I listed my family members and my grandmother, though I’m not sure anyone except Grandma actually cared. Erin had rung when I was in hospital and said I should go into rehab. She hadn’t called again. Dad had come over to make sure my indiscretions weren’t going to impact his beloved church and he and Mom had agreed to put me into this place to get me out of the way.
‘Haven’t you forgotten someone?’
‘Me?’
She smiled indulgently. ‘Don’t you think you’re worth saving, Ruby?’
I couldn’t look directly at her. ‘Yes, I do. I thought you were talking about other people.’
The session continued past what I thought was the allotted hour. She wasn’t going to stop until I told her something. Eventually, I told her about the incident and how I had been taken from America to Ireland to start over. She livened up then. Now she had something on me, something to work with.
‘Let me get this straight, Ruby: you were sixteen, your sister’sboyfriend raped you, you endured a trial and were taken to Ireland from Boston, away from your home, your friends, your school, familiar surroundings, and then because of the move your parents divorced? And you are estranged from your sister?’ She was almost gleeful. ‘You knownoneof that was your fault, right, Ruby? Tonight and every night, when you are brushing your teeth, I want you to look at yourself in the mirror, directly into your eyes. I want you to say “I am free of blame” over and over again.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Ruby,’ she said – she sure did like using my name – ‘I can help you. Miracles happen within these walls. You can be one of them.’
She was beaming at me. I had graduated from the forty per cent likely to fall back into addiction to the miraculous top forty per cent,as ifI was an addict. That was quick.
‘Yeah,’ I said, thinking,Sure, if I could turn back time.
‘We have a lot of work to do. But the blame stops now.’
Thank God, the Ativan was already taking the edge off the panic I was feeling. Dr Amber noticed.
‘That is the only drug you will get in here, Ruby, you understand? From now on, no more Valium, no codeine, not even cough medicine. It’s time to face reality. You have an opportunity now to change your life. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’
I was already dreading tomorrow. I only told her about the incident to give her something to hang the drinking on. Everyone in here was insistent that I was an alcoholic and that there must be a reason for it. I was just a girl who liked to party. Yeah, sometimes I took it too far. I thought about jumping into the Liffey. It was only three weeks ago. What had I been thinking? Was I trying to end my life? The last few months were cloudy, but the way Amber had put it, 6.30 in the morning on my own, and I didn’t even remember. I didn’t want to. I remembered beingrelieved when I woke up in hospital. If it was a suicide attempt, wouldn’t I have been disappointed? God, I needed a drink.
The next session was a lecture from a German counsellor on Rebuilding Your Life. The chairs were hard, and I suppose that was on purpose to keep us awake because this guy’s voice was soothing. My head kept tilting back as I nodded off and then clanked it on the back of the chair.
There was no time to be alone in this house. I could see clearly what they were trying to do. Isolate us from outside sources, no radio, no TV, no internet. This bubble we lived in was a brain-washing machine, but I was not going to fall for it.
14
I had been sober for nine days but, my God, it was difficult – not because I was an alcoholic but because I didn’t get a minute to myself. I yawned my way through group sessions, made as little effort at yoga as possible and laughed in the face of other people’s crises. In the evenings, we were allowed to watch some specially curated DVDs of films that featured characters crashing and burning.The Morning After,AfflictionandWho’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfwere the favourites among the group. They were supposed to be inspirational, I guess, but I didn’t need to see them any more than once. And certainly not two days in a row.
Amber, the psychiatrist, was drilling down into my relationship with Mom and Dad after the incident. She had a problem with me referring to the rape as the ‘incident’. ‘Why not name it for what it was?’ I couldn’t answer that.
‘It’s hard to get rape convictions, it’s nearly always the survivor’s word’ – Amber never referred to me as a victim – ‘against the perpetrator’s. You are brave to have brought that case, you know? Most women don’t. And let’s not forget, you were achild.’ She missed out on the fact that I didn’t get a choice about bringing the case or not. Dad called the cops that day and the rest just happened. I don’t remember anyone asking me if I wanted to be dragged through the courts.
It sickened me to have to talk about this every day, but she insisted ‘the thing you don’t want to talk about is the thing you must talk about’. She asked me about Dad’s church, whyI felt ‘impure’ and unable to go back. Did I still feel impure? When we went on to talk about my current sex life, she became excited all over again. ‘You don’t feel any emotional connection to these men?’ I shook my head. ‘And how many men have there been?’
I frowned. ‘Roughly? About twenty,’ I said, though I knew it was more.
‘And you have never sought a relationship with any of these?’
I looked at her. ‘Are you judging me for behaving like most men? Alltheywant is sex.’
‘Let’s say there were twenty men’ – she knew I was lying – ‘how many of them expressed an interest in seeing you again?’ She didn’t get it.
‘I chose my sex partners. I chose not to have relationships. What is wrong with that? As a feminist, aren’t I within my rights to have control over my sex life?’
Amber seized on the word ‘control’ as if we’d made some incredible breakthrough. ‘Control!’ she shouted. ‘There it is. That is what you are seeking in life. Well, you know what you can’t have with drugs or alcohol? Control! And I’m betting that few of these encounters happened when you were sober. Where exactly is the control you’re so proud of?’
How low could she go? But she was right about one thing. I had never had sober sex.
I was sick of her by this stage. Determined to open every old wound and expose it to the elements. ‘Fuck you.’
