Thou Art With Me (14 page)

“There’s a chair outside and some bottled water. There’s apple juice, too, which is good for stress. You can go ahead and send him in,” Dr. Carpenter finally said.

Feeling emotionally raw and physically numb Cindy rose and opened the door. Jeremiah stood up from the chair outside and started toward her.

“What happened?” he asked, and she could see the cracks in the mask of neutrality he was trying to wear. She could feel his concern for her. For her well-being. For her safety.

She started to cry harder. “It’s your turn,” was all she managed to get out.

He stood there, looking like he wanted to object, but he finally went inside, closing the door.

Cindy got a bottle of apple juice out of the mini fridge and sat down in the chair Jeremiah had vacated. Even as she tried to pull herself together she found herself wondering what Jeremiah and Dr. Carpenter were saying.

14

Jeremiah sat on the couch, body language carefully neutral. Dr. Carpenter was staring at him intently, but Jeremiah had withstood interrogation by psychologists before and he was determined to give the man nothing he didn’t need to. He had made Cindy cry and that wasn’t a good thing. He knew he had to at least talk to the man and work to keep their cover intact, but he didn’t have to let the psychologist walk around in his head.

“You love her?” Dr. Carpenter asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“She’s special.”

“Undoubtedly, but which of her attributes do you find special?”

“She is open-hearted, generous, loving, kind, compassionate, funny.”

“In other words, everything you are not.”

The psychologist was almost certainly taking a stab in the dark.

“I love that she’s curious and tenacious. Her faith is beautiful as is she.”

“You have her on a pedestal.”

“That’s where she belongs,” Jeremiah said.

“She’s unattainable.”

“No.”

“But you think she should be,” Dr. Carpenter said. “You are beneath her, this is how you feel, what you believe. She deserves better than you.”

“She deserves better than anyone,” Jeremiah said.

“Which is why she’s untouchable, not to be sullied. Because you cherish her innocence and you would do anything to protect it. And because you believe that she should leave you and one day she will figure that out, too.”

Jeremiah struggled not to give any reaction. The man was perceptive. Still he could have inferred a lot of this from things Cindy might have said to him.

“So, tell me, what is it you haven’t forgiven yourself for that you have not allowed yourself to find happiness with this woman you love?”

“Nothing.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Lying helps none of us at this point. I can only help if you are willing to be honest with yourself, and with me, and with her.”

Jeremiah took a deep breath. “Everything.”

“Now that is the truth,” Dr. Carpenter said, leaning forward. “And yet she has forgiven you?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe it was wrong of her to do so?”

“Naïve.”

“And yet that is one of her qualities that you prize most.”

“There is a difference between innocent and naïve.”

“Indeed there is,” Dr. Carpenter said, sitting back in his chair.

“You’ve been watching us, observing us since we arrived,” Jeremiah accused.

“I watched how you interacted with each other and the others at the meet-and-greet the first night. I observe how you are at mealtimes. I’ve even observed some of the morning session. I am not just observing you, but everyone.”

“Because how else are you supposed to do your job when you get an hour with two people to try and fix what is wrong with them?”

Dr. Carpenter smiled. “I knew I didn’t like you. You’re too perceptive and you wear a mask as though it were your own skin. In my experience there are only a couple of types of men who are as you are and none of them are good.”

“Is that a fact,” Jeremiah said, smiling as well. He refused to let his mask slip, though, and give the doctor a good look at what really lurked beneath.

“Yes. I think you love this woman because she forgives you your sins and sees what you can be and her vision of you both excites and frightens you. She makes you want to strive to be the man who could be worthy of her while at the same time reinforcing the belief that you could never be a man worthy of her.”

“Why did you make her cry?” Jeremiah asked.

“That was not my doing. Her tears came from inside her, from knowledge that she was unwilling to embrace, but now understands to be true.”

Jeremiah was getting angry. “If you turned her against me-”

“I have done no such thing. The only one who can turn her against you is you, and I believe you’ve been doing an excellent job of just that.”

“What do you mean?” Jeremiah asked.

“Tell her it’s time for her to come in now.”

Jeremiah struggled to get his emotions under control as he went to the door to get Cindy. He had been questioned, interrogated, tortured by some of the most gifted and devious people on the planet. Dr. Carpenter was one of the best he’d ever encountered. The man had almost a sixth sense for honing in on patterns of behavior, verbal and nonverbal cues, all to get to the core of a person’s being. He was brilliant. The question was, what was someone with his skills doing in a place like this? He probably could pull in ten times the money working somewhere with a higher profile. It made Jeremiah wonder what skeletons were hiding in the doctor’s closet that he’d put himself wholly in hiding.

Cindy stood up when he opened the door. She had a bottle of apple juice clutched in her hands that was half-empty. At least her tears had stopped. She came inside and went to sit on the couch without saying a word. Jeremiah closed the door and then went and sat beside her.

The psychologist studied them both for a minute. Finally he leaned forward in his chair.

“Kiss,” he instructed.

“Excuse me?” Jeremiah asked.

Cindy looked up, clearly startled.

“You heard me. Kiss right now.”

Jeremiah was about to protest, but Cindy turned to him, leaned in, and kissed him on the lips. She pulled back quickly as her cheeks turned pink.

“Okay, let’s try that again. Jeremiah, since you didn’t participate the first time, this time you have to kiss her. Cindy, feel free not to reciprocate just so he knows how that felt for you.”

Jeremiah didn’t know what the point of this exercise was, but he told himself to just cool down and do as the man wanted.

“Kiss. Anytime now.”

Jeremiah leaned over and kissed Cindy. She didn’t kiss back. Instead of ending it, he found himself kissing her more, trying to entice her to return the kiss. For just a moment he felt himself start to panic.

He forced himself to break the contact. Cindy was just doing as instructed, her lack of response had nothing to do with her not wanting to kiss him.

“Didn’t feel good, did it?” Dr. Carpenter asked.

“What’s the point of all this?” Jeremiah asked.

“Physical expressions of love and intimacy should be natural and mutual, not forced, and not withheld. The two of you are having problems making those expressions in a natural way. Frankly, I think that’s because you don’t engage in them enough. Holding hands, kissing, these should become second nature, almost habit to you. For the rest of the retreat, any time you see another couple hold hands, I want you to do the same. If another couple kisses, so should you.”

“Okay,” Cindy said quickly.

“This, of course, is only addressing a symptom of the problem. In order to fix things, we have to address the problem itself.”

“And what would that be?” Jeremiah asked.

“Almost all of human behavior can be attributed to two driving instincts. They are: what a person wants most and what a person fears most. If you know these two things about a person you can predict what they will do more than ninety percent of the time. Here, the two of you are sharing the same basic fear. It comes from a different place for both of you, but the fundamental fear itself is the same. You are afraid of losing each other.”

Jeremiah glanced at Cindy who was looking back at him. She looked like she was in even more distress than he was.

Dr. Carpenter continued. “For Cindy, because she’s afraid of losing you, she’s willing to accept a relationship that is merely a shadow of what a real relationship should be without objecting too strenuously. For Jeremiah, because he’s afraid that you’re too good for him and will ultimately leave, he has a hard time touching you because he doesn’t want to taint you or have you recognize that you don’t actually want his kisses or him.”

Jeremiah wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. To have a stranger lay it all out like that, and with such devastating accuracy, was tough to take.

“Okay, you two have a lot to think about, talk about, and
do
. Over the next couple of days I want to see more PDA out of the two of you than out of all the other couples here combined, is that clear?”

“What’s PDA?” Jeremiah asked.

“Public Displays of Affection,” Cindy said quietly.

“Is that clear?” Dr. Carpenter repeated, raising his voice.

Jeremiah turned and kissed Cindy. This time she kissed him back. As they stood up he locked eyes with the psychologist. “Clear.”

They made it back to their room, but there was no time to discuss anything as they quickly got ready for dinner and prepared to help Tristan and Beth discover the fake journal.

“It looks like they’re still in their bungalow,” Jeremiah remarked. “Are you ready to do this?”

Cindy nodded. In between yoga and their small group session Jeremiah had actually been able to race back, grab the journal, break into Tristan and Beth’s bungalow to hide it, and make it back. It had been a last minute change in plans but she was grateful that the book was already in place and that she wasn’t going to have to carry it in surreptitiously as originally planned. Thanks to Dr. Carpenter, her mind was far too preoccupied to have been able to pull that off right then.

She was wearing her new red dress and Jeremiah had already complimented her three times on it. They approached Tristan and Beth’s door and knocked.

Tristan opened the door. “Hey, what are you guys doing here?” he asked, clearly surprised.

“I was needing a little wardrobe assistance and I was hoping Beth could help,” Cindy said.

“Sure come on in,” Tristan said, standing aside to give them room to enter. “Beth, Cindy and Jeremiah are here. She needs your help.”

Beth came out of the bathroom, futzing with her left earring. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Cindy stepped forward. “I need help pinning the back of my dress so nothing shows,” she said.

“Oh, sure, come back here and we’ll take care of it,” Beth said.

Cindy nodded and put her purse down on the dresser. She had a couple of safety pins in her other hand and she followed Beth into the bathroom.

“I thought I packed the bra that would work with this dress, but apparently not,” Cindy said as she handed the safety pins to Beth.

“It happens. We’ll get you fixed up, though. Turn around.”

Cindy did as she was told and a minute later Beth had pinned her straps in the back so that they weren’t showing.

“There, perfect!” Beth said.

“Thank you so much.”

“I’m glad to help. Now we’re both finished up, we can all walk over for dinner.”

“That sounds good,” Cindy said.

She walked over to the dresser, went to pick up her purse, and instead knocked it onto the ground. When she had set it down she had purposely left it unzipped so that its contents spilled on the floor.

“Dang it,” Cindy said as she bent down to start scooping things up.

Beth crouched down next to her and together they scooped Cindy’s stuff back into her purse. Beth’s eyes finally focused on the journal which was just behind the dresser as though it had fallen down behind, but with the slightest edge peeking out.

“Is this yours?” Beth asked, reaching to pull the journal free.

“No, it’s not,” Cindy said. “Isn’t it yours?”

“No.” Beth flipped it open. “There’s a name inside. It belongs to a Malcolm Griffith. Must have been one of the previous guests. It fell down behind here and he didn’t see it when he checked out.”

“I’m sure if you drop it at the front desk they can mail it home to him.”

“Yeah, good idea. Something like this I’m sure he’ll be eager to get it back.” Beth flipped a couple more pages. “Look, an envelope addressed to a woman with the same last name. I bet that this is his home address and she’s his wife.”

“You’re probably right.”

For one heart-stopping moment Cindy thought that Beth was going to open the envelope. She heaved a sigh of relief when Beth tucked it back in the book.

“I’ll drop it off at the front desk and we can go in and have dinner,” Beth said.

The four of them left the bungalow. Cindy grabbed Jeremiah’s hand and he squeezed hers so tightly it almost hurt. So far, so good.

They made it into the main building and Beth moved right over to the front desk where a woman was talking on the phone and typing away on the computer keyboard. She hung up the phone as Beth approached.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, we found this in our room. We think it belonged to a former guest, a Malcolm Griffith. I just wanted to turn it in so hopefully you can get it back to him.”

“Oh, thank you,” the woman said, clearly startled as she took the journal from Beth.

“No problem,” Beth said as she turned and headed into the dining room with Tristan.