But what I really needed was to cry.
I sat through a 12-step meeting without hearing or saying a single word. Several people approached me afterward asking if I was okay, and I shook my head no. I leaned into the white of my knuckles. No, I’m not okay.
I sat in my car after the meeting, unsure where to drive. Sunlight streamed in on all sides, and laughing DePaul students and clusters of suburban tourists wandered down the street. The world beyond my car was too noisy and scary.
I called Patrice. “I’ve shut off my BlackBerry. I’m done.”
“I’ve been so worried about you. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
I drove to Lorne’s house and cried into his throw pillows and fought the urge to unlock my trunk and grab my BlackBerry to check in with Reed. Lorne’s wife, Renee, patted my head, telling of the nights she too cried over Reed once she realized he would never leave his wife. Lorne and Renee’s son, Roman, toddled on the floor at my feet, making sweet baby sounds.
The crush of grief worked me over, and I kept landing on the absurd notion that I was unfairly abandoning him. “His father-in-law is dying. Maybe I should break up with him this summer.”
Lorne and Renee shook their heads.
“Dr. Rosen is going to be so proud of you,” Lorne said. Tears sprung to my eyes. What must Dr. Rosen have thought as he watched me holding hands with Reed, describing our silly trip to the mall, our closeted sex life? He’d kept a poker face all these weeks in group, but surely he shook his head back in his office, wondering when his fool of a patient would come to her senses.
“I have an idea. Follow me.” Renee led me to her desk and sat me before her computer. She pressed a few keys, and the screen filled with the smiling faces of a young couple. In the background, blurry images of people holding sparklers surrounded the couple. The words on the screen read, Discover where Jewish relationships begin. Start browsing now.
“JDate?”
“These guys are single—”
“And looking for Jewish women. I’m literally named after Christ.”
“Trust me. They’re going to love you. We’ll call you ‘Texas Girl.’ Once they meet you, they won’t care if you’re a nun.”
I hesitated, but she gave me a look: Are you willing or not? She’d built a happy life with Lorne, a nice Jewish boy, shortly after she broke off her relationship with Reed. Now she had a beautiful son, throw pillows, and farm-fresh eggs in her fridge. She seemed so sure this could work for me. On day one of treatment, Dr. Rosen suggested I could get well if I let him and the group into my decisions. Surely, this counted as not “going it alone.”
Renee coached me through the questions on the profile form. No, I was not Ashkenazi. No, I didn’t attend shul every week. Renee insisted I check the box indicating I kept kosher because I hated ham. I had sparse hope that the men on JDate would embrace me, but Renee had me laughing. She sent me home with leftover challah from their Shabbat dinner. “Shalom,” I said as I shut the door behind me.
Lakeshore Drive heading downtown from the north side on a clear, late-winter night is one of the most gorgeous scenes imaginable—the stony Drake Hotel looms like a castle and the Hancock building grazes the stars. As messed up as I was about Reed, I couldn’t look at the city and feel anything other than awe. It was my third night as an aspiring Jewess on JDate, and I was driving home from a recovery meeting. I knew my apartment would be cold and empty, but I preferred the harsh punch of loneliness to the electric, buzzy instability of trying to build a life around Reed. So far I hadn’t broken any dishes or palmed a letter opener.
I dialed Dr. Rosen, who’d been out of town for a conference and didn’t know about the lie and the anniversary dinner. “I let go of Reed. I won’t have any contact with him outside of group,” I told his voice mail.
I took a deep breath. There was so much more to say. For weeks, I’d wondered how Dr. Rosen could live with himself as he stood watch over my affair with Reed. Group members had repeatedly confronted Dr. Rosen on my behalf: Why aren’t you doing something about this? Christie’s going to get hurt. This is totally unethical. Dr. Rosen met each confrontation with a neutral expression, asking what, exactly, he should do to stop me.
During my tenure in Rosen-land, various group members had referred to Dr. Rosen as brilliant. I’d seen him speak fluent German to the Colonel and Max; I’d watched Hebrew blessings roll off his tongue. He made deep connections between seemingly disparate events in group members’ lives. Pet ferrets and the Holocaust. Guitar lessons and cyanide pills. Pinworm and credit card debt. He was sharp, but was that brilliance? Maybe.
What I valued most in Dr. Rosen were his balls of steel. He trusted himself
