Before I Let You Go(85)

Annie’s hands are balled in fists. I can see the part of her that just wants to be with her baby, battling against the part that wants to counter Luke’s authority. She stares at the baby, motionless, and I don’t know what to do. I want to help her. I need to help her. Just as I open my mouth to suggest again that Luke give us a few minutes, Annie rises sharply and walks off, pushing the stroller in front of her. I stand, too, but Luke gently touches my upper arm.

“Let me handle this. She needs you to let me handle this. Got it?”

It’s my turn to stare down an internal battle. I keep glancing at Annie and the rapidly disappearing stroller, then at Luke, who is determined—staring at me with the question lingering in his eyes.

“Okay,” I say eventually, and then I walk quickly after my sister into his office.

“I like to start these sessions by touching base with our feelings,” Luke says. “I’ll go first. Today, I’m feeling frustrated because I had an agreement with you, Annie. I thought I’d been generous in allowing this visit in order to win your trust, but the first thing you did was to go against the terms we’d discussed. Your turn.”

“I’m feeling pissed off because I’m an adult woman and a mother and I shouldn’t have to give in to your blackmail in order to see my daughter,” Annie says flatly.

They both look at me. I stare between them blankly.

“Uh—I don’t know?”

“There’s no right answer,” Luke says patiently, and I adjust my skirt and glance around the room while I try to think of something to say.

“Just say what you’re feeling so we can get this over and done with,” Annie says sharply. She’s looking at the floor, but I can see from the way she’s holding herself that she’s a tinderbox of anger just waiting to explode. Her arms are crossed over her chest, her eyebrows are knitted and her lips are still in that tight, furious line.

“I’m feeling scared,” I whisper. Annie’s eyebrows momentarily dip as she ponders this, and then she looks at me.

“Go on,” Luke prompts, and I clear my throat and admit, “I can see that Annie is on edge. I know how much she has to lose. I’m scared.”

“Are you scared for Annie, or for yourself?” Luke asks.

“Or for Daisy?” Annie says, and I look at the sleeping baby, then back to her mother.

“For you. Only for you.”

“I can handle myself,” Annie whispers to me, and Luke leans forward in his chair and rests his elbows on his knees as he prompts me, “How does that make you feel, Lexie? When Annie says she can handle herself?”

“It’s not a ‘how’ I feel, it’s a ‘what’ I feel. I want to argue with her, and point out to her how wrong she is. If she could handle herself, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Put some emotions to it, Lexie. We want to talk about the feelings now, not the action they inspire.”

“Can I take this one?” Annie interrupts, and I look at her in surprise. Luke nods silently, and Annie stares at me as she says, “You’re feeling frustrated. Because you think that I need you to baby me, and I don’t want to let you right now.”

“I’m frustrated,” I concede. “But not because you won’t let me ‘baby you.’ I’m frustrated because we might end up in a situation where I’ll have to baby you.”

“How would you feel, Lexie? If you had a newborn and you had to agree to humiliating therapy sessions just to get five minutes alone with her?”

“If I was in your situation, I’d be embarrassed and angry,” I agree. “But I’d be angry at myself, not the people who were trying to help me.”

“He isn’t trying to help me right now,” Annie hisses, and her face reddens. “He’s trying to control me. Don’t you see that?”

“He’s trying to get you to a place where you can give yourself over to the process and get clean.”

“We don’t use the word clean in here, Lexie,” Luke interrupts me. “We use the word sober.” When I frown at him, he explains gently, “What’s the opposite of clean?”

“Dirty,” Annie snaps, and she stands. “Which is what I am—a dirty, filthy junkie. Fuck this and fuck both of you.”

She’s raised her voice, and Daisy stirs. I watch as Annie’s expression shifts from fury to horror in an instant. I see the guilt as it rises in her eyes, and then she glances helplessly toward me. I rise, too, and extend a hand toward her hesitantly.

“You aren’t dirty,” I say desperately. “Please don’t say that, Annie. I shouldn’t have said clean—it’s just a throwaway word—I won’t use it anymore. Please sit down and let’s do this. Please. Then I’ll stay and you can have some time with Daisy. She’s going to need a bottle soon and a diaper change and then she loves to cuddle and play. So, please, Annie—please—I know it’s hard but I promise it will be worth it.”

By the time I finish speaking, my voice is breaking and there are tears in my eyes. Annie looks back to the baby, then she slowly, carefully lowers herself back into her seat and looks to Luke.

“Go on then,” she prompts him pointedly. “Shrink me.”

In the next hour, I see firsthand what Luke is up against. He asks a question, Annie deflects it. He tries again, she responds with sarcasm. He tries again, she shuts down. It’s not just the big, deep questions that she responds to this way—it’s even the simple ones, like how she’s feeling about her progress at the center, or what her plans are for the next week, or how she felt at the whole-community meeting that she dragged herself to this morning.