All Is Not Forgotten(40)

I would have thought it was off, you know. Every other street empty after the sound of the gunfire. But on this street, the street where our target was supposedly hiding, no one’s afraid? Mothers don’t bring their babies inside? Even after they see us, they don’t run and hide? I reported it, so I must have seen it. And if I saw it, I would have thought about leaving.

“Would you have? Or would you have died trying to kill that motherf*cker?”

This was the question he couldn’t answer. His conscience wanted to believe that he had tried to retreat; that he hadn’t let his ego and his anger at knowing these people had killed six men in his unit cloud his judgment and put Valancia’s life on the line. That he would have considered his wife and son and even the war, because surely he was not going to get inside and complete his mission if they knew he was coming. He would be another dead soldier to drag through the street. A dead soldier can’t fight. Yet, he could feel himself charging for that door, screaming and firing his gun and not caring how many of those people he killed. He could feel that rage. And he had been found there, by that door and not several yards away.

We were stuck in this place, and I became convinced that it was this place we needed to stay in until he remembered enough to know what had happened. Would he have to learn to forgive himself for leading Valancia into a death trap? Or would he have to learn to live with his decision to retreat, and not take out some of the insurgents who had killed his friends? I came to believe that his anger, his rage at his wife and son, was grounded in guilt. He felt unworthy of being loved, of having these gifts, and so being with them triggered self-hatred. Without knowing, without remembering, the “ghosts” would keep roaming.

The look on Jenny’s face when she heard him talk of the ghosts was beyond satisfying to me professionally.

They met in my therapy group for victims of trauma. We meet every week. Sean had been coming to the group for several months, which was about a year into his treatment. He had been far too volatile before then. The decision to allow Jenny to come had not been easy, but I knew from the onset of her therapy that I would advocate for this course. Yes, her circumstances were complicated, but she was still a victim of trauma, and it is my experience that every victim of trauma needs a community of support.

Tom had objected. He was concerned that she would be exposed to “adult” content and language. He was not wrong about this. The conversations can be graphic and crude at times. But it is a group of mixed company, and this tends to keep the tone more civilized. Charlotte thought it would be helpful. She told Tom he just didn’t understand that women needed to talk, to tell their stories and listen to others tell theirs. Two of the other patients in the group were rape survivors. This disagreement had taken place before I started my work with the Kramers, before Tom had found his voice within their marriage, so Charlotte had prevailed. This was one time I was thankful for her dominance.

I had told Jenny about Sean and Sean about Jenny. They were eager to meet in this setting. Because Jenny was new, she spoke first. She was not at all afraid, even though she was half the age of most of the patients in the room. She said, simply and concisely, I’m here because I was raped. I’m the girl you probably all read about. I was given some drugs to help me forget what happened, and now I don’t remember it. It was hard not remembering. Too hard. I tried to commit suicide.

I did not press her to say more. Instead, I let each patient speak to make an introduction, which is our policy when we have a new member. Sean was somewhere in the middle. He was jumping out of his seat to tell his story to her. After he recited the facts, he admitted to his own suicidal thoughts. And then he explained about the ghosts, roaming inside him.

I know I can’t live with them. The only reason I’m still here is because I choose to believe that I can get them out. Kill them or scare them or satisfy them somehow. If I didn’t believe that, I would be dead.

Jenny’s hand slowly rose to her mouth, and her eyes grew wide. As Sean went on, explaining about the ghosts, about how he needed to remember what happened in front of that red door, I could see the hope rush in her, almost plumping up her veins, filling her with the blood she’d spilled on that bathroom floor.

I do not have a strict policy against patients meeting outside the group. But I do advise that boundaries be established. I suspected that Sean and Jenny would connect somehow to share their stories in more detail. We can get sidetracked in group, with so many people and so many urgent needs. What I did not foresee was the depth of the connection and the series of events that would unfold. Jenny and Sean shared something unique, something no one else in this community shared. The treatment was not widely used then. There was no open forum to find others who had received it, who might be suffering in its aftermath. They understood something about each other that I could not; that their families could not; that the group could not.

“What about the other rape survivors?” I asked Jenny. “Do their stories, their feelings, resonate with you at all?”

Jenny shrugged. I dunno. I guess. A little. But I don’t get a lot of it. I mean, I get it, but I don’t think I have the same problems. I mean, I don’t really feel afraid of guys. I don’t feel ashamed. Not even for cutting myself. I feel mad about it. I feel mad that I feel so bad all the time that I want to die. But not the way they do. I dunno. It’s different.

“But it’s not different with Sean?”