LIKE THE OTHER SEVEN WOMEN IN HER THERAPY GROUP, CASSIE WAS married to a man who was wonderful ninety-five percent of the time.
Like the other women, Cassie had spent more time as a child taking care of her parents than they had spent taking care of her, but no one had ever given her any credit for it. And then her husband had come along. He was the first person who made her feel special. He told her he loved her, he wept when he hurt her. He told her she was able to take care of him and soothe his pain as nobody else could.
Like the other seven women, Cassie didn’t want Alex to hit her, but she knew he couldn’t help it. She believed that in some way, it was her fault for not being able to avoid it. She felt sorry for him. She could convince herself it would never happen again, because she had been fixing problem situations for so much of her life that for her own wellbeing, she simply had to believe in her ability to set things right. And oh, there were rewards. Flowers, and tenderness, and smiles meant just for her. When she got it right—when she didn’t send him over the edge—her life was better than anyone else’s.
But like the other women, Cassie understood that it wasn’t normal to freeze up when her husband touched her shoulder, since she didn’t know whether to expect a kiss or a kick in the ribs. She understood that it wasn’t always her fault. That she didn’t have to be unhappy more than she was happy.
Dr. Pooley sat right in the circle with the women, many of whom, Cassie was surprised to see, were well dressed and well spoken. Somehow she had expected to be included with the wives of truck drivers, of welfare recipients. For the first few minutes she sat quietly, saying no more than her first name by way of introduction, and stared at the tulipshaped bruise on the collarbone of the woman across from her. The session that night was a story swap. Dr. Pooley wanted everyone to think back to the very first time an incident of abuse had occurred.
Cassie listened to a lawyer tell of her live-in lover, who had barricaded her in the bathroom for forty-eight hours to keep her from going out with her colleagues. Another woman cried as she described her husband dragging her from a dinner party where he accused her of talking too much to a male neighbor, and then punched her in the mouth until two teeth came out and blood gushed and she couldn’t talk anymore at all. Others told of objects being hurled at them, of bones being broken, of fists being slammed through glass windows.
When Cassie was the only one who hadn’t spoken, she glanced up shyly at Dr. Pooley and started to describe the time she’d come back from her Chicago lecture on the hand. She talked slowly about the plane being late, about Alex’s accusations as to where she had been, carefully censoring any information that would point clearly to Alex’s career and reveal his identity. She felt lighter with each word she spoke, as if she had been carrying around stones in her heart all these years and was only now able to cast them away. By the time she finished, having talked about the baby that might have been, tears were running down her cheeks and Dr. Pooley’s arm was around her shoulders.
Shocked at her lack of composure, Cassie sat bolt upright. She hastily wiped her face. “I have a son now,” she said proudly. “My husband is wonderful with him.” And then, more softly, absolving Alex: “That other time, he didn’t know.”
As the group broke up, gathering their purses and their fragile understandings to take back to their homes, Cassie lingered behind. She waited until she and Dr. Pooley were the only ones in the meeting room, and then she tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Thank you,”
Cassie said, shrugging a little. “I’m not quite sure for what, but . . .
thank you.”
The psychotherapist smiled. “It’ll get easier each time you come.”
Cassie nodded. “I think I expected to feel like I was going to have to defend myself. Like no one would understand how I can still love Alex after what he’s done. I thought they’d all look at me like I was crazy for sticking around for so long.”
Dr. Pooley nodded. “We’ve all been there,” she said.
Cassie’s eyes widened. “You too?”
“I was married to a man who beat me for ten years,” she said, “so I’m the last person who’s going to judge you for your decision to stay.”
She held the door open so Cassie could walk through.
Cassie continued to stare at the therapist. “I—I’m sorry. I just never would have guessed.”
“Well, we don’t all brand it across our foreheads, do we?” she said gently.
Cassie shook her head. “But things are better now?” she asked, trying to take as much hope as she could home to Alex.
“Yes,” Dr. Pooley said, sighing. She looked at Cassie for a long moment. “Now that we’re divorced.”
ALEX WAS CIRCLING HIS HIPS, PRESSING DEEP INSIDE OF HER, RUNNING his mouth in a hot path down the curve of Cassie’s neck, when Connor began to scream through the monitor beside the bed.
Cassie’s breasts tingled as her milk let down, and she felt it dripping down both sides of her as Alex rolled off her for the second time that night. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, his jaw clenched.
“For God’s sake, Cassie,” Alex bit out. “Can’t you make him shut up?”
But she was already pulling on a peach satin wrapper and making her way toward the door. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.
It turned out to be nothing at all, just a pacifier that had become wedged underneath Connor’s neck when he shifted. She rubbed his back and watched his sobs soften into hiccups, thinking how absolutely helpless he was.
Tiptoeing out the door, she made her way down the hall to the bedroom again. Alex was still, his back turned away from her side of the bed. When she closed the door behind her, he made no move to face her.
Cassie slipped under the covers and curled her body against Alex’s back. “Where were we?”
“Jesus, Cassie. I can’t turn myself on and off like a goddamn faucet.
I can’t make it through a meal, I can’t sleep the entire night, I can’t even finishmaking loveto you without being interrupted by that kid.”
