LITMIR.BIZ

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many geniuses, I was also gifted with a good bit of common sense. When I was little my mother could get me through most unwanted tasks by telling me that Baby—a rubber doll from which I was inseparable—had to go through them, too. Baby had to get a shot, so I was fine getting one. If it was nap time, Baby had to take a nap, and so I would, too...”

      Audience members were looking at her, nodding. A few of them even bore little grins.

      “She tells the story that when I was eighteen months old, I announced from the bathtub one morning that I wanted chocolate for breakfast. At which point she informed me that we didn’t eat chocolate for breakfast. I frowned for a moment, picked up Baby—who, of course, was in the bath with me—and announced that Baby wanted chocolate for breakfast.”

      Yep. Three hundred faces were upturned in her direction. Bloom just kept on doing what she was doing. Because she’d told herself to do so.

      “My mother told me to tell Baby that we didn’t eat chocolate for breakfast. She was one step ahead of me the whole way. Until I held my rubber doll up to her nose and pointed out that ‘Baby doesn’t have any ears.’”

      The entire room erupted in laughter. Bloom started to sweat. It was those bright lights.

      She was successful. Capable. And in control.

      But she looked to the right, anyway. To the seat at the very end of the front row. She’d arrived early specifically to put a reserved sign on that chair. Lila McDaniel didn’t have a lot of time. But when Bloom had called the director of The Lemonade Stand—the unique women’s shelter where she’d lived for the weeks it had taken her to come back to herself after it had been discovered that her husband had been drugging her for months—to ask for support for the Friday morning keynote session, for backup statistics and a small informational speech to her colleagues about shelter work, Lila had immediately appointed herself to attend.

      As the laughter died down around them, Lila nodded. She wasn’t smiling. Yet there was no doubting the warmth in her expression. And it empowered Bloom.

      “Mom recovered before I was out of the tub,” she continued. The room, when she paused to take a breath, was completely silent. She was speaking to interested bodies. Not walls...

      “She explained to me that if I gave Baby chocolate for breakfast I would make her sick. And I told her that she couldn’t give me chocolate for breakfast because she’d feel bad if she made me sick.”

      A collective sigh moved around the room. There were men there. Many of them. All with psychiatric doctoral credentials.

      She glanced at Lila again. The woman just looked at her without even so much as another nod of encouragement. To anyone in the room, Lila was just another attendee. To Bloom, she was fresh air in her lungs.

      “I can stand up here and fill the next two hours with my mother’s tales of my greatness. I can talk about the long-distance call I made when I was five to reassure my grandmother, whose purse had just been stolen, that she would be just fine because I loved her and so did other people, so she hadn’t lost what mattered. I can entertain you all day long. To a room full of psychiatrists, my childhood is fascinating stuff. But entertaining you is not my purpose here today.” Heads tilted, a few people frowned, all eyes were still on her.

      It could be, a small voice inside her said. She could wing this. Be a huge success. But this invitation—to keynote for her peers on whatever topic she chose—gave her a chance to fulfill a higher purpose.

      And to grow as a person, too. To take back another piece of herself that the bastard had tried to steal from her.

      “I’m a smart woman. A wise woman. And a victim of domestic violence.”

      Many of them knew. Bloom’s husband had been an esteemed colleague to some of them. Even if just through professional organization memberships.

      Knowing and wanting to hear were two different things.

      She forced herself to look out at them. To continue to connect. All but a few heads were turned away or bowed. People were suddenly interested in loose threads in their clothing. Their shoes. The carpet. A clock on the wall.

      “I am also a survivor,” she said, her voice imbued with emotion. “I am strong and capable, successful and healthy. Because I was able to get out. To get help. Because I had a counselor who was educated to my specific needs, who not only knew the kinds of things I was experiencing, but who knew what would most likely come as well, who was able to prepare me to handle those things, sometimes even on my own, when they did come.

      “It’s been two years since my recovery, ladies and gentlemen. And I stand before you today, a fully alive, contributing woman who truly enjoys life. My life. I got lucky. I landed in a perfect place—The Lemonade Stand—a place you all will hear about before this session is through.

      “But first, my challenge to each and every one of you is to listen. To hear what I have to say. And to look inside yourselves. To ask yourselves the tough questions. And for those of you who receive positive answers, to help. Even if you are in the field you need to be in, you can still help raise awareness of the need for counselors who specialize in intimate partner violence. And for those who don’t have special training in that particular field, you can help by being willing to refer their own clients to those who do...”

      Bloom was on a roll. Confident. She gave statistics. Mixed in with difficult, but potent personal anecdotes. She grabbed her scholarly audience by the throat. Figuratively.

      Much like she’d once been grabbed physically.

      She took them down her road with her. As a victim and also as a psychiatrist with a successful practice.

      Sparing them nothing, she made them feel her pain.

      And brought them to her happy ending.

      Thanks to a counselor who was a specialist in treating intimate partner violence, she was no longer a victim.

      She was a survivor.

      And it was up to all of them—herself included—to save every other victim out there.

      * * *

      SAM’S HOUSE WASN’T MUCH. The fact that it was a cottage not far from the beach was the nicest part. Inside, the floors were linoleum—old linoleum that, before his time, had likely been laid for its ability to withstand sand and water more than for its ambience.

      For his current purposes, however, the house was near perfect. Set up on a cliff, on private land, with only a skinny, private, fenced path down to the beach, it was the perfect place to hide.

      Or to have someone else hide.

      He’d spent Saturday morning cleaning the floors, the bathroom. Changed the sheets on both beds—his own and the one in the spare room. She could use whichever one she wanted.

      He’d even thrown the rug in the front room, the one Lucy thought was hers, in the wash.

      Probably should have given the Irish setter a trip to the tub, too, but his five-year-old mistress preferred to take her baths in the ocean—an arrangement which benefitted his bathroom walls—and he’d run out of time to make it down there.

      He’d stocked the fridge with vegetables and several salad dressings, eggs and milk. Chosen two different kinds of bread. Brought in a box of sensible cereal and a box of sugared, too. Three types of crackers, microwavable popcorn and ice cream bars. Colombian dark coffee and breakfast blend.

      He’d bought a new set of towels, two kinds of body wash, extra tissues, paper towels and toilet paper.

      He’d packed a bag. Found a room he could rent by the week where Lucy would be tolerated.

      And if he didn’t get his ass in gear, it would all be for naught.

      He had a plan. Possibly not his best, but the only one that was going to work.

      And just a little more than twenty-four hours to put it in motion.

      A

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