16. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
One year ago
After close to two years of therapy, Paige was almost officially ‘done’ and as she sat in her last group therapy session with eight other women—all in different stages of sexual abuse recovery—she looked around and saw a little bit of herself in each of them.
Paige had spent her first year of therapy in single sessions with her therapist, Lauren, who looked like a teenaged hippie from the sixties who’d teleported fifty years into the future. She wore flared jeans with holes in the knees and a lot of embroidered, long-sleeved shirts in bright colors that concealed the cutting scars on her arms.
When Paige had first met with Lauren and found out she’d been abused by both her stepfather and stepbrother, Paige had admired her survival. When Paige found out Lauren was now a healthy, married woman with two children, Paige had become a bit of a fangirl. Lauren was everything Paige aspired to be (minus the wardrobe) and she became Paige’s inspiration.
The second year of therapy had been expanded to include somewhat unorthodox recovery work that Paige had to do on her own, plus group sessions twice a month, which Paige had found extremely uncomfortable in the beginning. Sharing her story with others had been hard, but hearing others’ tales of horror had been just as hard—and there were a lot to hear. But she had come to appreciate the healing properties of group sharing in Lauren’s slightly psychedelic office, with its shag rugs, mis-matched chairs, and crocheted afghans in what could only be described as the ugliest color combinations known to man. Being surrounded by women who had experienced what Paige had was almost comforting and made her feel less alone, less isolated, less afraid.
This tragic sisterhood gave her strength, something she had never anticipated.
Now, with the other women watching her, Paige took out her thick notebook and read several passages out loud, from various places in the journal. Therapy for everyone consisted of journaling, which at first Paige had resisted because she thought it was bullshit. She’d thought writing her thoughts and memories down would make her re-live them, hurting her again, but it had actually been the opposite. Once she wrote them down, it was almost like the worst part of the memories got transferred onto the page and no longer resided inside of her.
Once Paige realized that, she’d seriously gotten down to business and wrote page after page, filling multiple notebooks. She’d kept a notebook with her at all times, so she could write whenever the mood struck, which was often.
When she was finished sharing the specific passages she had picked for the occasion and the session was over, Paige was shocked and a little overwhelmed when all the women gave her tearful hugs and sincere goodbyes and well-wishes. When the mini love-fest was over and everyone was getting their coats on and starting to leave, Lauren approached Paige asking to speak with her privately.
“I just wanted to say that I’m impressed with your journaling. You’ve obviously done a lot,” Lauren said, pointing to Paige’s thick notebook.
“I have several more of these at home,” Paige admitted, a little embarrassed.
“Really?”
“I journal all the time, to be honest. Almost every day.”
Lauren smiled. “There’s no set date for stopping. Some people journal their entire lives.”
“That’s probably going to be me,” Paige said and took a deep breath, feeling like a child about to confess to having stolen some candy from the corner grocery store. “And unfortunately, I’ve been really focused on it, to the detriment of my Uncle Carter’s ‘Fuck You’ letter. I know I’m supposed to have it done by now, but I don’t.”
At the end of each person’s therapy, it was common ‘closure’ to confront the abuser in some way (if they knew the abuser and the abuser was still alive). The most common way was in the form of a ‘Fuck You’ letter, since it allowed the victim to confront the abuser in a controlled way while remaining protected. This couldn’t be guaranteed in a face-to-face confrontation, because the potential for further damage to the victim was there if the abuser went on the attack, either verbally or physically.
“How far have you gotten on it?” Lauren wanted to know.
“I, um, actually haven’t even started it.”
Rather than being aghast at Paige’s admission, Lauren regarded her for a long moment, appearing to be debating something. “This is going to seem like a really invasive request—and you can absolutely tell me no—but would you read me more of your journal?”
“Why?”
“I have an idea. But I need to see if it would work.”
Paige considered the request and nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
Lauren suggested Paige bring her journal to the individual session the following week, which had already been booked with her ‘Fuck You’ letter in mind, and Paige could read some more to Lauren at that time.
At the session a week later, Paige read for about fifteen minutes, then waited.
“So,” Lauren began slowly, “I think my idea will work, but you may not like it.”
That didn’t sound very promising to Paige. “What is it?”
“I think your journal is good enough to be published.”
“Wait, what?” Paige hadnotbeen expecting that. “What do you mean, ‘published’?”
“You write really well, Paige.”
“Thank you, but … I’m not a writer.”
“Sure you are. You write in your journal every day.”
“That doesn’t make me a writer. That makes me an out of control … journaler. I’m not sure if that’s a real word, but journalist doesn’t work.”
“Yes, it does make you a writer,” Lauren argued. “Paige, what you’ve written is really good. Raw, but good. It’s powerful. It’s eloquent. And I’m telling you, that this could be published.”
“I’m just … I’m not sure what to think about this. Honestly, I’m wondering if you’ve lost your mind. Which is bad for a therapist.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. No one is going to want to read 250 pages of this.”
“I think you’re wrong. You know the statistics—that one in five women are sexually assaulted in some way, during their lifetime—and I think a lot of those women would like to read your story.”
Paige flipped through a few pages, some of which consisted of late night ramblings, and in many cases, were filled with profanity.
“I’m not saying you wouldn’t have to re-work it and do some editing, because you would,” Lauren continued. “But the end product would make a great memoir. You could add parts showing your life before you uncovered memories of abuse to give the story depth. Details you’d be comfortable sharing, of course, but keep in mind that the more honest you can be, the better the story will be. Write a few chapters about your marriage and your divorce … even your break with your mother, Claire, which was a very pivotal, painful moment for you.”
Paige pondered Lauren’s idea. “You really think this could be done?”
“I really do. And when it’s published, you could send your Uncle Carter a copy of the book as the ultimate ‘Fuck You’ letter.”
Paige’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“I never joke about ‘Fuck You’ letters.”
Paige’s mind raced; the idea was both evil and fabulous at the same time. “Not that I’m opposed to doing that, but wouldn’t it be sort of over the top?”
“Who cares if it is? Fuck him.”
“Good point.”
Lauren smiled mischievously. “You could also send Claire a copy. She deserves a ‘Fuck You’ letter, too. Maybe even more so,” she said, then quoted, “‘None so blind as those that will not see’.”
Paige nodded, liking both of those suggestions. She liked them a lot.
She left that session with a mission and from that moment on, every spare second was spent typing pertinent parts of her journals onto her laptop. When that was completed, she started adding the parts Lauren had suggested, like pieces of her marriage and the divorce, even including the double-decker shit sandwich encounter with her mother in brutal detail.
It took Paige six months to finish a first draft and when she was satisfied with it, she emailed it to Lauren to read.
She called four hours later. “This is fantastic,” she told Paige.
“Wait. You finished it already?”
“I only stopped reading to pee. And to be honest, I took my laptop into the bathroom with me,” Lauren said. “Anyway, I have a friend who edits books for a living and I want her to look at it.”
Paige swallowed, unable to say anything for a moment.
“Paige?” Lauren prompted.
“I’m here.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I think … okay.”
Carole, Lauren’s editor friend, loved the book and the three of them met to discuss it over lunch.
“Do you think anyone will really want to read this?” Paige asked, still not completely convinced.
“I think a lot of people will want to read it. I think it’s really inspirational, to be honest,” Carole told her. “Anyone who reads this, whether they were abused or not, will be moved by your journey through hell. You survived long-term sexual abuse and came out on the other side.”
“She’s right.” Lauren’s voice was soft, but firm. “Not everyone does. You know this from group therapy.”
Paige thought about some of the women she’d seen in group sessions—ones who engaged in extreme sexual activities with strangers, ones who struggled with various addictions and suicidal tendencies, and the ones who became sexless and closed off—and nodded.
“I’m incredibly proud of you,” Lauren added, which almost brought Paige to tears.
“Thank you. I’m proud of myself, too.”
Lauren reached over and squeezed Paige’s hand. “You should be. You’ve done a lot of work and now it’s time to go live your best life. Experience things in a new way, because everything from here on out will be new and you will own it all. And you should. You’veearnedit.”
“There is one more thing,” Carole said.
Paige looked over at her. “What?”
“A lot of autobiographies and memoirs have pictures in them. I think it would add a lot to your book if you included a spread of maybe twenty-five pictures in it.”
Paige slowly nodded, warming to the idea. “All right.”
Later that night, Paige got out all of her childhood ‘picture’ books and looked through them. She’d taken them after getting married—which was a damn good thing, because she probably wouldn’t have been able to get them from her mother, now that they were no longer on speaking terms.
She hadn’t looked through the books in years, so she started from the beginning. She was looking for two things: general pictures for the spread inside the book, as well as a picture for the cover. She knew she wanted the cover to be a photograph of her and Carter and figured she’d know it when she saw it.
The pictures of her father made her sad in a vague way—she barely remembered him, since he’d died when she was four, so her sadness was more along the lines of ‘what could have been’ than anything else.
How different would her life have been if Douglas Clemons hadn’t died? So different, she couldn’t even fathom it.
At the point where pictures of Paige and her father stopped, pictures of Paige and Carter started. She looked over each one carefully, noticing things that were so obvious now that her blinders were off. He was always holding her a little too tightly and she was usually very stiff, as if trying to pull away. She also rarely smiled—and when she did, it never reached her eyes.
It seemed clear, just by looking at the pictures of herself with Carter, compared to pictures with her father, that something was wrong. The average person might have attributed it to her father’s passing—if it weren’t for Carter’s possessive and forced hold on her and the proprietary expression on his face. Paige was also a little surprised at how many pictures there were of the two of them, which meant her mother was the one taking the pictures. Had it never seemed odd to Claire, that Carter was usually the one in the pictures, while she was the one behind the camera, instead of the other way around?
Halfway through the second book, Paige stopped at a picture that made the hair on her body stand on end and knew she’d found the cover of her book. In the picture, according to the date written underneath in Claire’s perfect penmanship, Paige was six years old. She and Carter were at a beach, on a perfect, sunny day. He was wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts and sitting on the sand with a lopsided sandcastle in the foreground, with Paige perched sideways on his lap in a pink, floral patterned, one-piece bathing suit with a ruffled skirt. Carter was holding her close to his hairy, bare chest, smiling broadly at the camera, while she was looking … blank.
She wasn’t even looking at the camera. She appeared to be looking out at the water, but her expression was such that it didn’t look like she was really seeing it.
With cold, shaking fingers, Paige carefully removed the picture and set it aside.
Then she looked through the rest of her books. As she got older, pictures were taken less frequently and were dated farther and farther apart, but still featured Carter prominently in most of them. She also noticed that as Carter’s expression always remained pleased, hers became even more lifeless, like a doll. Paige felt nauseated at the pictures of herself as a teenager with a fully developed body, being held by Carter like she was his girlfriend.
The picture of them during what was apparently her ‘Sweet Sixteen’ birthday dinner, actually made her cry. A birthday cake with lit candles was on the table in front of her, ready to be blown out and Carter was holding her face and kissing her—not exactly on her mouth, but just enough to see that he wasn’tjustkissing her cheek, either.
After looking at all the pictures, she realized that she had very few memories of what was happening in any of them. It was like the pictures were fake, or photoshopped. She didn’t remember being at the beach, or learning how to ride her bike, or her Sweet Sixteenth birthday dinner.
She went through them again, this time removing pictures, starting with a family picture of Paige, Claire, and Douglas, just before he had died. She then added about twenty or so pictures of herself and Carter—ones that had given her a visceral reaction and attached sticky notes with salient details on the backs before putting them in an envelope. She also put in a few with her mother as well, one showing Paige young and happy and then in her teens, looking decidedlyunhappy.
Paige shook her head, unable to comprehend how Claire hadn’t noticed anything, especially when her daughter looked like a freaking zombie. Paige didn’t think it was possible to have your head that far up your ass to not notice your child was in distress, but in her mother’s case, apparently it was.
The next day, Paige took the pictures to Carole’s office, who looked through them. When she was done, she murmured, “These tell a story all on their own, don’t they?”
Paige then showed her a quote that she wanted to use in the beginning of the book, followed by the blurb she had written for the cover and Carole smiled after reading it. “I love it. It’s perfect.”