agent in the area and inquire about rentals that have an office for my practice. I mentioned the move to my sister the last time we spoke—she’s off hiking Tibet before spending the winter at an ashram in India. With everyone else going through significant life changes, I find myself feeling a little left out.
Just left Shae. She’s still disassociated. The newmeds don’t seem to make a difference.I send the first message and then send another in quick succession.Now may be a good time for you to visit. It might be just the dose of reality she needs.
I slide behind the wheel of my car and wait for a response. There are many things Shae doesn’t understand about her time in Chicago, and yet one thing she does: her husband is still alive.
Dean and Shae aren’t even technically divorced. Before she could sign the papers, Jesika was bleeding out on the Chicago Riverwalk, and Dean was fighting for his life on a ventilator. Jesika never recovered, and after some time on life support, her parents chose to let her pass in peace. Dean was distraught. I know because I’ve been talking to him nearly every week since the trial ended.
Shae’s defense team tried to explain her erratic and ultimately deadly behavior as a crime of passion. When Dean served her divorce papers, it caused her mental illness to manifest, and from that point on, she split from reality. The judge didn’t buy it in the beginning, and Shae was forced to stand trial. But the more the judge and jury witnessed Shae’s devolution, the more the answer became clear.
I’m not ready.Dean’s reply finally comes, and I can’t say I blame him.
I frown as I try to advocate for my patient.I just think she could use the gentle reminder that you’ve moved on and that she can turn over a new leaf too…
I think back on one of the countless missteps Shae made during her time in Chicago. After Bishop attacked Dean, police investigators recommended Dean install a security camera in the garage, and he did the very next week. Shae is on camera coming and going from Dean’s house almost as frequently as if itwere her own. While the fact that Jesika and Shae had a real friendship held up in court for a while, by the time the jury was shown security footage of the night Shae tried to suffocate Dean with a gasoline-soaked scarf, her fate seemed sealed. All sympathy was replaced by revulsion.
Thankfully for Dean, Jesika had already been found and identified by the wallet and phone in her bag. Officers were already on the way to her home to speak to next of kin when Dean was found near death in his Audi. He spent three weeks on a ventilator and nearly a week in a coma—by the time the trial began, he was just starting physical therapy to learn to walk again.
My heart throbs in my chest as I consider what this man has been through at the hands of my patient. I’m not asking him to forgive her, only to understand that Shae wasn’t born this way…tragedy tarnished her at a young age.
Before I have a chance to think better of it, I press dial on Dean’s number. The line picks up almost instantly, and the only greeting is a soft grunt.
“Dean—there’s something you don’t know about her. I don’t expect it to change your mind, but maybe if you understood where she comes from?—”
“I know more than I need to know about Shae—that’s not even the name she was born with, didya know that? Nothing about her is real. Don’t let her fool you.”
“Shae was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder by a team of psychiatrists at Johns Hopkins after her sister died in an accident when she was fourteen.”
“So?”
“Shae hasn’t been the same since then. You’ve never known the real her,shedoesn’t even know the real her. All that she knows is this blurred sense of reality. She has selective amnesia about certain events and pieces of information.”
“Convenient. I know this argument worked on the jury, but have you forgotten that I lived with her? I watched her intentionally detach herself from me and her emotions and…reality.”
“I understand, trust me. I’ve been her therapist for a long time. I’ve seen her through the many versions of Shae. She’s always lived in a fantasy world because her reality was shattered when her sister died?—”
“She never mentioned a sister,” Dean mutters.
“She doesn’t…her mind has buried the memory too deep. Shae lost herself to her pain that day, and she never came back. Her parents drove her back and forth across the country, looking for the best treatments, and after spending time with Shae, they all came to the same conclusion—her personality is too resistant to treatment, her disease will never be healed, only managed.” I think on all of the inconsistencies in Shae's story. In the last few months during our time together before her arrest, the inconsistencies in our sessions became so regular I knew she was detaching from her past—almost shedding it like snakeskin. I corrected her at first, but then realized it would do more harm than good to have me correcting her all the time. So I decided then to let her speak. Her story is her story and there's nothing I can say that could change that.
“The people who suffer the most are the ones around her.” Dean interrupts my thoughts.
“Her loved ones,” I confirm sadly.
Dean sucks in a breath, and for the first time, I hear a hint of pain in his words. “I loved her once, Kelly, I did. But loving her cost me too much of myself.” His tone lowers an octave. “I know what everyone thought when they saw me with Jesika. She was young and beautiful, but it was so much more than that. She was simple, and after Shae…I needed simple and straightforward. She was a breath of fresh air after all the manic manipulation that Shae created. I—” His words catch; I’ve never heard him so tender and thoughtful, “I’m not saying I was abused, but what she did—well…” He chokes. “I had to leave to save myself. It was me or her.”
I nod. “I’ve been with Shae for a long time—I watched her fall in love with you, Dean. I’ve never seen her so happy. I know you did what you could, and I had hope for a while that love could keep her tethered to reality, but Shae’s condition has gone untreated for too long. I’ve been her therapist for almost two decades—she was still a teenager when we first met. I think of her like the daughter I never had…” I sniff softly, “I can’t leave her alone. What happens when no one comes to visit her? Who are any of us without the people who love us—really? Without people in our lives to remind us of who we are and what we stand for and why we’re important…well, without love we’re nothing more than strangers bumping up against each other in the night…temporary soul connections that evaporate as quickly as they appear. Without love, we’re all just ghosts.”
Dean doesn’t respond, but I can hear his breaths coming over the line. I imagine that maybe he’s crying like I am. It’s only he and I who remain in her life now, and he’s already abdicated his role. And then, just like he can read my mind, the line goes dead.
I am all she has left.
