Chapter 22

“Are you okay?” Sarah joined me outside.

“No.” I tried to will away the sour taste in my mouth. “That meeting nauseated me.”

Sarah sighed and looked up at the sky. I sat on the hood of my SUV and took several deep breaths. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sally as she sat on my bed the night I killed Bernard.

“We’re the same, you and me,” she whispered inside my head, over and over again.

I leaned forward and threw up into the bushes. Sarah ran inside and returned with a glass of soda. I drank it down in one gulp and felt better, trying to ignore the voices in my head that said I was no better than the battered souls inside.

“Really, Sarah,” I said, “I don’t know how you do that every day.”

“Our meetings are usually more productive. Kelly is new here and doesn’t quite understand things.”

“Kelly was the only one making sense until her ridiculous speech about the evils of the penis.”

Sarah didn’t say anything. In the background, children laughed and played. I felt an overwhelming sadness for them.

“Your clients make me sick, Sarah.”

“They make you sick?”

“Sick to my stomach. For the first time in my life, I want to shoot the victims.”

Sarah looked at me with a blank expression.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s not the first time.”

“You don’t feel sorry for any of them?” she asked.

“Why should I?” I snapped. “They need something better than sympathy; they need empowerment, but that only comes from within.”

“These are broken women, Liv,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, no shit. They allow themselves to be broken. Somewhere there is someone who has been through worse and found the strength to move on. How can these women complain about their problems when there are people in the world surviving the most brutal experiences?”

“Listen to me.” Sarah seemed determined to stay patient. “Most of the women who come through these doors were either physically or sexually abused when they were children.”

“So?” I asked.

“So?” Sarah repeated, incredulous.

“That’s right,” I said. “So what? I’m not going to cry with an adult over what happened to them as a child. How does that help the situation? It’s just a convenient excuse to ruin their lives.”

Sarah shook her head.

“It’s a crutch, Sarah,” I told her. “If they didn’t use their childhood as an excuse to pop pills, eat too much, or allow themselves to be victimized, they’d find some other reason.”

“You were only in that room for ten minutes. How do you know what makes them tick?”

“My judgment isn’t clouded by false hopes for salvation,” I replied. “Lack of faith allows me to think rationally and see these women for what they are, permanently miserable. How many of them leave The Shelter only to return?”

“Some of us need a few chances to get it right.”

I bent over and took more deep breaths. Every doubt I had about retiring came to the surface and I didn’t know how to handle it. Inner explosions and the violence that followed were as natural to me as praying was to Sarah. My head spun from the internal dialogue as I tried to make sense of what Sarah was saying.

“—when women are victimized.”

I tried to think straight. What was she talking about?

“I’ve never been able to understand the mentality of a victim.” I stood up straight. “To embrace that role is to embrace defeat. Survivors are impressive; victims are dead. The choice seems obvious.”

“Those women don’t choose to be miserable, Liv,” Sarah exclaimed. “Don’t you think they want to be happy?”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “Happiness is self-bestowed.”

“It’s not that easy,” she said.

I looked at her with exaggerated shock.

“Easy?” I asked.

“Pretend I didn’t say that,” she replied.

“Life ain’t easy,” I said.

“Some of those women are survivors.” She ignored my last comment.

“Far from it.” I snorted. “Survivors are strong. They fix their problems and move on; wet it, wipe it, goodnight! People who need medication to get up in the morning aren’t surviving. They put on a mask in an attempt to fool themselves and the planet when in reality they can’t face their problems without pharmaceutical intervention. That’s not healing. I guarantee you when the shit hits the fan, I mean when life gets a little too rough, they crumble like little girls and blame all their problems on things that happened decades ago!”

“I guess you have your way and they have theirs,” Sarah said, shaking her head and looking nauseated as well.

“Don’t say that,” I yelled. “Don’t act as if either choice is equal! I dealt with my abuser and made damn sure it wouldn’t happen again.”

“Give me a break,” Sarah said. “You moved on? You’ve healed? You’re in no place to judge.”

“I believe I am.”

“You’re right about one thing,” Sarah said, as close to shouting as I’d ever heard. “Your solution isn’t equal to theirs because they aren’t killing anyone!”

“Sure they are. They’re killing themselves and their kids.”

We paused for a moment.

“They’re brave to confront their problems in front of each other,” Sarah said.

“Fine,” I said. “I believe courage lies in actions, not words.”

“I thought for sure you’d find a kindred spirit in Kelly.”

“The Man Hater?” I asked. “How ridiculous! I have nothing against lesbians, but to turn to women because of the misguided belief that they’re somehow better than men is silly. It’s also false. Some women are just as evil as the worst kind of man. We’re no better just because we have two breasts and a vagina.”

“You’re right,” she said, more sad than angry. “Some women are no better.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I’m agreeing with you.” She stared me down. “Some women are evil.”

Suddenly the rage I felt for my mother and victims everywhere boiled over the top and I turned on Sarah.

“Fuck you!” I said. “You think you’re taking the high road because you retreat to the woods inside your safe little shelter with false demonstrations of character and hold the rest of us in contempt because we have the balls to act? You don’t know the first thing about the real world. Prayers and some holy water can make everything okay; is that it? Well, let me tell you something, little girl. You are living in a fairyland!

“While Christ is sleeping, I’m out there busting my ass saving women’s lives. Your Blessed Virgin is tied up doing South American appearances while I make sure daddy stops fingering his nine year-old! You think you’re doing the right thing in there? Your precious clients are destroying themselves and their children while you hold their hands and make them feel okay about it! Enabling is much worse than anything I’ve ever done. It isn’t evil to fight back and damn you for trying to make me think it is.”

I stopped to take a breath and avoided Sarah’s glare.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “I need to go back to New York. Today. And figure out what the hell I want to do with my life without anyone’s influence.”

I fished around for my keys and waited for Sarah to say something.

“It’s nothing personal,” I said. “We’re just two different people.”

“You’re on your own, Olivia,” Sarah said.

My heart fell into my stomach.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m giving up on you.” She seemed eerily calm. “Your rages against me, your mother, and the women inside are merely distractions. Run from Florida to New York to where God only knows. Ultimately you are left with yourself and that’s something you’ll have to deal with sooner or later. I’m getting off here.”

Sarah was no longer angry. As she talked, it became obvious that her speech was something to which she had probably given a great deal of thought and prayer.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Sarah said. “You had a tragic childhood, Olivia. My heart breaks for an innocent girl who fought back the only way she knew how. None of that was your fault. However, we shouldn’t stand here and dwell on the past, should we? You’re right about that. It doesn’t do anybody any good at all.

“You are ruining yourself and any chance at a good and happy life. To sit on some high and mighty throne, looking down on real women who are broken and trying to pick up the pieces is just a bit more than I can take. Stop hiding behind your gun; stop running away from Max. Turn around and confront who you are before it’s too late. Fix yourself, oh brave survivor that you are; I’m through trying.”

She began to walk away from me.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, more to myself than Sarah.

She stopped and turned around. I looked in her eyes and saw the truth.

We were no longer friends.

In a matter of seconds, a fifteen-year friendship was over and I felt the ground give way beneath me.

“I want you out of my house and out of my life,” Sarah said. “You are not to contact me anymore. I don’t want to hear your stories, your confessions, your feeble reasonings or rationalizations.”

I felt stunned and could hardly move. She took a small step away from me as tears flowed down her face.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said. “I don’t have much and you—”

“Goodbye,” she said. ”I’m through damaging my own spirit trying to heal yours.”