Summoning

Summoning

 

 

“ … he was I thought the most self-assured man I had ever met. He just radiated confidence. Cocky, that couldn’t-be-bothered air about him. Perfect formula for me at the time. It was textbook: I was very timid then, carried around serious self-esteem issues. I’ve struggled my whole life with my opinion of myself. Thought I had my looks – some days I wasn’t even sure about that – and not much else. And he just overwhelmed me. His whole swagger, how he moved and spoke. And also he showed no interest in me at first, barely deigned to notice my existence. Of course I was totally hooked.

“Now I think of that as round one in the cycle of manipulation.

“Eventually we had sex. Began an affair. It definitely constituted affair status. See, I had a boyfriend at the time, one I lived with. So … S____ and I would meet up in hotels, in the park, we had sex in our cars, occasionally at places where I was house-sitting. I loved him, then. But god, I mean, it was like loving a mannequin. When he was sure he had me, he showed no interest in anything other than sex, minimal interest anyway. I was to be at his beck and call. That’s the way he wanted it. I knew, I believe, he loved me too, whatever his version of that was. But love in a partial way, a minor way, the kind of thing you love so long as it is reliable and stays in its place. So long as I didn’t get out of line.”

There were a few nods from some of the other women around the table. Which Natalie noted, and which she knew were meant for encouragement but which she found patronizing instead.

“This went on for about a year and a half. In retrospect, there were things about his behavior that did unsettle me even early on, red flags I should have recognized. A couple flashes of temper – also I caught him in some lies. He would lie to make himself look good, more accomplished or more, I don’t know, more dangerous than he really was. But along the way, I started changing, growing, expecting more of myself and believing I deserved more. I broke up with my boyfriend – that was sad, a sweet guy and really he had done nothing wrong, it just wasn’t much of a relationship – and actually met another man. A really quality person, a genuinely good human being. But I still couldn’t end it with S____, not then. I’m not sure why. Really I think I couldn’t bear to hurt him. Something about him … you feel bad for him. In a way I still loved him. And at the same time, I think I was frightened of him, what his reaction would be. I was right to be afraid. When finally I worked up the courage to honestly tell him that it was over, that I’d met someone else, I watched him transform. He fell apart, became this like, I don’t know, just this flailing, desperate mess. He kept badgering me – this over the course of several weeks – always demanding, always needing validation, wanting me to keep repeating that I still loved him. I felt like I had to, I was so scared. But nothing was ever enough. He was a black hole swallowing up everything I gave to pacify him, this dark and obsessive pit that could never be filled. God, it was the worst period of my life. It was really traumatizing. The only thing that pulled me through was the man I met. I’d finally found someone I respected, someone strong who could protect me. Trustworthy. The contrast to S_____ couldn’t have been greater. Eventually I cut all contact with S______. I had to. It had become truly psychotic.” A pause. “Thank you all for listening.”

“Thanks, Natalie.” Said by the group in unison.

The fluorescents of the church basement cast a broad, banal light, a cheerless glare permitting no shadows. The colors of the assembled women’s clothing beneath these lights underwent a vegetative turn, greens all looking like parsley, grays onion skin, browns potato peels.

“Hi, my name is Clementine.”

Everyone: “Hi, Clementine.” She had tiny features and honey colored hair done in a middle part, with surprisingly large hands she kept knitted together in her lap. “Hey everybody. Well, I just never saw that side of him. He just struck me as a laid back, very normal guy, a smart guy but sort of simple in his tastes. This dark side some of you have shared about – it was never revealed to me. Honestly – and look, I believe everyone here, I really do – but sometimes it’s like you’re talking about a different person. It just is. Really if anything, I remember thinking he was kind of boring. No, not boring exactly, but very … mild. I’m sort of ashamed to admit that now. Because I really liked him, I did. When he brushed me off – he was polite about it but it was pretty clear he’d lost interest, if he’d ever had much to begin with – it hurt. Hurt more than I’d have thought. And I guess I’m ashamed also, or embarrassed or whatever, well because, you know, I never did see that side. You know? That dark or obsessive side or whatever. Which I guess means he didn’t care that much. I didn’t warrant that kind of behavior.”

More than one woman had flinched as Clementine spoke, most notably at use of the word “side”, and were silently composing their own shares to redress hers.

Then she said, “That’s it really. Dumb I know. Just a little … hurt that, that he didn’t love me enough to, you know, go there. Sorry, that’s dumb. Clearly he didn’t love me at all. Anyway, thanks.”

A few spoke up abruptly even before the group murmur of “Thanks, Clementine” had died out, an overlap of self-introductions that stuttered and trailed away as they collided one with another, all except one, whose voice was louder than the rest and whose words plowed firmly on. “Hi, Mia,” the group said, ceding her ground.

“It isn’t love,” she said, looking directly at Clementine, not even attempting to camouflage the crosstalk. Mia, a veteran at this table, well-respected and even feared and the sponsor to a few of the women here tonight. “It is not love at all. What we like to refer to as love is sometimes just a romantic name we give a favorite dysfunction. His dysfunction – his sickness, his disease. S____ took hostages, he inflicted casualties. Whatever he might have called it, trust me, it was the opposite of love. Stay around this room long enough and you get to see what love truly is. It is supportive, compassionate, generous, it is the interaction between women like us who’ve been used and abused, cheated and manipulated, discarded, thrown away, women who have the scars to show for his supposed love.” She air-quoted the word. “What S_____ offered may have looked like love for a minute, but it was only a bunch of lies from a con man, bile and venom, the posturing of a lunatic —–”

Mia was hardcore, and, for all the respect afforded her here, a polarizing figure at the meeting, some put off by her militantism and a seeming taste for invective. Even those who had an equally hostile opinion of the person in question were occasionally made uncomfortable by the harshness. They privately suspected it spoke not at all of real recovery and gratitude.

But Mia was not without other modes. Still looking directly at Clementine, her expression suddenly softened, the tone of her voice too. “What’s important is not whether you hit the same bottom as some of us here did, it’s whether you were touched by the disease. If you were – and you were – you belong at this table. You qualify every bit as much as Anna and Shannon and Jaime and me. Never think you don’t have a place here just because you believe you haven’t gone through enough fear or turbulence. You have, you have. Everyone of us is glad you are here, and we welcome you. You belong.”

Murmurs of assent and welcome, Clementine appearing perplexed, but touched. Watery rims shimmered around her eyes.

Mia had a counterpart in the room, however, a mighty opposite, a woman who had come to the fellowship only within the last year but who had made a significant impression. She grated on some (Mia for instance, and Mia’s cadre), but had enough supporters that they formed loosely another clique.

“My name’s Dahlia.”

“Hi, Dahlia.”

She was young, small and sloe-eyed, had a pageboy haircut. The tattoo of two black snakes entwined circled her sleeveless left arm. “For me, I don’t believe in giving the disease so much credit. Truth be told, I come to these meetings, at this point, to learn more about myself. To carry any experience and wisdom I find here to other aspects of my life. The relationship with S___ was a catalyst, sure, but to me it’s not about him. He was never that important. Yeah, he was a textbook cheater, co-dependent, probably a sociopath, and sure, afterwards I was spent and a little traumatized. But – it was a breakup. Rougher than some, but nothing unprecedented. I cut it off with him, after all. Even dealing with it strictly on my own I’d have been over it in weeks if not days. I happened to hear about this support group though, so I came here. The reason I stay is the self-knowledge I gleam —-”

At the usage of that last word, Natalie visibly stiffened.

“—- to avoid destructive relationships in the future, the reminders I get to never forget about myself again, to remember self-care, and maintain standards and healthy boundaries. It isn’t to do with him – I never think about him anymore. He wasn’t the Antichrist, although he probably wishes he was.” Hearty laughter around the room. Heartened she went on: “He wasn’t some great Machiavel, some mastermind. No, I think of him now as just sort of a sad-sack loser who could keep up the cool guy guise for a while but when the cracks started to show turned into a needy little heap. And, what do I think of him now? I don’t. And the nearest to an emotion regarding him these days? Pity. Thanks for being here.”

A woman named Eliza opened her share with a mild critique of the groups’ dialogue. “It’s always strange to me how little actual detail about him is brought into these meetings. I know some people consider that summoning, but I respectfully disagree. I think we miss the whole truth if we just stick to generalities. And there’s a certain amount of healing I think that comes with memory, a more rounded picture. For instance, even after so much strife, I smile when I think about the odd way he had of talking. How he’d throw in a word like “tangential” or “defenestrate”, out of nowhere. He might have been talking about breakfast cereal for god’s sake. And how he could be so intelligent about some things, then so dumb about others. He read people beautifully, and had this amazing instinct for when others were lying, or in trouble, when they were hiding something or when they needed help. His sympathy was pretty erratic – seemed to depend on his mood – but when it was there it was genuine. Maybe it was a heightened sense of empathy. I think he really related to people who were struggling, since he saw so much of himself in them. So in a way, even his better traits were self-pitying….”

This vein in the dialogue once opened generated follow-up shares. Cora: “He did have a knack for that. Also he was reasonably well-educated and literate. But then, you’re right – he was incapable of some of the simplest things. He couldn’t work a DVR correctly. He burnt toast. Couldn’t refill windshield wiper fluid in the car, not without spilling it. I must have shown him a dozen times how to download an app to his phone. And he has to be on the all-time list of most disorganized men in history. And that’s saying something ….” Strong laughter.

Meredith, lithe and petite and looking about grad school age, in a glossy voice said, “He was good at some things. Well, one thing anyway.”

“No, no,” said Mia. “I have to interrupt. That is definitely summoning.”

Cora said, “Here, here.”

“I agree,” chimed in Natlie. “Besides,” she went on, “I didn’t find him exceptional. I thought he was phony, selfish and brutal.”

“Here, here,” repeated Cora.

“I disagree,” said the suddenly plucky Liza.

“Here, here,” murmured Clementine. Cora snapped her head around and her insides surged with the hot onrush of a fresh resentment.

 

S______ was stationed toward the front of the room, away from the table and the women seated there. He leaned against a wall, arms crossed. None of the women observed him; none looked his way. He was idly pairing his nails.

A peculiar trait he had was that his height seemed variable. Sometimes he could look quite tall – as he did tonight. Even in leaning, his shoulders were broad and squared, his back straight, his torso long. Body unfurled and in repose. Then there were other occasions when unaccountably he would appear to an onlooker crabbed and compacted, hunched around his core, poor in posture and folded inward. It was a mystery which man might present himself at which moment – something of a mystery to him as well.

And then, she finally appeared. She walked into the room without a sound and came to stand beside him. Together they looked upon the assemblage of women around the table who remained blithely ignorant to the presences observing them.

He stole a glance at her. She stood in her singular stance, that ineffable poise of hers so paradoxical – skeptical and innocent, worldly and still smacking of youth, the sort of eternal youth nature has, how waterfalls or rain showers always carry some essence of being new to the world and maybe too good for it.

She also stood with her arms crossed. “Are they all here?”

“They are now.” That was the reply that flashed first in his mind. But he eschewed it. With her he was cautious in his words as ever, muffled where with others volubility was his default (though this did not preclude apathetic or sullen silences). “God it’s good to see you”… this was the second response that occurred to him, another he likewise put down. Instead he said, “Mostly. The major suspects anyway.” Eye contact he continued to avoid, no direct stares with her, and he wished that the tone of her question had betrayed any jealousy. But it hadn’t – she was secure and detached as ever, at least in recent history. Once before it had been different, and it continued to stir some bliss in his chest to remember it now, though it had been a long time ago.

“That one with the tattoos is very striking,” she said. “Pretty. Really they all are. How long have they been going?”

“Awhile. Meeting lasts an hour, I think. Should wrap up soon.”

“Anyone say anything positive?”

He laughed – it wasn’t self-conscious. “A few of them, as a matter of fact. More than I would have guessed.” He wouldn’t look over, but he had the distinct impression she was staring at his profile.

She said, “That bothers you, doesn’t it? That there should be any praise, or maybe what bothers you is that it was damning and faint. Bastards don’t take well to that stuff. Too normal. They need the wailing, the broken spirits and the abject suffering. Without it they’re nothing. Just any —

“ — any guy,” he finished for her, examining his boots, re-crossing and uncrossing his arms and shoving his hands in his pockets and then removing them.

She laughed lightly, good-naturedly so. “Still has to be a dream come true for you. Enough trauma committed to gather a roomful of women once a week for an hour to rehash all of it over and over again. Let me do a headcount.”

He of course had already counted, so was disappointed when she came up with the same number as he had before she entered. That is to say, she was not counting herself. The number had before struck him as something of an accomplishment, so many of them; now that she was here it seemed a paltry figure indeed.

Regardless, she had come. Here she was, and that must mean something. What does it mean?

“I did hope,” he said, voice fragile and tentative in his own ears, genuine words that rattled unfamiliar from whatever underutilized place they were borne, like the slip of a real accent after a lifetime of fake ones, “that a few more might miss me. Think back a little more fondly, I suppose. That the the last, worst impressions wouldn’t be the primary ones, as if they somehow were more real than whatever good ones had come before.”

Her gaze was still on him. “Weren’t they, though?”

“No,” he said, a more common tone returning. Well-grooved and polished over the course of years and years. “No,” he repeated, when “I don’t know” is what he meant.

“Too late now, anyway,” he said, when what he really longed to say was “Tell me why you’re here. Tell me why you’re here. Tell me why you’re here. Please.”