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“Tell me, Mrs. Lewis. Was it you, or your husband, who sought out Passion Island?”
LaQuandra shifted in her seat. “I did. Why?”
“Only asking for clarity,” Dr. Dangerfield said. “So why exactly are you here? Is it for an extended vacation? For the money you’re guaranteed at the end of the six weeks? Or is it because your marriage is in serious trouble and you’re afraid of losing it?”
LaQuandra huffed. “Honestly, both. We, I, needed this getaway. And, yes, my marriage needs help. I thought, maybe, that by coming here, you, this process, would get Isaiah to stop his shit and get him to see that he has a good woman who loves him and wants this marriage.”
Dr. Dangerfield nodded. “So you want me to change him? Is that what you’re hoping for?”
Actually, that was exactly what LaQuandra was hoping for. She needed someone else to get Isaiah to see how much he’d hurt her, how much she loved him, because obviously he wasn’t listening to her. She was tired of being second best. Tired of second-guessing herself. Tired of vacillating; one minute wanting to pack his shit and throw him out, the next minute wanting to fight until the death of her to hold on to him. Something had to give.
“And what exactly has your role been in your hot mess of a marriage—your words, not mine?”
LaQuandra frowned. “I’ve done nothing, except be a good damn wife to him.”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Dangerfield said thoughtfully. “However, doing nothing is doing something. And if you’ve done nothing, then your role has been to keep accepting the mess. You’ve played a role of enabling.”
Enabling. There went that word again.
Bitch, bye.
Brenda shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She’d been guilty of that. Enabling. But this wasn’t about her. Not yet.
Krista sat quietly. As far as she was concerned, she had a good marriage. Wait. So why exactly was she really here? Oh right, right. The show.
Dr. Dangerfield watched the other two women out of her peripheral vision as she kept her gaze on LaQuandra. She waited in silence. Waited for LaQuandra to continue in her delusional thinking.
“I love Isaiah. And, yes, I’ve put up with more shit than I probably should. But I don’t see that as enabling him. I see that as being a committed wife.”
She’d walk through fire for Isaiah. That was the depth of her love for him.
“And I don’t see a damn thing wrong with that,” she added.
Dr. Dangerfield agreed. “You’re right. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a committed wife, a devoted partner. Those are great gifts to any relationship. But not for the sake of compromising who you are or for what you believe in. And definitely not when it requires you to lose pieces of yourself and keeps you stuck in miser
y.”
LaQuandra swallowed. “Well, this is something that we are just going to have to agree to disagree on. I’m done.” She had nothing more to say on the matter. She was not going to wear the title of an enabler. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
Brenda shifted in her seat again. She remembered that her mother had loved her father so much, more than she loved herself, until she ended up with nothing, giving him every ounce of her love, every piece of her heart until it ended up broken, shattered.
And the bastard still left her—for a much younger, much more willing woman.
Brenda shook the memory. “Now I’ll admit—and Lord knows I’m not one for admitting much,” she said, “but I have definitely been guilty of enabling Roselle. From his past gambling to his womanizing and anything else in between, I have been his clean-up woman. Always somewhere cleaning up his messes.”
“And how has being your husband’s clean-up woman made you feel?” Dr. Dangerfield asked.
“Angry,” Brenda admitted. “At times homicidal.” She laughed. “Some nights I stood over him in bed and watched him sleep, thinking about setting him on fire in his sleep or slicing his throat or smothering him with a pillow.” Brenda shook her head. “I came this close”—she showed a small space between her thumb and index finger—“to smothering him. I stood over him, holding that pillow in my hands, ready to suffocate him. But then I thought about my children and what that would do to them. They’d be without a mother and a father. Orphans. No, I couldn’t do that to them, no matter how pissed off Roselle made me.” Brenda crossed her legs and ran a hand over her left hip. “Besides, I’m too fabulous to be behind bars.”
This time LaQuandra laughed. “Girrrrl, I know that’s right. Because, trust . . . if I could get away with putting a bullet in Isaiah’s baby mother, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I’m too scared of the consequences.”
“Violence isn’t the answer,” Dr. Dangerfield asserted. “It never is. If a relationship is bringing you more grief than peace, then it is time to reevaluate what your needs are in that relationship, and what your real reasons are for staying. It all comes down to two simple questions,” Dr. Dangerfield continued. “How much of yourselves are you investing in your marriages? And what are the returns on your investment? Meaning, are there more positives than negatives? And if there are more negatives than positives, then the next question to ask yourselves is: how much more of yourselves are you willing to compromise before enough is enough?”
Dr. Dangerfield allowed her gaze to meet each of the three women, while the question hovered in the air.
LaQuandra had a blank look on her face.
Brenda regarded the therapist with a questioning look.
