"I don't need your blessing...not any more.."
Caroline walked wearily into Helen's office clutching a bottle of water. Her face looked drawn and despite her careful application of make up, her eyes were red and slightly swollen.
Helen looked at her concernedly, "Are you ok, Caroline?"
Caroline slumped into the chair, "Not really." Her voice seemed a little hoarse. She put the water on the table in front of her and distractedly wiped the palm of her hand on her denim clad thigh.
"Has something happened?"
"Just another reminder of what a bloody awful mess I've made of my life." Caroline looked desolate as her gaze wandered around the room, seemingly doing her best not to make eye contact with Helen.
"What do you mean?"
Caroline made the mistake of catching Helen's eye. "Oh god Helen, I've been such an idiot! And now I...I've got to...watch...oh god!" At that she broke down into heart rending sobs. Helen proffered the tissues and just allowed her to weep.
After some time, when Caroline's sobs had faded to shuddering breaths, Helen uttered a quiet, "Do you want to tell me what's happened, Caroline?"
Caroline looked up into Helen's gentle gaze and nodded. She drew an uneven breath. "Kate came to see me today." Helen nodded in acknowledgment. "She's...", another breath, "...she's...pregnant."
"I see." Gentle understatement. "Clearly you're upset by that...but can you tell me a little more about what you're feeling?"
Caroline reached for her bottle of water and took a swig before placing it back on the table. She looked at Helen, her expression, distraught. "I've been either crying...or trying not to cry all afternoon." Another dry sob. "Jesus, Helen, it's really...knocked me off my feet. I just wasn't...prepared for this at all."
"Did she come to see you in your professional capacity?"
Caroline nodded and scoffed gently. "Ha, professional! I just about managed to hold it together while she was in my office."
"Tell me why it made you so upset."
"I've been trying to think about that...in between crying." Helen smiled almost imperceptibly at Caroline's admittance of trying to understand her own reaction. "She came in, sat down and just...came out with it. I was so blown away. It felt like...she'd hit me in the stomach. All the breath left me and I wanted to cry. How the hell I stopped myself, I don't know. I just concentrated on being...the bloody headmistress."
"Try to explain a bit more about what you were feeling, Caroline." A gentle entreaty.
Caroline drew a deep breath. "Ok." She picked up the bottle again and took another sip of water. "When she...after that weekend...told me that her and Greg had..." She tailed off, unable to say the words. "Well...I...just...didn't want to think about them together. Him...touching her." She took another sip of water to try to help her get herself under control and then looked up at Helen. "I obviously did think about whether she...Kate...might be pregnant...after that...but it's not like I could ask her." She rolled her eyes.
"Did it play on your mind?"
"A bit, yes. I kept an eye on her...as much as I could but then school closed for the summer, so I didn't have an excuse to...just be in the vicinity." Caroline looked away. Sought the safety of the green and blue painting. She felt like the colours could allow her to breath. Like they were the chlorophyll to her plant. She started talking again. As if to nobody in particular. "Apart from just wanting to see her...just for me...I wanted to know she was ok. I was worried about her being on her own...in case something happened. I just felt so...impotent...all summer. Probably part of the reason I've had such difficulty sleeping."
"So based on that, tell me how you felt when Kate told you she was pregnant." Not being diverted from the road she wanted Caroline to take.
"It's difficult..."
"What do you mean, Caroline?"
"It's difficult for me to explain."
"Why?"
Caroline huffed frustratedly, "Because...I'm bloody useless that's why!"
Helen didn't respond. She just looked steadily at Caroline. Not being drawn into her outburst.
"Just try to explain what you felt, Caroline." Calm. Quiet.
Caroline started to cry. "It's just so...everything's so...mixed up."
"Take your time."
Caroline gulped at the water almost desperately and then turned her gaze upon the painting. Centred herself in its primary colours of the sea. Let it bathe her troubled mind.
She started to speak. Slowly, as if the words were her soul being dragged across gravel.
"She looked...beautiful. And scared too. She was talking about...if the rest of the pregnancy went without trouble...meaning as long as she didn't...miscarry...", her voice strangled as she tried to cope with the emotion, "...and she looked so scared, Helen." Caroline's eyes flicked back to Helen. "I wanted to hold her so badly. To comfort her. To make her feel...safe." She looked back at the painting as she swallowed hard. "I felt...impotent...inadequate...useless. Like I'd let her down all over again."
"How had you let her down?"
"She'd said...when we'd talked about it before...that she didn't want to do this on her own...but now she's having to...because of me." She looked at Helen, appalled.
"Wasn't it Kate's choice...after you'd split up...to get pregnant?"
Caroline winced visibly. "I suppose so." She looked back to the painting. The colours seemed cold. She shivered.
Helen didn't take her eyes off Caroline. "A while back you told me that one of the people you'd thought you pushed away was your dad." Caroline's head whipped around to look at Helen. "Tell me more about that."
"Oh. Well. I...when I was a child...my mum and dad...they rowed a lot. Turns out my dad had...affairs...which obviously upset my mum."
"How does that make you responsible for pushing him away?" Gentle questioning. Like Kate.
"I think...I just felt that...if I'd been what he'd wanted...if I'd been enough...then he wouldn't have needed to...do that." A small voice. Uncertain.
"I expect that may have been what your mum felt, Caroline...but why did you feel that?" Kind. Not judging.
Caroline looked up into Helen's soft, hazel eyes. She was quiet for a while as her eyes roamed over the brunette's face. Clearly thinking. Finally she said thoughtfully, "You're right. I'm sure that is what mum felt." A pause, then, "When they'd row...eventually he'd storm out of the house. I used to find mum sitting there crying. I'd creep in and sit on her lap when I was little. I used to cuddle her and try to cheer her up. It became my...job I suppose. Chief comforter." She scoffed lightly before continuing more seriously, "Do you think I...took on my mother's feelings ..her...point of view?"
"I think that's possible." Helen spoke carefully. "You clearly felt like you needed to care for your mum...to make her feel better...and it wouldn't be unusual to feel an empathy in a situation like that." She paused. "So, can you tell me how you remember feeling when you saw your mum so upset?"
"Scared I suppose...and that I wanted to help her...but I couldn't...I didn't know how."
Helen looked at Caroline, waiting for her to make eye contact before she said, "Impotent? Inadequate? Useless?"
Caroline looked at her. Speechless as she realised that Helen had just repeated the words she'd used in relation to how she'd felt about Kate earlier that day. Her mouth moved without sound being emitted. In frustration she turned away to look out of the window. The tree's leaves in the rain, were an even darker green today. They shook themselves in pain at their confinement as their tears dripped down unhappily.
As Caroline stared out dolefully, she said, "I feel...bloody doomed. Like my life was already fucked up and there's nothing that can be done to...undo it." She turned to look at Helen. "I'm a...bloody jinx, Helen", she said disconsolately.
"No Caroline, you're not." Helen looked at her seriously.
"You've just clearly shown me that I repeat the disasters and the negative emotional patterns in my life!" Caroline looked at Helen astonished.
"That's not what I've shown you at all." Calmly expressed. "I merely showed you that the way you relate to the people you love being in pain is the same."
"So what in the hell am I supposed to learn from that?!" Angry now. Blue eyes flashing.
Not fazed. Not biting. "That you're a very caring person?"
Stifled intake of breath. "For all the..." an escaped sob, "...sodding good that does me." Her gaze roamed around the room as she tried to control herself.
"Caroline." Helen waited until Caroline looked at her. "Let's look a bit more at how you felt with Kate today."
Caroline shook her head. "I don't think I can."
"Why not?"
"It's too...", another sob, "...painful." Paused. Tried a diversionary tactic, "God Helen, don't you ever get tired of watching me cry?"
Helen smiled softly. "I'd rather you weren't in pain but I've learned there's only one way to get past it." She paused, seeking Caroline's eye contact and when she got it she said, "And that's to address, rather than avoid the issue." Said softly.
Caroline smiled through her tears in recognition of the fact she'd been rumbled. "Point taken."
Helen returned her smile. "Ok. You said you felt guilty and you wanted to comfort Kate. What else did you feel?"
Caroline took a deep, shaky breath. "The sharp pain of rejection...again." Stark fact. "And..." She tailed off, breaking eye contact again. Looked at the painting. Took refuge in the blues and greens. Tried to hide in its depths.
"And?" Nowhere to hide.
Another breath. "And love." Her voice got quieter. "And pain. And regret. And rage at the bloody unfairness of it." She looked at Helen helplessly. Lost.
Helen nodded, "Ok..let's take that last one first. Tell me about the unfairness. What felt unfair?"
Caroline opened her mouth to speak then shut it again and shook her head ruefully. "This'll probably sound a bit...silly."
"Whatever you feel isn't silly, Caroline. All your feelings are valid."
Caroline held eye contact with Helen, her gaze raking the brunette's as if checking her veracity. Then she took another deep breath and said, "It felt unfair that despite how...searing our physical connection had been...I wasn't able to make Kate pregnant."
She flushed and looked away. God, why did I even go there?! How could anyone understand that? I'm not sure I even understand that. I sound like a bloody madwoman!
"I see." Caroline looked at Helen briefly expecting to see scorn or pity in her expression, but saw nothing other than interest and kindness. "Did you feel that at the time?"
Caroline looked back at her, a little confused. "You mean at the time we were...making love?" She swallowed, feeling exposed.
Helen nodded. "Yes."
"Ummm...well...", she looked over Helen's shoulder again, at the painting. Trying to blend with the blue so that she didn't feel so exposed. "...yes, I did. I never told Kate that...it seemed like such a weird thing to be thinking...and this was before she'd told me she wanted a baby anyway." Her eyes flicked back to Helen. To make sure she was still...emotionally safe. She was.
"Tell me about that feeling, Caroline." Asked so gently. So carefully.
Caroline took a swig from her bottle of water and then followed that up with a gulp of air. Preparing to dive into unknown waters. Eyes still focused on the painting. On the blue. On the green. On the brushstrokes. On the energy. The movement.
"I remember it vividly." Caroline's voice was quiet but there was a depth of emotion to it that made it seem almost poetic. She could hear her own voice in her ears, from afar. A mermaid singing to her love underwater. "We had a whole day to ourselves. The boys had gone into town with friends and were meeting with mum and Alan later for pizza. Kate had taken me out for breakfast, we'd gone back to her place for lunch and...", she blushed, "...ended up in bed that afternoon." After she'd ravished me in the kitchen and then dragged me on shaky legs upstairs.
Caroline looked embarrassedly at Helen. She was listening calmly. No prejudice. No judgement. Surfaced for air. Swam back to the painting. Clung on to its rocks, its island in the storm.
"We were...making love and I was...watching her...her face...her eyes. She has...such beautiful eyes..." She tailed off, clearly remembering then seemed to shake herself as she cleared her throat and continued, "I was struck by how...intimate this act was...how...connected I felt to her. I felt like we were inside each other..", she blushed, "you know what I mean - figuratively, emotionally...like we were a part of each other...one entity." Caroline tried to blink away the tears that had formed, then when that didn't work, she wiped her eyes with her fingers, delicately. "I'd never felt that kind of connection before. It felt almost...spiritual. And as I watched her...climax..I cried with the emotion of it. So did she." Her voice broke and she struggled to retain control before eventually continuing, "I held her as she drifted off to sleep and as I watched her eyes flutter shut, I suddenly realised that a connection like that should, by rights, result in the creation of a new life. And that when I'd got pregnant with the boys, compared to that it'd just been sex. And I thought...", she lost her battle with her emotions and started sobbing, "...I thought...there was no justice in the universe if that didn't happen." Sobbing openly now but still trying to convey her emotions despite it. "I'm not delusional Helen...I've got a bloody science degree for god's sake!...but the strength of that moment...the intimacy of it...made me want to be able to create a life with Kate." She snatched some tissues before lowering her head, giving into the tears that overtook her.
Helen sat back in her chair, giving Caroline space to emote. To weep. Eventually after the sobs had subsided and she'd blown her nose, Helen said gently, "So, tell me where the pain and regret came from?"
Caroline looked up slowly, her face streaked with tears. Her voice was hoarse as she said, "From the same place...mostly."
"Mostly?"
Caroline drew a shuddery breath. "Kate is pregnant...by somebody else. Not by me. Not because of what we experienced between us...but because of some...probable one night stand." She winced as she said it. A skewer pierced, then left in her heart to corrode.
"And where else did the pain and regret come from, Caroline?" Soft. Gentle.
Caroline swallowed hard and anchored herself in the blue and the green against the swirling tide of emotion still engulfing her. A small voice in the storm. An exhausted voice in the maelstrom of passion. "I want the baby to be mine too."