Chapter 12 #2
Straightening her shoulders, Alaska said, “Staying. You?”
Tonka shrugged. He tried to make it seem nonchalant, but Alaska could sense the tension in him. “Staying.”
They walked into the room together and took seats side by side.
The chairs were surprisingly comfortable.
They weren’t simple folding chairs. Drake and the others had splurged, wanting the men and women who came to the sessions to be as relaxed as possible, and that meant not sitting on cheap, hard metal seats.
Six guests joined them, along with Henley.
The therapist was petite, around five-four, somewhere in her mid-thirties.
It looked as if she had some Native American ancestry.
Her thick brown hair was held back in a long braid down the length of her spine.
She wore a loose, floor-length purple skirt and a flowy white blouse.
The blue of her turquoise necklace stood out against the pale material.
She was absolutely beautiful—which made Alaska feel dowdy in comparison. Of course, she felt that way around a lot of women, so it wasn’t a new feeling.
But as soon as Henley began talking, Alaska relaxed. She had a low voice, soothing, and she welcomed the group as if she was genuinely pleased to be there. After everyone introduced themselves, Henley began talking about trauma. How it affected people in different ways.
After several minutes, one of the guests, a man who looked as if he was in his mid-fifties or so, said quietly, “No offense, but how can someone like you possibly know what I’ve been through?
Have you ever been in the military? Have you had to kill or be killed?
Have you ever had to look into the eyes of another human being right before you blew their head off? ”
His words were harsh, even if his tone was mild, and Alaska kind of understood his point.
How could this woman empathize with the guests at The Refuge?
She looked as calm and self-assured as anyone Alaska had ever seen.
Then again, spending time at this place, she’d learned that how people projected themselves didn’t necessarily speak to their experience with trauma.
She felt Tonka stiffen next to her, and Alaska turned her head slightly to look at him.
He was clenching the arms of the chair, hard.
A muscle in his jaw ticked and his lips were pressed together tightly.
Alaska couldn’t actually tell if he was seconds away from beating the shit out of the guest, or if he agreed with him.
“I think you’d all agree that there’s no way of telling what traumas someone has endured simply by looking at them.
Humans have gotten very good at hiding what they perceive to be imperfections from the world.
It’s a survival mechanism. We think if others knew how broken we feel inside, they’d probably run away screaming.
The reality is, even the most put-together person may have their demons. ”
The man snorted lightly. “You trying to tell us you have demons?”
Henley leaned forward in her chair and pinned the man with a calm gaze.
For some reason, Alaska braced for her response.
“Yes. When I was ten, I was at home on the reservation with my mom. My dad was working at the casino. It was late, probably around midnight or so. I woke up to my mom’s screams. I leapt out of bed and ran to my door.
For some reason, I didn’t throw it open, but instead peeked through the crack.
I saw my mom in the living room fighting with two men.
They had her pinned on the floor, and one man was cutting off her clothes, not caring if he hurt her in the process.
For just a second, our eyes met—my mom’s, that is—she didn’t stop fighting the men, but she mouthed hide to me.
“I was trapped in my room, the only way out was through the living room, where the men were hurting my mom.
The window in my room was nailed shut to keep out the cold and dust. I crawled under my bed, between the boxes that were stored there, and curled into a ball.
A second later my door flew open, and I heard one of the men telling the other that the room was empty.
“The two men dragged my mom inside, threw her on the bed, and raped her. Over and over. Right above my head. I heard every scream, every cry, every slap of their skin against hers as they violated her for hours. When they were finally done, I heard them stab her. Once. Twice…Fifty-seven times. They laughed as they killed her. Told her she was nothing but Indian trash who didn’t deserve to exist. They bitched that her daughter wasn’t home, so they couldn’t have fun with her too.
“After they left, I stayed where I was, frozen in terror. I didn’t hear a sound from my mom, but her blood began to seep through the mattress. I watched as the stain above my head slowly grew as she bled out.”
“Holy shit,” one of the guests exclaimed quietly.
Alaska agreed wholeheartedly.
Henley had recited her story almost emotionlessly, and Alaska guessed this wasn’t the first time she’d told it.
She’d been working at The Refuge for at least two years, and had probably been in similar situations where she’d recounted her personal trauma to clients unconvinced she could ever understand what they’d been through.
It was heartbreaking…and her willingness to share her pain awe-inspiring.
“My dad came home around the break of dawn. He found his wife dead on my bed and frantically searched the house for me. I didn’t come out until the police came.
Only then did I move the boxes aside and crawl from under that bed.
I didn’t speak for five years. So…yes, I have demons,” Henley finished.
“I’m guessing my demons might even make some of yours seem like nothing.
But comparing whose story is worse isn’t what these sessions are for.
They’re to help you understand that you aren’t alone.
You aren’t the only one who’s been traumatized.
You aren’t the only one who feels as if your skin is too tight sometimes.
You aren’t the only one who feels guilt. ”
“Guilt?” a woman asked. “You can’t possibly feel guilty about what happened!” she exclaimed, her voice filled with empathy.
“Can’t I? I didn’t do anything,” Henley said. “I didn’t even try to get help. Maybe if I’d come out from under that bed, they would’ve turned their attention to me and my mom could’ve grabbed the knife and fought back.”
“You were a kid,” a man said.
Henley shrugged. “Guilt doesn’t care how old you are.
It just is. The human brain will come up with a hundred ‘what-if’ scenarios.
What if we did this differently? What if we did that differently?
What if we didn’t stop for that cup of coffee?
What if we’d listened to our gut? The reality is, what happened to us happened.
We can’t go back and change it. Maybe if we did do that one thing differently, the outcome would’ve been altered.
But we didn’t. And here we are. The only thing we can do is move forward.
Come to terms with our current reality and put one foot in front of the other. ”
The room was silent, and Alaska closed her eyes as she pondered Henley’s words. She was right. There were so many things she wished she’d done differently that day…but none of them changed where she was at now.
“For as many what-ifs, there are just as many things you did right,” Henley went on.
“It might be hard to admit them to yourself, because it’s much easier to think about all the things you think you did wrong.
In my case, the right thing to do was hide.
To stay quiet. If I’d come out from under that bed, it’s likely I’d be dead along with my mother.
And I would’ve been raped. At ten. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to come to terms with that if I lived.
“No matter what your situation is, what you did, what happened…No matter how many times you wish you’d done things differently, the truth is…you did a lot of things right. Things could always be worse. I truly believe that.”
Again, Alaska had to agree. She’d had the presence of mind to get her kidnapper to call Drake. If she hadn’t done so, she’d most likely be dead…or wish she was.
“Does anyone else want to share? If you can’t think of anything you did right, I’m sure as a group we can all help with that. It’s much easier to look at a situation from outside it,” Henley said.
Slowly, people began to share their stories. The reasons behind their visit to The Refuge. Alaska listened attentively. The things the guests had been through were all heartbreaking. But Henley was spot-on; as a group, they were able to point out things that each person had done right.
Alaska remained silent. Her problem wasn’t that she couldn’t figure out what she’d done right that day, it was more that she didn’t feel as if she had a right to be as messed up as she felt sometimes. Guilt that she hadn’t suffered as much as others around her.
Tonka didn’t speak either. And his grip on the arms of the chair hadn’t lessened.
He seemed just as tense now as when Henley had first started telling her story.
She didn’t know if he was upset because he was thinking about whatever had happened to him…
or because he was furious about what happened to Henley.
She doubted this was the first time he’d heard her story. But if it made him that upset to hear it, why did he attend the group sessions?
She was still trying to figure that out when he abruptly stood and quietly headed for the door.
For just a moment, Alaska caught a look of sorrow—and intense longing—in Henley’s eyes, before she blinked and turned her attention back to the woman who was speaking.