I should’ve been home an hour ago. Should’ve taken a long hot shower and climbed into my cozy bed with it’s plaid sheets. Instead, I’m sitting in a bathtub rocking and holding a hysterical teenager.

        When I was just about to leave the girl’s dorm, had just finished my last progress note, that’s when she’d awoken screaming. It was the third time this week.

       In her struggle to run from the vivid nightmare, she’d gone to the bathroom mirrors. Looking for what I’m not sure. I suppose, for answers. Hell, I’d spent my whole life looking for them and never had the courage to look in the mirror.

       When I’d approached, she’d irrationally backed herself into the bathtub. It was a fit of sobbing, yelling, and desperate breathing. The kind of panic that contorts the face into shapes seemingly inhuman. The wild-eyed look of an animal or a drug addict, but she is neither.

       My silk blouse was soaked on the right side. She’d cried so long and hard that she’d drenched us both. Her name is Gloria and forever I feel I will remember cradling her in this bathtub. The cold of the porcelain against my back, the smell of her hair, the warmth of her erratic breath.

       The bond between two people can be incomprehensible. It can be due to mutual race, opinions, interests, sex, or maybe even pasts. Whatever the reason two people come across each other, the bond is often unspoken. The sort of bond found between two soulmates or a married couple. The bond between a counselor and a client can go even further than that.

       For Gloria, I was the source of her greatest frustration. I witch doctored the memories and the realities of her torment into her dreams, her thoughts, her days. I forced her to remember being forced.

       For me, Gloria was myself. A mirror image of what had been. Only my torment was now secret, boxed up, and locked away.

       Rocking her made me jealous. I wished that someone would have rocked me this way. Even today, as an adult, I yearn to be held with the strong arms of release and to know the touch of consolation.

       "You want me to say that I hate him," she said. Her voice muffled against my chest. "I won’t! I won’t do what you want!"

       I didn’t say a word. Just held her tighter.

       "You want me to hate my daddy! But I love him! I really do love him! He’ll get better. You’ll see," her voice calmed from exhaustion.

       I could see our mirror image. My white skin pressed against her brown. My long blonde hair mixed with her tightly braided black. It was a tiresome image.

       "He’s my daddy. He loves me…and I love him. No, Miss Tolland, you will not make me hate him. I love Daddy."

       "Yes," I whispered, "but do you like him?"

       In the mirror, I could see, really see, that we were identical. Identical.

       My apartment smelled stale. I opened the bedroom windows and could smell the potency of jasmine. It was a beautiful evening. The clouds were building and the moon peaked in and out of the racing puffs of gray.

       Working the late shift was often difficult, but it was still better than the night shift. Gloria had become accustomed to my sitting in a dark dormitory writing my case notes by the light of a small lamp for two hours after they’d gone to bed. She liked that I was there part of the time while she slept.

       I remember being so sleepy as a teenager. I’d written it off as depression, but in truth, I believe my body was changing so quickly it needed the excessive rest.

       Mittens jumped onto my bed. She began to bathe her long fur, occasionally breaking to sniff the cool incoming night air. I wondered if she could smell the jasmine.

       My clothes seemed to stick to my skin. I peeled the layers from my tired body. No work out tomorrow morning. I was looking forward to sleeping in. Emotionally, I needed the rest.

       The hot water steamed up the bathroom. My pores elated with anticipation of being clean. A good hot shower should help me sleep through the night. I lit a small candle to perfume up the room and then stepped into the painful water.

       My fair skin blushed instantly and I lathered my body heavily until I looked like a snow cone. I rinsed and then carefully rinsed a washcloth. I soaped my dry face and then rinsed it clean with the wet cloth. Careful, as usual, to not put my face into the shower’s stream of water.

       Standing there, thirty years old, I realized that after all of these years, I still couldn’t put my face near water.

       To wash my hair was a panicked chore unimaginable to most. I rolled a washcloth up, held it on my forehead, washed my hair with the other hand, and then backed up ever so carefully to the shower head. No water must go down my face. That rolled up washcloth was my barrier, my protection.

       When I was done, my arms ached. It was a chore to wash this long hair this way. I needed to get it cut.

       Letting my fingertips glide through my wet hair, I began to cry. My God, I’m going to cut my hair.

       "Oh Gloria, find another therapist. This one still does anything to not face her past."

       As I blacked out, I could hear my father laughing; a deep laugh. I believed that his laugh came from hell itself. I believed that we were in hell and that was why baby Jesus never came. That is why my mother never loved me enough to just turn off the water.

       On the bathtub floor, naked, in the fetal position, I twisted the washcloth in my hands. Sobbing and shaking so hard that the porcelain was bruising my back.

       I was going to cut my beautiful hair before I would risk that water running down my face. Even now, in my own bathtub, years later, I am at his mercy. I hate him so much for that. So much.

       I got a lunch break at work. Funny that we call it lunch at 8pm. Nonetheless, I would usually sit out in my car for an hour and read. Anything to escape the noise of four dormitories packed with teens getting restless as bedtime approached.

       In the distant parking lot, I could see a man leaning against my car. At a closer look I recognized the rugged outline of his clothes. A body built to perform. The street lights shadowed parts of his strong face. His long, wavy hair was held back with a rubber band. He wore the work boots I’d given him for our one year anniversary together.

       "Stalking me?" I grinned.

       "Well, you don’t answer my calls anymore." He didn’t get off of my car.

       "It’s been really hectic around here."

       "That’s funny. Joyce tells me…"

       "Oh fuck Joyce."

       "Joyce," he tried again, "tells me that you’re down to six clients."

       "Joyce needs to mind her own business and stop panhandling you for attention."

       "At least she seems to want my attention."

       Joyce was a secretary who’d gotten her first glimpse at Bill when he’d brought me flowers a year ago. Twice a week, without fail, she’d use the poorest excuse imaginable to bring him up.

       "So, how’s his business coming along? My friend needs a good electrician. Her fuse box is playing tricks on her."

       She would insist that I give her his number, but I always found a reason to dangle it out of her reach. A year and two months later, she was still reaching for the number, but her tactics had gotten crueler.

       "I do want your attention." I leaned against Joyce’s old wreck so that I was facing him. "I just have a really tough case right now."

       "Look, I’m the last person to lecture you about working too hard, but you look tired. Maybe we could spend a nice quiet weekend together."

       Bill had a beautiful place. A refurbished 1926 Spanish-style. It had a fireplace in the master bedroom. Truly luxurious for a bachelor with his own new business.

       We’d met at a mutual friend’s funeral, and things just seemed to fall into place. Passion out of grief.

       "I can’t. At least not Saturday."

       "Why?"

       "I’ve got a few hours to put in around here, but Saturday night would be perfect." I moved close to him pressing my pelvis against his. I rubbed his stomach and moved my hands slowly up around his neck.

       At first, he tried to stay tough, but I knew better. Men were predictable. Feminine charms were learned very early; survival instincts which would fail me throughout life. I found it to be power in my powerless world. It was all a charade.

       He leaned into me. I pulled the rubber band away and his locks of curls rushed his face.

       "I wish you could look at me," he whispered.

       "I am looking at you."

       He pulled away and got off of my car. He held my wrists firmly. "No Brooke. You never look at me. I mean really look at me." He kissed me gently. "I’ll see you Saturday night."

       I watched him get in his truck and drive away. He should’ve slugged me in the gut. It would have felt better.

       Bill wasn’t like any other man I’d known. He’d made me think. Held me accountable for the way I let my past control my present. Each day, I could feel him tiring, drifting away. I could feel that I was pushing him away.

       Gloria was dancing in the dorm living room when I got back from my lunch. The other girls were giggling and clapping. Her teenage body was both awkward and sensual. The common combination that got so many young girls pregnant.

       Her long hair was gelled and straightened. It looked nothing like it had that night in the bathtub. Tonight, she was a performer dazzling her audience with booty shaking and gyrating that would have sent me into an icepack frenzy.

       Occasionally, she would glance my way. It was uncool for her to need my attention or approval. I stood there, holding a clipboard, feeling old, watching my life unfold page by page.

       The more the girls clapped and squealed, the faster her little body hammered away with the techno beat. She was elated. And for that moment, that instance of life, a short three minute song would distract from her own life.

       Why she was here as a patient, a resident of this facility? Why she could not sleep at night? Why she had often hidden away from her pain with drugs or alcohol? These were the questions forgotten momentarily.

       Clusters of teenage boys had gathered around Alex. All of them watching me. Dreaming about me. Fantasizing for me. And not a one of them really looking at me.

       Gloria turned, twirled, and raised her hands in the air. She was the floating spirit. I made sure that she realized that I was really looking at her. Watching her. A young, beautiful, almost woman, who loved vanilla ice cream and Kool-Aid. Who liked to write poetry and do hair. Who was beaten by her father and then raped regularly.

       Yes Gloria. I see you!

       I knew by the tone in Joyce’s voice Saturday morning that I would have to be assertive. She knew something was up.

       She led me down the long corridor that smelled of floor wax and phys ed sweat. While the kids slept in metal bunk beds, there was a boardroom overflowing with cherry wood and fresh cut flowers.

       Dr. Moore, head psychiatrist, had manila files spread before him. He was around forty-five, but tried way too hard to be twenty-five.

       Like all men balding, he pulled the remaining strands of hair across his head. A wide toothed comb had left imprints in gel that screamed out in desperation. He loved John Lennon and his new round glasses was one of his latest attempts at youth via imitation.

       Lilly sat at the other end of the table. I loved Lilly. She had a determination that is mesmerizing. An unspeakable charm some call integrity. Dr. Moore didn’t deserve her for an assistant.

       "Brooke, I’ve asked you here to review Gloria’s case," he peered over his round glasses.

       "Her case isn’t up for review for another fourteen days."

       Lilly jumped in. She probably sensed the edge in my voice. "Dr. Moore feels that she’s been here long enough, and unless you can present evidence to the contrary, her release will be finalized by the treatment team a.s.a.p."

       "You’ve given me no time to prepare. No warning."

       "Please Brooke, you are not the victim here," he leaned back in the plush leather chair weaving his fingertips together.

       "No sir," I said. "Gloria is the victim here."

       "Do you have any clear cut reason that she should stay?"

       "Dr. Moore, she is unable to sleep through the night. She’s just beginning to share her home life with staff. Why the rush to dismiss a work in progress?" My hands shook.

       "We have a waiting list." He leaned forward and shuffled papers. "If Gloria is fit enough to go home, then…"

       "Go home? She’s supposed to go to the shelter. Anything but home!"

       "The shelter is full."

       "The shelter," I mono-toned my voice, "has Gloria on a waiting list. Another reason to keep her here longer."

       He began pushing his papers into a briefcase. He made no eye contact. He could not look at me.

       "Fair enough. We’ll let you know our decision next week."

       "Her father raped her!"

       "Allegedly," he grinned. "Allegedly raped her." And then he was gone.

       My head was spinning. Struck powerless by this shell of a man. I envisioned myself choking this bastard. Only after I sat back down, did I notice that Lilly was still there.

       "Brooke," she said calmly, "it’s a numbers game. He has to keep the patients flowing. He has to show productive turnover."

       "He has to. Bullshit!"

       "He thinks you’ve personalized this case. That you see yourself in Gloria."

       "No shit Lilly, do you think so?" I used my best sarcastic voice. "Do you know why I’ll never get a doctorate?"

       Lilly shook her head.

       "Because of crap like that. Of course I personalize. I’m a human being. I take from my own experiences. I give back all the know- how I can muster. Put all your college aside for just one second and ask yourself if in your opinion, Gloria should go back to that rathole?"

       Lilly breathed in and out really hard. Meditation exercises. She moved to the plush chair closest to me and squeezed my hand.

       "I’m an old lady, Brooke. An old lady who needs her pension plan and her medical benefits. As a woman, a mother, a grandmother, and a human being, the answer to your question is no. Gloria’s mother still can’t accept what her husband has done. Gloria’s father is out on bail, and Dr. Moore hasn’t cared about children all of his career.

       The board likes his numbers talk. He’s convincing. They’re businessmen with no psychiatric experience. He proposes money making, not life saving."

       "The treatment team will support me."

       "No Brooke. They won’t," she sounded firmer now. "They think your style makes them work too hard. Dr. Moore allows them the luxury of never bonding and never working from the heart. He prevents burnout."

       "This is sick."

       "You’re right. The reality is that the system is sicker than Gloria." She squeezed my hand hard. "You can’t save them all."

       I pulled my hand away. "Lilly, I’ve respected you and always trusted you. But, you’re the one that seems burned out. Maybe you’ve cared too much for too long. You need to move on."

       Tears filled her eyes.

       "In fourteen more days the shelter will have space for Gloria and Gloria’s father will be at trial. So this is all over fourteen fuckin’ days?"

       Lilly looked old. She was a board member with graphics and charts filled with numbers on a flow chart. She had no answer for me. And I, I wondered if I could ever love Lilly again?

       Bill stood at the door of his house with flowers. They smelled lovely. Barbecue lingered in from the backyard and a small fire in the living room fireplace popped and hissed.

       His table was set for two with candles burning in the center. Wax fell upon the salt and pepper shakers. Paper towels sat where linen napkins should. It was a bachelor’s effort everywhere. I followed him outside to see his cooking in progress.

       "They’re releasing my difficult case." It was cold tonight outside by the grill.

       "Isn’t it soon?" He flipped the chicken over. Sizzling fat splashed on the charcoals.

       "Moore’s idea."

       "When is that jackass gonna realize his true calling?"

       "True calling?"

       "Yeah. You’ve heard of Nazis?" Bill laughed.

       I fell so hard into his arms that he dropped the spatula. I shuddered and cried so hard my teeth chattered.

       "Oh Brooke, what can I do?"

       But I could not speak yet. Couldn’t tell him that he’d already said the right things. He’d been listening. He believed in me. He validated me.

       "Kidnap her Brooke. We’ll keep her here and be good parents."

       I nuzzled him closer. I could smell the chicken start to burn.

       "What will become of her Brooke?"

       I leaned back and looked into his big eyes. I knew the answer. I knew. Then, my beeper went off.

       Bill had quietly put the chicken into Tupperware. He’d recorked the bottle of wine. Unusually calm, he did not seem angry, just disappointed.

       When he walked me to my car I turned quickly to face him. "I haven’t been with you in a long time."

       "You’ve been busy," he said.

       "No Bill, I mean that I haven’t really been alive with you. I’ve relived things through this client. It’s made it hard to be around people." I found the moon. Brilliant, radiant, as I hoped to be again. "My father was a horrible man. He makes it hard to believe that you’re not."

       He pushed the tears across my cheeks with his thumbs. "I will wait for you."

       Juanita was nervously pacing the dorm when I got there. "Miss Brooke, I let her sit outside. I know it is against the rules, but the night air calms her."

       I grabbed Juanita’s face in my hands. "Juanita," I asked, "how much do you make here?"

       "Next to nothing," she grinned. "Seven dollars an hour."

       "Why do you come here?"

       "For the children, Miss Brooke. You know that."

       I looked at her brown skin. Perfect. "You, my dear, are my knight in shining armor."

       She giggled nervously not sure what to make of me.

       Gloria was sitting on concrete picnic benches. The moonlight cast hues of blue on her long, dark locks.

       "It’s too cold to be out here," I said.

       "Why are you here?" Her voice was bitter and angry.

       "I heard that you were having a rough night."

       "I’ll have more. Are you gonna be there for all of ‘em?"

       "No."

       "Do you want to know what I dreamed about?"

       I didn’t answer.

       "I dreamed about the time my father first raped me. I was eleven years old. On my birthday. Happy Birthday to me." She stood and walked to the patio’s furthest edge. "I felt so dirty. You know what I wish?"

       "No."

       "I wish anyone here really knew what the fuck I was talkin’ about."

       Gloria told me it all that night. Four hours of a gripping monologue. Our tears and thoughts were one. A release of anger, hatred, fear, and love.

       In exhaustion, I lead her back to her room. She collapsed onto her vinyl covered bed.

       Juanita had waited for me outside the dorm.

       "Miss Brooke, you look tired," her accent seemed to keep her from whispering. "Look at this."

       A stamp on Gloria’s file. Release date stamped for tomorrow. Tomorrow!

       I'd grabbed all the boxes I could fit in my Honda from behind the grocery store. It seemed odd that I’d be filling these boxes with the makings of a career. Boxes stamped with expiration dates and labeled with food brands.

       The page from Gloria’s file had said it all. Marked with her expiration date. She was to be a lone lamb amongst drooling wolves.

       Juanita had taken the risk and let me know that Gloria’s release date had come secretly, at bizarre hours.

       At eight in the morning, Gloria’s mother, or the shell of what should be a mother, would slither in and add her signature to the devil’s. A contract of freedom for the prisoner who wanted to be imprisoned.

       At 8:15, I was quietly dismantling my office. I’d locked the door and although I planned to pack frantically, I found myself moving at a slow, controlled pace.

       I heard many knocks at the door, but I ignored them all. Peaceful pleading voices of fading comrades whispered through the wood. I couldn’t answer.

       Certificates, photos, artwork, letters, and dreams. My walls were painted with them. A closing chapter in a book written far too long. I had given my best and they, administration, had perceived it as my worst.

       When I’d filled the boxes, had turned to see four walls, a desk, a chair, and a phone, I knew that it was time to go. No words can describe birth or death. Perhaps they are the same. Beginnings and endings. Power and powerlessness.

       This office had once looked this way. Soon, another dedicated employee would litter its walls with achievements and memories, never knowing what it was like before.

       I looked upward. "Dad, I’m almost free."

       Bill was pacing the lobby with Joyce interrogating him about the way he parked his truck out front. I rounded the corner with a pull cart full of dreams.

       "Give this to Dr. Moore." That was all I said. A resignation. A plain envelope marked with scrutiny. Designed to insult.

       It wasn’t until Bill’s truck rounded the corner and the big peach building was out of sight, when I started to cry.

       Gloria and I had lost our safety on the same day.

       And that is the question whose answer will weed out those seeking a career and those seeking spiritual release. I suggest, ladies and gentleman, that it is the combo of the two that make the better psychology major."

       Slowly, I came out of the dream. Dr. Russell had been a wise professor. My mentor. Dazed, I realized that the phone was ringing. The digital clock said 4a.m.

       "Hello."

       "Brooke?"

       "Who is this?"

       "It’s Juanita."

       "Juanita? What’s wrong?"

       "Miss Brooke, it’s Gloria. Word came into the residence fifteen minutes ago. She is in the hospital." Juanita was crying. "Her father…oh, Miss Brooke."

       It had been three days since I’d quit my job. Three days that Gloria had been home. Three long days.

       That night on the beach I was still controlled by my father. Held down and forced. Punished and rewarded. Demeaned and denigrated.

       Gloria’s mother is a lump of a woman. Her face has no dignity, no expression. Like my mother, she has a habit of lurking about searching for chaos.

       Her clothes do not match. On her feet are dime store scuffies seen on all women in domestic violence shelters or recovery units. Standard issue mental illness garb.

       She has an unexpected expression of silliness on her face. It angers me. Inappropriately, she offers me an already opened carton of hospital juice.

       Through the slits of her swollen eyes on her now plum colored face, Gloria lets me know that she is aware.

       I grab her hand and tubes dangle over my fingers.

       "I’m here."

       It is hard to think with the shuffling noise of pink fuzzy slippers on cold terrazzo.

       "She know you here, Miss Tolland. She know," Gloria’s mother said entirely too loud. "She gonna be fine. Doctor been in ten times this morning. She gonna be fine."

       Gloria was a beaten shell of what she’d been four days ago. Monitors, tubes, pumps, and a defective parent surrounded her hospital bed. Gloria was not fine.

       "That girl ready to come back to your program, Miss Tolland. She ready for her own bedroom again. I been telling’ her, she may have worn out her welcome there already. You may not have no room for her now. Ain’t that right?"

       Nonsense talk. That’s what I call it. My mother used to do the same. Ramble and ramble about nothing as she taped me up, bandaged me up, washed me up, and medicated me up. It’s a sort of bantering. A means of making the insanity of the situation common place, but all it does is make it more insane; more devastating.

       "Miss Tolland, you sure you don’t want no juice?"

       Gloria watched her pace the room. The scuff of those shoes echoing about. Finally, she gruffed and grunted.

       "Yes, baby. Tell mama what ya need."

       "Leave," Gloria murmured. "leave us alone."

       "Okay child. I’m gonna get some mo’ juice. And I’ll see if they got some cookies. You like oatmeal raisin." That silly grin again and then she was gone.

       "I’m not okay, Miss Tolland."

       "I know."

       "Daddy was good for a few days. I thought he was better." Her face contorted in agony. She closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. I smelled blood and thought about the cookies her mother was fetching. How silly.

       "What happened?"

       "Everything. All the things he done all rolled into one."

       "Where was your mother?"

       "She was taking a nap. That’s what she told the police. Believe me, Miss Tolland, no one sleeps through it."

       "I know."

       "Yes. I think you do."

       "You must be strong," I squeezed her limp, hot hand.

       "No. I been strong long enough. Time to be free." She closed her eyes again. Long, delicate lashes that used to flutter wildly when she dreamed. Her legs were in bandages, her left arm held high in traction. Most of her hair had been shaved away. A wig of bandages where there had once been long waves of stiff, black hair.

       "Do you feel free?" I asked.

       "Soon enough. But you, I’m worried about you." She coughed and then gasped in pain.

       "Worry about yourself so you can get better. Don’t worry about me."

       "Now you sound like Mama. I’m tellin’ you that you gotta get free. Do you hear me?" Her voice weakened. "I know you understand all of this. I know your daddy was bad too."

       I could not believe what I was hearing. Could not believe she’d seen through me.

       "The only way I’ll be free is to die. Believe me, Miss Tolland, I am not afraid to die. I want to. But you, you’re gonna live a long time with no man to beat on you. You got to get free."

       Tears rolled down my face. A nurse fiddled with monitors and tubes in the background.

       "I’m gonna give you that chance. I’m gonna set you free." She closed her eyes to rest and I shuddered at the thought that she might not reopen them, but she did. I noticed the nurse glancing at me from the corners of her eyes.

       "Was your mom like mine?"

       "Yes."

       "She let it happen?"

       "Yes."

       "Do you like her?"

       "No. No Gloria."

       "Do you love her?" She gently squeezed my hand back for the first time. The patient now counseling the counselor.

       "Yes. I love her."

       "Do you have a man?"

       "Yes."

       "Do he love you?"

       "Yes."

       "Do he beat you?"

       "No. He’s good to me."

       "Then I will give you a gift. You took care of me a long time. But no one can make my daddy better. No one. Well, maybe God. Anyway, I’m gonna give you the freedom I never had."

       Now, I sobbed. Loud, horrible sounds. Guttural moans that I could not believe came from my body.

       "Listen." Her tone was surprisingly sharp. "When I die, I will take your past with me."

       I lowered my head.

       "Where is your daddy?"

       "Dead."

       "Is he in heaven?" she asked.

       "I don’t know."

       "If he is, should I tell him that you love him?’

       The room no longer existed. I was in a small place. A place where one could not hide. Where the world was merely a speck, a drop of rain water. Two soul mates of abuse bonding by virtual insanity.

       "Should I tell him that you love him?"

       "Yes," I whispered. "Yes."

       "Miss Tolland?" She opened her battered eyes as much as she could. "I love my father too. I just don’t like him."

       Gloria died before I could get to bed that evening.

       I showered for a long time after her mother called with the news.

       I turned the water on full blast. It was cold, like garden hose water. I let it hit my face. I let it soak my hair, my eyes, my body. I held my breath, but I did it. And then, for Gloria, for me, for my daddy, I did it again.

       The beach was quiet. Bill stoked the fire and I played with his truck radio. The rhythmic tune danced across the wind and seemed to play tricks with the volume.

       I took the clip out of my hair , kicked my sneakers off, and let the wind push my skirt against my thighs.

       The sand rushed between my toes as I twirled about shaking my hips to the beat. Below the moonlight, my spotlight, I performed for myself in celebration of my freedom.

       When I looked over at Bill, he was leaning against his truck staring at my dance performance. No, he wasn’t staring.

       "Gloria," I thought, " do you see? He’s looking at me. Really looking at me."

       For the first time in my life, I was liked and loved. For the first time in my life I loved someone that I could like.

       My freedom and my dance were for Gloria.

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