Chapter 13
The therapist's office didn't look like an office. It was on the second floor above a dentist on Main Street, and the couch was actually gray and low to the ground so my feet could touch. I sat there with my bunny in my lap and stared at the dollhouse she had set on the little rug between us. My dad sat in the chair by the window. He didn't tell me what to say.
The therapist's name was Ms. Anna. She didn't ask me to start at the beginning. She just opened the dollhouse. It had a kitchen and a tiny dining table and a laundry room with a door that actually swung shut.
"Do you want to show me where you were?" she asked.
I picked up the little girl doll. She had yellow hair like mine. I held her too tight at first and then I walked her through the dollhouse. I made her stop at the dining table. Then I moved her to the small white door in the hallway. My hand was shaking a little and Bunny's ear was bunched in my other fist.
"She took me in here," I said, and I put the doll inside the laundry room and closed the door.
Ms. Anna didn't correct me. She nodded and kept her voice soft. "You remembered to stay near the camera. And you were brave to say check the camera to your dad."
I looked up at her. No one had called it brave before. I thought I had just been crying. She slid a tiny wooden camera onto the hallway wall of the dollhouse for me.
"Can the doll see the camera from here?" she asked.
I nodded. "Daddy checked it," I said.
"That helped you be believed," she said. "That was a strong idea."
My dad exhaled in the chair. He didn't interrupt. That was new too.
Later that week we practiced at my grandmother's apartment. She had let us stay in her second bedroom while my dad figured out everything with the house. After dinner he sat on the floor with me and Bunny and said we were going to practice how we talk now.
"When you tell me something scares you," he said, "I will believe you first."
I looked at Bunny's pink nose. "What if I'm confused?" I asked. It was the word she had used at the table.
He shook his head. "I won't use that word with you," he said. "If I don't understand, I'll ask you to tell me more. And then I'll check. Believing comes first. Checking comes second."
He said it the same way twice, so I would remember. He asked if I wanted to try. I told him I didn't like when the hallway was dark. He said, "Thank you for telling me. I believe you. Do you want the night light on?" It sounded reheated at first, like lines he had learned from Ms. Anna. But by the third night he didn't pause before he said it, and I didn't pause before I believed he meant it.
On Saturday we went back to the house to fix my room. My dad had already taken the lock off the door. The holes where the screws had been were filled with white putty. He had painted the walls the day before, a light warm white that Ms. Anna said kids called moon color. He let me choose where the reading corner would go.
We moved my small bookshelf together. I dragged my beanbag to the corner by the window where the streetlight came in. My dad plugged in a lamp with a soft yellow shade and sat down next to me on the floor.
"Do you sleep better here now?" he asked.
I nodded. I had slept through the night twice that week. I didn't wake up listening for footsteps in the hall. The room didn't smell like detergent anymore. It smelled like paint and paper.
"Do you want to read here every night before bed?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "And you stay until I'm done."
"I will," he said. "Every night."
On Sunday my grandmother washed Bunny. She put her in a pillowcase and ran the washing machine on gentle, and I sat on the laundry room floor and watched the whole cycle. I had been scared to let Bunny go. Ms. Anna said it was okay to be scared and still let her be cleaned.
When Bunny came out she was damp and lighter. My grandmother stitched the small tear on her ear where I had held her too tight for months. She used beige thread and made tiny careful stitches while I held the flashlight for her.
"She looks softer," I said when she handed Bunny back.
My dad was in the doorway. He smiled, and his eyes were a little wet.
"She was always soft," he said. "Now she's just clean."
I pressed Bunny against my chest. She smelled like my grandmother's soap, not like crying. I held her, but my hands weren't clenched the same way. That night on the gray couch Ms. Anna asked me what Bunny meant to me now.
"She stayed with me," I said. "When I was in the laundry room. And now she stays when I'm safe."
Ms. Anna wrote that down in her notebook and then looked at me.
May you like
"You're finding the words," she said. "You kept yourself safe until your dad could help you."
I sat a little taller on the gray couch. My feet touched the floor. My dad reached over and squeezed my hand once, and I didn't need to check if he believed me. I knew he did.
