At least Patty Petty didn’t make me play with dolls. “Seriously?” I groan as Ricker reaches for the basket under her desk.
Ricker is convinced Donald Jessup did something to me that I can’t talk about, so I’m supposed to show her. That’s where the anatomically correct dolls come in.
The basket rests on her lap. There are girl dolls and boy dolls.
“I know this is an unorthodox approach for someone your age. But I’m asking you to be open-minded,” Ricker says.
“Open-minded means willing to play with dolls?” I ask.
“Uncovering lost memories is key to developing a plan for treatment. It may take a long time, and it may be painful. This is a marathon, not a race.”
I want to ask if she’s ever met a cliché she didn’t like. But I stuff it, deep into my bowels, feeding the thing I think of as the black in my belly. I don’t want to rouse the black because I actually like Ricker, with her glossy bangs, funky glasses, and big man hands. But that’s not for her to know.
Best simply to remind her who’s in charge.
“So I’ve been thinking about Newton’s Third Law. Of Motion. You know: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” I say.
Ricker tucks the basket under her desk. “You can’t touch without being touched.”
“Exactly. Here’s the thing. Two people, call them X and Y, are pushed by another person. Call him … D. No wait: call him Z.” I smile and continue. “We’ll call the push ‘force A.’ If person Z exerts force A on persons X and Y, then persons X and Y exert an equal and opposite force A back on person Z. Axz = ?Azx. And, Ayz = ?Azy. You get pushed, you push back. Follow me?”
Her mouth parts, then shuts.
“Cool. So according to Newton’s Third Law, how can Person Y not exert an equal and opposite reaction?” I say.
“You cannot compare individual responses to trauma,” Ricker says.
“Work with me here.”
She exhales through her nose. “Y wasn’t pushed with the same force as X.”
I sigh, throwing my boots up on the couch. “If you’re more comfortable with dolls…”
“Let me be clearer then. Only one of you was abducted.”
“A psychopath dropped into our lives. Mine and Liv’s. It was worse for me, I get that. But is it healthy to just go on, with no questions? Que sera, sera?”
“There is no useful outcome for comparing your recovery to Olivia Lapin’s.”
“I’m not talking about recovery. I’m talking about basic, everyday behavior.”
Ricker scans her desk and settles on a small legal pad and a pencil. Her mouth twists as she scribbles for a second, then two.
I lean over my knees. “Are you sure that’s how you spell ‘que sera, sera’?”
I am a monster. She is trying to help me, and is probably the only person who can. Gosh knows I have a better chance talking with her than by mask making with Patty Petty, with her silver ponytail and turquoise and Wellies that smelled of manure.
“The most important thing to remember is that when an evil act is committed, the shame belongs to the perpetrator. Donald Jessup’s shame is not your shame—”
“And my strength is my survival. I covered that with Patty Petty,” I interrupt.
Ricker folds her swishy pant legs and leans back until her chair creaks. Dramatic leg swoops signal a change in tactic.
“It might help our progress to put a name on what you’re experiencing. The clinical term is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.”
“That happens to me every month. I bloat and break out. One word: Motrin.”
Ricker doesn’t blink. “When a person experiences a physical threat, and the person’s response involves intense fear, helplessness, or horror, certain side effects can result for that person. I’d like to explore if you’re experiencing any of these side effects,” she says calmly.
“As a person?”
Her face is blank.
“Just checking.”
“Sometimes, the traumatic event is re-experienced over and over, in the form of dreams, or during the day, as intrusive thoughts. Do you have thoughts, Julia?”
“Never. I never think,” I say, grinning.
“Another feature is avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma.”
Liv thinks I have the opposite problem.
“Julia?”
“Still here. Not thinking.”
“Perhaps it would help if I gave you a specific example. Because the abduction happened during track practice, you might avoid running.”
“I still run. Like a madwoman. Like someone’s chasing me. Doh, bad joke. And in case you’re keeping count in your little notebook of the PTSD markers that I don’t have, that’s like the tenth negative.”
The cell phone on her desk buzzes.
“Restricted range of effect? That means you’re unable to have loving feelings where they previously existed,” Ricker says.
“Are you going to pick up? It might be one of your kids.”
She holds my eyes and turns the phone facedown. “Are you having difficulty feeling affection, Julia?”