February 18, 2019

Henry rolls over with a sigh. His hand goes to the space beside him. Elizabeth hasn't been beside him for two and a half weeks. She's been crashing mostly on the couch in the den with the TV on—playing Titan sometimes, he knows. She's been stealthy about it. He's positive the kids haven't noticed. But he does. Every night, his body wakes him from a dream of Elizabeth begging him for help—he can't find her—and then he turns and reaches for her, and she's never next to him. He's gotten used to this. The alarm clock says 2:08, so he'll be lucky if he gets a couple more hours of sleep. It's a bad one tonight.

The thing is, he knows he can't help her—not if she won't let him. She's ready and out of the door for work every day (even Saturday and Sunday) before his alarm ever goes off at six. She never walks in the door before midnight. He hears her, though, coming home, moving around the house. Suppose he tries to talk to her when she takes her makeup off—needed to cover the ever-darkening circles under her eyes. All he ever gets is a series of yes's and no's as if she's become one of their teenagers. He listens to hear if she'll eat the dinner he lovingly plated and placed in their refrigerator and every night, he hears the jar of too-expensive natural peanut butter, and jelly get removed from the fridge.

He's unsure how much longer he's supposed to let this go on. He can't find an instruction manual—as if any manual could ever explain Elizabeth to anyone. But it's wearing on him. He misses her, and the kids miss her, too. He wants to quit feeling useless. He's letting his wife self-destruct, and he can't figure out why. He thinks back on the penance he has yet to complete, and with a heavy sigh, he rolls out of bed.

He finds her asleep with the Xbox controller still in her hand (the game screen telling her to press X to revive).

"Elizabeth?" He asks softly trying to keep her from startling. "Baby?"

"Hmm?" She blinks awake and looks around, confused. "It's the middle of the night."

"Yeah. You need to come to bed."

"I'm fine here," she tells him, yawning, "Leave me alone, okay?"

There is no malice in her voice, and yet his defenses grow around a wound he hadn't realized was decaying, "I've done nothing but leave you alone for weeks. How does that seem to be working for me?"

"What?" She asks the sleep gone from her voice but not the exhaustion.

"I've watched you fall apart for the last month, and I've done nothing," Henry admits, sitting down beside her, "I'm not sure why, but I am now."

"Jesus, Henry," she says with something between a sigh and a humorless chuckle, "just leave it alone." Her tone now has an annoyed edge as she quickly rids her body of the sleep it so desperately needs.

"Babe, I know you're hurting—"

"You know nothing," she cuts him off, "You will never understand this,"

He swallows, trying to keep himself calm. He doesn't want to fight—he doesn't think she could handle a fight. He knows she is barely holding it together. He knows that regardless of the PTSD and the Tom Kincaid of it all—she still weights the entire state department on her shoulders. He knows that the guilt of not seeing the kids for weeks must be eating her alive. She is only functioning at her most basic state, and he isn't a stranger to this, even if she is. "I know it's hard for you," he starts again.

"No," she says, shaking her head and pushing herself up and away from him. "No. You don't."

"Elizabeth, you are working eighteen-hour days. Through Blake and my observations, you are surviving purely on coffee and two to three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a day. You're losing weight. You aren't sleeping. You have only talked to the kids via text for the last ten days," He lists his observations out one by one with a steady and concerned tone. This isn't about shaming her, and he is sure to keep his face open and soft. She isn't looking at him anyway.

"I can't," she says. Her voice is so soft he's not even sure it was out loud, but the words cut him anyway.

"Babe, I know I don't understand what this is like for you, what it has been like for you," He says, hoping she'll look at him, "but I do know you. I know that you are not okay. But I also know that you think you are. I think that you think you are coping, but baby, this isn't coping. Please, let me help you."

"Help me?" She asks, and for the first time since he woke her, she looks him in the eye. He wishes she hadn't because the fire he sees there is one he has seen many times but rarely directed at him, "You think I'm broken now, too? See, this is why I never told you, Henry."

"Broken?" he asks, stunned. "Of course not. I think you're hurt. I think you are bottling up all of your feelings. And I think you are expecting them to go away. They won't. You need to talk to someone." He echos the words he spoke to her after Iran as if to break through his wife's head—so hard it's made of diamonds.

Her face falls, and he can see the faint glint of guilt in her eyes. She knows. She's always known, and yet she has stubbornly refused to listen to him. She is so stubbornly set on handling things on her own, and yet she has failed at this every time.

"Just talk to me, baby. Tell me," he pleads with a near-desperate edge. I will not judge you, Elizabeth. I love you beyond words and this lifetime. Please talk to me,"

Her head nods slightly, and her eyes flick toward him, but her head stays bowed, and her right hand begins to turn her engagement ring around and around. He watches as she thinks her mouth twitching every few seconds as if she's going to speak finally. But the silence remains, and he lets it grow and fester as if he can wait it out. He can't. Not anymore. He has let her suffer alone for weeks, and his heart can't take it anymore. He can't lose her to her demons.

"Elizabeth," he starts and waits for her eyes to meet his, "tell me."

"It hurts." Her words feel juvenile and vague, though she can't begin to explain the bone-deep ache that comes with every nightmarish flashback. She knows he will never fully grasp the feeling of being helpless and hopeless, the fear that is as present in her life now as the breath she takes, the panic, the guilt, the anger, the hatred, "I just don't get why?"

She frames it to him as a question as if he can answer every question of the universe. As if he can provide the reason she is suffering.

"Why, what?" He prompts.

"Why did this happen to me? Why do I still feel this way? Why can't I get over it? Why is God so unfair?"

His head bows, "I wish I had all of those answers for you, but the truth is, I don't know either."

Her head cocks to the side. He didn't even try to defend his God to her. He's angry with God, too. She thinks that may help her more than anything—to know he doesn't think her anger is unjustified or wrong.

"I know ignoring it isn't working," she admits quietly, "I guess, no, I know it's never worked. I don't know how to help myself," She lets out a dry laugh, "How pathetic is that?"

"Pathetic is never a word I'd use to describe you," Henry says firmly.

"What would you use?" She asks, not even bothering to hide the bitterness in her tone.

"Mostly right now hard-headed—" he teases, and his heart warms as she offers him, "Elizabeth," he sobers, "you have survived through more than your fair share of painful things in life. And it's not fair, but you are still the brightest star I've ever met,"

She looks at him, tearing up as he subtly alludes to Keats, "What do I do?"

He thinks for a few moments, "Would it help if I tell you how I've been feeling first? Would it take the pressure off?"

She nods and scoots back against the couch, her shoulder brushing his. She needs him close. His touch grounds her, and she needs that today. She needs him to remind her how to breathe.

"I feel like a bad partner," he begins as he gathers the words to elaborate," I don't know how to help you. I'm letting you carry this enormous burden on your own. For thirty years, I've ignored the signs when they were right in front of my face, and now that I see them, I can't do anything to help."

"What signs?" she asks.

"When I came home after my first deployment, you had a nightmare. You were working a lot, and you showed no interest in sex... You had a nightmare that I ignored. And I continued to ignore it for decades. Every single January, you get so down, and I noticed. In my head, I chalked it up to holiday letdown. But I knew it was deeper than that. It's like clockwork; your shoulders get so tense, and you seem so blue, and you toss and turn at night, and then after four days, it would stop out of the blue. You were always so nervous about where the girls were going—especially if they were walking somewhere. I saw all of these signs, and yet I never connected the dots."

She looks at him. His shoulders are sagged, and his eyes are reddened with tears that haven't yet fallen.

"... I don't know how to make that right," he says, and his head falls forward. I don't know how to fix this, to make it better. I want to help you, but I don't know how. That is the hardest thing for me right now."

She leans against him. "You aren't a bad partner," she says with so much sincerity in her voice that it shocks him. He grabs her hand, and their fingers begin their familiar dance of weaving in and out of one another. "You are a great partner. I love the life we've built together, babe."

"You never told me," he whispers—the tears finally catching in his throat.

"That's not your fault," she whispers.

"I keep thinking if I were better—a better man, a better partner—you would've told me and let me help you,"

"No," she shakes her head, "Henry, I didn't tell anyone. I never once said it out loud until the night of Conrad's party." She stops speaking to gather her thoughts and make more admissions to her husband long after he should have known.

"When I got back to our apartment that morning," she starts again, her voice breathy as if she's speaking too fast for the oxygen her body can hold. I—I remember locking the door and falling against it. I wanted my mom. That may have been my first coherent thought. And then I remembered, and that was the first time it didn't hurt so bad to remember she was gone. But it's like my brain just started doing what it does best—listing out all of the variables. Do I call Joan? Do I call the police? Do I tell you? It was like there was this cloud over all of it... Questions like, what did I do to cause this? And was my music too loud? What if I ran quicker? I know now—thirty years and an entire social media movement later that those thoughts are unfair to me. I know it wasn't my fault. I know I didn't ask to be raped. But I didn't know that then. It was so new and raw, and I was all alone. You weren't home, and you couldn't come home. So I took a shower. And when that was done, I sat on our couch holding a throw pillow for hours. It had to have been hours because it was dark when you called. And while we were on the phone, I wanted to tell you—I did. But you were going to war. How was I supposed to distract you? So I pushed it away—or tried to with varying success. And I got Lady. And after a while, the pieces had been picked up. So why bring it back?" she shrugs and looks at him, and she finds tears falling down his cheeks, "Me not telling you had nothing to do with what kind of partner you are. You're a good husband."

"I didn't know,"

"Because I didn't want you to," she says with a gentle smile, "I'm a master at compartmentalizing, and this was something I was never going to let spill over. And it has nothing to do with how much I love you,"

Henry wraps his arm around her shoulder, and she leans into him. He can feel her shaking against him, and he holds her tighter, "Baby, I'm so sorry. I can't believe you've been dealing with this for thirty years and never let it spill over. I can't imagine what it would be like to live with it constantly. I love you, Elizabeth. More than anything. I wish there were something I could do to make it all go away."

"You can't," she says, letting herself fall even more into his side. I wish you could. But I think—no, I know—that it's something I have to do," she says. She knows there are things she can't change, like going back thirty years and telling him on that phone call, but she can go back to therapy now. She can finally face this head-on and start working through it. She is done letting it control her, "I've got to figure out how to live with it. I'm so tired, and I'm sick of being tired."

"How can I help?"

"Make me go," she states, "make me call tomorrow to make the appointment, and then make me go,"

"That I can do," he says, and she smiles at him. It's a weak, tired smile, but it's something, and it is a step in the right direction.

"I want you to know," she says softly, stifling a yawn, "that I am so sorry for keeping it from you. I love you,"

"I love you, too, baby," he says, letting his eyes slip closed as he squeezes her closer to him.

February 24, 2019

Henry's in the motorcade. She feels a little pathetic, needing him to babysit her to therapy. But the thought of finally allowing herself to heal makes her palms sweaty. She would love to say she doesn't know why that's happening, but she does. She knows the exact thought she spirals into every time. Yet, here she is once again—fighting herself.

"Elizabeth, long time no see." Dr. Sherman answers her office door with the most aggressive tone she has ever heard from the woman, a subtle hint that she has not kept up with her appointments.

"I got busy," She shrugs as she eyes the fish tank, looking for any new inhabitants, "Well, actually I didn't want to come,"

"It can take some time to confront the past successfully,"

"I've had thirty years," she points out as she drops onto the couch, and her eyes find the bookshelf, and she notes a few additions since her last visit.

"It's safe to say your avoidance was intentional," Dr. Sherman says, taking her seat across from Elizabeth.

"Yeah," Elizabeth nods, "About that, can I ask you a question?"

"You know you can,"

"Can a person become so comfortable with their trauma that finally lifting the burden of it—that healing from it feels like it could destroy what they know about themselves?" Elizabeth asks with an intense amount of vulnerability.

"I believe a person can get comfortable with their pain, especially if it's been around for a while. It's human nature to want to preserve the status quo. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, is that how you feel?"

"Lately, I've been thinking—what if it never happened? Who would I be if that man never raped me? What if I was destined to be this whole other person, and he wrecked it?" Elizabeth admits, her eyes finding the aquarium. She's been asking herself these questions for months. She can't get away from them, and they won't stop echoing around her mind.

"Would that bother you? If that moment changed your life in some way that you aren't aware of?"

"I love my life," Elizabeth says with an air of certainty.

"Then does it really matter? Is it not possible that you were the same person regardless of that one night? Are we not products of everything that's ever happened to us? You love your life. Were there decisions you made that were direct consequences of your rapist's actions? Of course, just like there were choices you made that were direct consequences of your parents' accident. We can't change our pasts, and we can't undo our trauma. The only thing we can do is accept what happened and try to heal."

"It's not that simple," Elizabeth shakes her head.

"It is," Dr. Sherman says firmly, "Elizabeth, let me ask you to think about the biggest things in your life—the things that lead you to say you love your life—would those things still be there if you were never raped?"

"Yes," Elizabeth says with no hesitation. Henry, the kids, her career—all of those things—the things she gets out of bed for and enjoys the most—would still be hers.

"Then, does it matter?"

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me it doesn't," Elizabeth sighs.

"You went through something traumatic. It wasn't your fault, and you still carry it with you. You have PTSD, and you've had it for quite a while. But let me tell you something: treating your PTSD will not fundamentally change you as a person. Your trauma did not make you the person you are. It is not the root of your personality. This is not something you have to live with. You can heal, and that will not change the things in your life that you love,"

Elizabeth feels herself tearing up, and she nods her head.

"The fact that you are here says that you have accepted. You can't deal with this on your own. You are finally ready to face the past and learn how to move forward,"

"It scares the hell out of me," Elizabeth admits, "But um, what do I need to do?"

"We keep working once a week. We'll talk about how you're feeling and coping with your feelings. We talk about your triggers; I'm sure you've already identified them; you've lived with them for a long time." Dr. Sherman points to a stack of papers on her desk. "And then we talk about how you can start changing the way you think about what happened and how you can move forward."

Elizabeth nods, "Okay,"

"Okay, then let's start."