‘Read their reviews,’ she advised. ‘In fact, let’s take half an hour right now. I’ll help you.’
I shook my head. ‘We have stuff to do.’
‘It can wait,’ she said persuasively. ‘This is important.’
So it was that Lucy discovered Caitlin on a website of therapists. She lived a few miles away and the following week, I went to meet her. Her house was set up a quiet lane and when I got out of my car, instantly I was struck by a peacefulness I knew was missing in my world.
The front of her house was overgrown with honeysuckle. When she opened the door, Caitlin had wavy dark hair and kind eyes.
‘Edie? Nice to meet you. Come in,’ she said. ‘This is my room, in here.’
She showed me into a calm room with two armchairs angled next to a window that looked out over a long back garden. After taking some notes about me, she asked what had brought me there.
I looked at her. ‘My family. My children – Ollie and Lexie. I’m worried about them.’ Then it came out in a rush. ‘Ryan, my husband, is an alcoholic.’
Over the next forty minutes, I gave voice to my fears, my helplessness, the deep sense of sadness I felt. The guilt I carried, that I couldn’t help my husband. All without blame, without judgement.
Towards the end, Caitlin intervened. ‘There’s one thing I want to say to you today.’ She paused. ‘You’ve talked about Ryan, and about his behaviour towards Ollie and Lexie. But not once have you mentioned how this affects you.’
There was a lump in my throat. ‘It’s them I want to help,’ I said.
‘And you?’ she asked.
‘I want things to go back to how they used to be.’ My voice trembled.
‘Can you describe how that was?’ she asked.
And the thing was, as I sat there, I didn’t have the words. I was aware almost from the day I met Ryan that he had a dependence on alcohol. I just hadn’t realised how significant it was. ‘I suppose what I miss is a kind of innocence,’ I said at last. ‘The days when I sailed through life – without a care in the world. When nothing seemed impossible.’
‘When did you realise Ryan had a problem?’ she asked.
I sighed. ‘I’m ashamed to say, before I was pregnant. And I still had children with him.’
‘You’ve no reason to feel ashamed,’ she said. ‘Love can make us blind. And we’ll do anything for those we love. But also, back then, you couldn’t have known how your life was going to turn out. None of us do. For all you knew, Ryan might have decided his drinking days were over. People do – for all kinds of reasons. You simply made a decision based on what you knew at the time.’
I feel a sense of relief as she puts it like that. But it isn’t the whole story. ‘You know you asked how this affects me?’ I said. ‘I’m on edge, all the time Ryan’s around. I’m waiting for him to lose his temper. To say something inappropriate to our children. To upset them, upset me. Get drunk and angry.’
She listened. ‘Is it always like this?’
‘Yes.’ I had a heavy, dark feeling I couldn’t shake. ‘Even when he’s out, I know what’ll happen when he’s back.’
Caitlin looked at me. ‘So why do you stay?’
As I drove home from my first session with her, I was thinking about you. At some point in your last few years, there had been an inexorable shift in you. Even now, I couldn’t put my finger on when it happened, or why. I just noticed as you became more withdrawn; at the same time, more focused on everything that seemed so important to you.
Not all my memories were happy, Lexie. Nor were yours, including one standout day, when I remembered you and Ollie talking, him needling you – gently. It wasn’t in his nature to be anything else:
‘You can’t change the world, Lex. Leave it to the big shots!’
‘I’m not talking about them. Anyway, they’re fucking things up. I mean us, Oll. And it isn’t the small things. It’s the vast, global problems we all have a part in.’
On this occasion, you were talking about wars.
‘Imagine if your country was invaded, how you’d do whatever it took to save your family.’
The devastation of the Amazon rainforest was another subject you wouldn’t stay silenced on. I always felt you were too young to take these worries on. But maybe it was needed. Maybe you were part of a generation who’d inspire change.
After starting work at the animal shelter, you’d become vegan; yet another reason Ryan ran out of patience with you, demanding you ate what you’ve always eaten.
