The thing about sitting at a group therapy table is this: people will either look one another in the eye as they spill their horror show secrets, or they find every last thing in the room to be more interesting. They’ll be twiddling thumbs, shoes, cracks in the ceiling, counting twinkles on stainless steel fixtures and appliances. Whatever. Someone will be telling everybody how when they were drunk they got into a fight with their grown kid and shot the motherfucker and one other guy in the group will be counting dirt speckles on the tiled floor.
On the other hand when someone relates to what you are saying, well, they stare right at you. Nod. Agree. Been there, done that. You’re not alone.
Most of the group: nodding, been-there-done-that-ing.
Me: twiddling and counting.
“My parents had a horrible relationship. This was when they were together...when my sister and I were young. Ben—I call my father by his first name now—he was in and out of our lives before he was finally just out. Mom was a good mom, but she had to work constantly. She kind of became that loving but sad woman who was around as much as she could be...which became less and less for some reason. The next door neighbors became Belinda and I’s new folks.
“I don’t remember when I started making bad decisions either.”
She lights a smoke and I wonder if she knows that’s bad for her baby. On a side note the walls need re-papering. Several of the seams are starting to droop and curl.
“When I graduated high school I had had two pregnancy scares but I made it through them. I dodged two bullets, I guess you could say. The first one I told Dad about. The second one I didn’t. He freaked enough with the first one. Is it mine? Is it mine? He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me while saying that, always looking over his shoulder for someone else to see him. He was always so paranoid.
“Belinda was career driven. That’s how she got out. The Navy took her. Even in high school she was a star. Whenever Belinda wasn’t around, Mom would say that God gave Belinda her smarts to get by on and I got the personality.
“Friends were never a problem. I just made the wrong ones. I liked thrills and that’s a road I should have stayed off. But Dad was always there. I knew it was wrong. I just—it didn’t seem wrong. Maybe it wasn’t. There’s two ways to look at it, I guess.”
I rub my eyes.
“It seemed like love at first. The attention. I needed it. Ben was never—he touched me a few times but we never—it was just...clinical, like he was making up his mind on whether he should do it or not. And only when he was drunk or high. Mom said Ben was a hound...but he only came after his daughters when he was intoxicated.
“I made most of my terrible sex decisions when I was intoxicated. I guess I got that from him. I wonder if I’m worse than he is. About those kinds of things.”
What?
“But anyways. Sometime in my teens it stopped feeling like love and started feeling like I was auditioning to be a new wife. I had big shoes to fill, that’s for sure. Then it felt like obligation. Or a bad habit. Then it was just dirty. So I freaked out and left. Ran around the country for a few years. I made a lot more mistakes. I always do with men.”
Wait a second. Now I’m looking at Delilah.
“The next door neighbors were like our parents, so that’s why I feel like it was incestuous to sleep with Dad.”
She holds her hands up to pause the scene and clarify. “Not
Ben, my real father. Ben the sperm donor. No, no, no...Elam is Dad’s name. I guess I should call him that.”
Oh shit.
“After I returned home I decided I was going to take control of my life. I felt scummy for sleeping with Dad—Elam—and what we were doing to his wife, who was always in frail health. So I told him he was paying for my school. I’d earned it. In return I’d keep quiet about our affair.
“Losing your virginity at nine to a man in his forties gets you decent tuition.”
Less than five minutes. I’ll go meet him outside. Shoot him. She doesn’t have to know.
“He shut his trap and paid. I don’t know what he said to his wife but they did it. And four years later I had a degree. Then I told him he was buying me a house. We’d had two pregnancy scares, after all. He argued and didn’t call for a week, but in the end he did it. I knew he would. I know him. And the house...I loved it.”
She smiles fondly, the way a lost soul will smile when there is an honest moment of recollection which brings them back to the days when there was a path to follow. Peaceful contentment gracing a sad person.
“As soon as I got into my new job and living in the new house, well, I made another mistake. I fell for a man I knew deep down was just using me. I wanted it to be something more so bad, but thanks to Elam, I look at love in the wrong way. It’s my fault too. I need to take responsibility but it seems preprogrammed in me. I know this and I still do it. It’s like a drug addict loading up a shot, I guess. The addict knows and is joyous as he pushes the plunger.”
Delilah has her mother’s sad face. Her hair is shorter than the latest pictures Darla showed me. She looks thinner as well. Her hands are elegant. She pulls a tuft of hair behind an ear and swallows hard.
“So, my new job. Pierce was married but we dated anyways. He used me and eventually I confessed to the wrong co-worker. Ellen something. She ratted us out. We were fired. Broke up. Ellen...I heard from another friend that Ellen actually put down what she had done in her employee review. To help her out I guess. A raise or promotion or something. Whatever.
“Bitch.” Her teeth clenched, Delilah hating this woman for capitalizing on her sin.
“About this time Elam came back around and thought that Pierce was the worst man in the world. I told Elam that Pierce and I broke up but it was like it never sunk in. He never got off of it. Elam hated Pierce immensely. He just didn’t let it go. I wonder even to this day if Elam hated Pierce for breaking my heart the way a father would, or if it was jealousy. Probably both.”