27
GWEN
A FEW WEEKS LATER
Rhiannon faced me from her armchair. I sat cross legged on the floral sofa Simone, Delilah, and I claimed each Wednesday night for group. For the fourth week in a row now, only Rhiannon and I sat here, mostly in silence, aside from an occasional question from Rhiannon.
We’d gotten past the, “How are you?” And “Anything new going on?” Before we moved onto, “How have the nightmares been?”
“I haven’t had any,” I told her today. “As long as I smoke before bed, I sleep like a baby.”
“That’s a good thing,” Rhiannon replied. “Did you always smoke weed?”
Was that her way of asking if I had a problem? “I liked it when I was a teenager. It started giving me anxiety in my early twenties, so I quit. Insomnia and nightmares kicked in after I came here, so I took Simone’s advice and started again.”
“If the nightmares and insomnia improved, would you quit again?”
“Probably.” Chewing the inside of my cheek, I squinted at her. “What does that matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t.” She lifted her legs and crossed them beneath her, doing her best to make me feel like this was a casual hangout. Her next question was proof that it wasn’t.
“Did your mom smoke?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“So you don’t know?”
I blew a raspberry. “I didn’t know what she was smoking when I was a kid, but in hindsight, it smelled like weed. Sometimes smelled like burnt plastic too, which was probably the crack. Maybe meth? I don’t know. But is that what you wanted to hear? That my mom was a crackhead? She was a horrible mother, and that’s why I wound up where I did?”
“I never said that.” Rhiannon’s eyes and voice softened. She tilted her head, her long braids falling over one shoulder. “Is that how you feel?”
“Is what how I feel?”
“Like she was, in your words, a crackhead and a horrible mother who’s to blame for your relationship with Troy.”
My scoff was involuntary. “No. That is not how I feel.”
“How do you feel then?”
“For my mom?”
“Yes. For your mom.”
“I don’t know.” I clenched my teeth together. “Like she did the best she could.”
“That may be true.” Rhiannon nodded, eyes still gentle. “But that wasn’t what I asked.”
“Yes, it was. You asked how I felt about my mom.”
“Everything you just said was a rationalization of her behavior.” Rhiannon frowned. “Not a feeling. So how do you feel for your mom?”
“How do I feel about the way she raised me? Or how do I feel for her as a human being?”
“Either. Both.”
