All Is Not Forgotten(22)

That was where we left it. And I did not think about it again until I had a similar conversation with Charlotte Kramer over a year later. I suppose I should mention something about my work with the Kramers after they found me. I immediately began meeting with Jenny for two hours every other day. She would soon join my trauma group, and that, as you will see, would become a turning point in many ways. I saw her mother and father once a week, sometimes every other as it suited their needs. Jenny and Tom were open books. Charlotte was not. But her pain, and her guilt—both from her willful blindness to Jenny’s despair and her relationship with Bob Sullivan—gave me powerful tools to dismantle her defenses.

It was perhaps three weeks into the therapy when I knew it was time. That she was hiding secrets had been obvious to me all along, and on this day, I decided to unearth them. I let a disconcerting silence come between us. I can’t say how long it was. We think we know time, but in moments like this, one minute can feel like ten. It was when she nervously uncrossed her left leg from her right, then crossed the right over the left, that I finally spoke.

“Do you believe me when I tell you that I will hold your confidence? No matter what? That even the law cannot force me to betray you?”

Of course. I mean, yes. I know that.

I nodded. “Then why have you not told me?”

I did not know her secrets. And she is a smart woman. Before you begin to doubt this, it was not that I duped her into thinking I knew. Rather, it was that she desperately wanted a reason to tell me. And so I gave her one.

I don’t know. She said, I didn’t realize it was that obvious.

It was on this day she told me about her affair. And it was on this day that I recalled the session with Tammy.

“Why do you think you’re having the affair?” I asked Charlotte. We had yet to explore her past, her second secret, and the alter ego that needed to be fed. And so this question was still open.

I don’t know.

I asked her if she wanted to know, if she wanted to discuss this, and if it would be helpful to her family. She was hesitant but agreeable.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s start with the obvious. Is it the sex?”

She had to think about this before answering. You know, it’s strange. That’s really all we do when we’re together. And when we’re apart, which is ninety-nine percent of the time, I find myself thinking about having sex with him. And yet, in the three years it’s been going on, I haven’t had one … you know.

“Climax?” I said. I am used to filling in the words. Men always use the word “come.” They use it routinely as though it were perfectly normal to talk about it that way. Come, cock, clit, ass, tits, *. Men are quite at ease with these terms. Women rarely know what words to use. They uniformly avoid the colloquial terms, but seem to find the clinical terms awkward as well. They usually pause and wait for me to rescue them. I have no problem finishing their thoughts and setting the appropriate boundaries for the conversation.

Charlotte nodded. Yes. Not one.

“And with Tom?”

Almost always. At least when we used to have sex. It was somewhat regular before all this started. Maybe three times a week. I think that’s pretty healthy for a marriage as long as ours. Isn’t it?

I nodded with a tilted head, not really agreeing but more taking a pass on the question. The health of their marriage was another topic altogether, and I wanted to stay focused on her affair with Bob.

But I don’t enjoy it. I don’t know when that stopped. Years ago. There’s more to sex than the … you know. Maybe not for men. But for women, it’s more than that. The dynamic between us changed somehow. It felt mechanical. With Bob, God help me, I could close my eyes right now and imagine his hands on my face and actually get a shiver down my spine.

This is where the conversation with Tammy Logan came rushing back.

“So what happens with Bob?”

It’s just, oh … how can I describe this? I get excited and I want him. He’s larger than life, his personality. Have you ever met someone like that? Someone who just dominates? He can walk into a room and take it right over. He just has this energy. And when he turns that energy my way, when we’re alone, it’s so intense that I lose myself in him. It is so clear in those moments that he is the man and I am the woman in this very primal way. I feel like I’m almost too excited. Like I’ve moved beyond the normal physical … you know, climax to something bigger. It’s not like that with Tom. It feels awkward when I try to let go. When I try to feel that primal. It’s like I can’t feel him as a “man.” Charlotte used her fingers to make quotations around that word.

And then I asked her the same question I asked Tammy. “But if you aren’t satisfied physically, then what you are getting from him is not sexual. It’s filling some other need. Is that what you’re saying?” They both had the same response.

Yes. It fills a need. He’s like a drug and I’m an addict.

Tammy started feeling nauseated about a month after Sean left. Her friends wanted her to have an abortion, but she couldn’t get herself to do it. She wasn’t against the idea on moral grounds. It was Sean, and the thought of him being with her, inside her, even though he was gone, even though she hardly knew him. She didn’t have to explain it to me. You would understand if you could meet him. I can’t do him justice with my words, and this is where the similarities between Bob Sullivan and Sean end.