When I showed up for group the next day, I was skittish as a squirrel. I felt an urge to cross my legs every ten minutes. Fragments of my conversation with Brandon swam in my head, but I said nothing. In ninety minutes, I barely said a word.
Two days later, the same thing happened in Thursday group. Lorne asked what was going on with Dr. Flipper, and Patrice asked if I was okay. When I refused to give any meaningful answers, everyone left me alone until right before group ended, when Max asked if I thought the secret-keeping thing was working. Patrice said she was wondering the same thing.
Dr. Rosen started to say something and then stopped. “What?” I asked. I’d left him a message explaining that I’d agreed to keep a secret for Brandon, but I gave no details.
“Can I say something about the message you left?” Dr. Rosen said.
“Go ahead.”
“I won’t tell your secret, but—”
“Secret?” Lorne asked.
“Christie,” Max said, drawing out both syllables in a low voice. “What are you up to?”
Dr. Rosen assured me that I didn’t have to tell Brandon’s secret, but he wanted to be sure I understood how secrets work. “When you agree to keep someone’s secret, you hold their shame.” I already knew this was Dr. Rosen’s philosophy. What I didn’t understand was why it was such a bad thing to help my boyfriend work through his shame? Would it kill me to hold it for him while we sorted out our relationship? Weren’t relationships all about making compromises so you didn’t die alone next to a tin full of baby ashes?
The group’s appetite for revelation surged. They tried to guess the secret: Embezzling? Bankruptcy? Secret wife? Gambling? Check-kiting? Pedophilic impulses? The very group of strangers Brandon entrusted me to protect his secret from now suspected him of possible money laundering and child molestation. I looked at Dr. Rosen and begged him to make them shut up, but he shook his head and insisted they were helping me carry the shame.
“They’re showing you the price you’re paying.”
I looked at the faces in the circle. The levity from moments before had vanished. How I longed to tell them what Brandon had told me. I could tell his secret, and Max would laugh and say something about the myth of the sexually insatiable male. Lorne would say something snarky about the flipping. Patrice would rub my arm and coo soothingly, and Grandma Maggie would point at her wedding band. Brad would work in a question about Brandon’s financial portfolio. I loved my group more than I loved Brandon, but I couldn’t take them all home with me at night. They couldn’t be my date for the next law school reunion. They couldn’t hold my hand at night or start a family with me. They couldn’t keep me from dying alone.
Dr. Rosen asked me what I was feeling. My voice broke as I said it.
“Lonely.”
35
The Monday before Thanksgiving, I sat through group quietly while everyone discussed the complications of their Thanksgiving plans: Max was in trouble with his wife for not ordering the right kind of bread crumbs for the stuffing. Patrice’s daughters were in town, but spending too much time with their father. Grandma Maggie’s stepson from Arizona violated her house rules by smoking pot in the basement. Dr. Rosen listened and offered feedback to each of them. Several times he looked at me, but I kept my face impassive.
Max tapped my toe with his brougham. “You’re quiet.”
I nodded and shrugged.
“So? What’re you allowed to tell us? Can you say what your Thanksgiving plans are?”
I swiveled in my chair to check the clock on the wall behind me. Five minutes left. Could I ignore his question for the next three hundred seconds? The truth was, I didn’t have plans. And while there were plenty of people—Clare, Rory, Marnie, Patrice, Lorne and Renee—who would gladly take me in, I was ashamed to have to scrounge for a seat at someone’s table. I’d told my family I was staying in town with the guy I was dating because I assumed Brandon and I would be together. But Brandon had announced on Friday night that he was leaving the next day for a week-long trip with his family. There’d been no time to process all of my feelings—the shame, loneliness, hurt, and anger. They sat bundled like a homemade explosive under my rib cage.
“Where’s Brandon?” Max asked.
I looked at Dr. Rosen, hoping he knew I was about to blow from the shame of facing another holiday with nowhere to go even though I had a boyfriend. It was Italy with Jeremy all over again.
“Go ahead,” Dr. Rosen said. He knew.
I shook my head, resisting.
“You want to keep it all to yourself?” Dr. Rosen said as he glanced at the clock. Two hundred seconds left.
“No!” I screamed. NO! NO! NO! NO!
“No, what?” Dr. Rosen kept his eyes on mine.
No to all of this—to gagging myself for a guy who didn’t want to spend the holidays with me after months of dating. No to Brandon telling me about his trip forty-eight hours before his flight. No to this loneliness. No to flipping and having no voice and sitting through group, isolated, lonely, and stuffed with secrets. Dr. Rosen was looking at me the same way he looked at me after I got back from the trip to Germany. He was still worried
