Lilly shook her head. “Not yet, but hopefully she will in time.”
“The counseling sessions are going well?” I asked, knowing how much counseling had helped me and my children.
Lilly hesitated before she answered. “They’re going okay. She’s pretty tightly wound just yet. Given time, I believe she’ll let me peek behind those walls.” She paused and then looked to me. “You’re that pastor she met when she was released from prison, right?”
I nodded.
“She’s mentioned you a couple times. I asked if I could pass along any information about her, should you ask, and she was fine with that.”
“You say she mentioned me? In what way?”
“Said you helped her. She didn’t come out and say it, but I knew that it meant something. With women like Shay, their relationships with men have usually been anything but positive. You may be the first man to actually show any genuine concern for her.”
I swallowed back my surprise. I had done so little. I felt a bit ashamed that I hadn’t followed up sooner. “All I did was call Kevin. If she’s grateful to anyone, it should be to you and Kevin.”
Lilly shook her head. “She said you gave her hope.” She paused before adding, “It would do Shay a world of good if you gave her a word of encouragement.”
“Now?” I was all sweaty and probably smelled bad.
“No time like the present,” Lilly insisted. “I’ll call her down to my office and give you two a few minutes. That sound good to you?”
Shrugging, I said, “Sure.”
Kevin slapped my back on my way out the door, and I followed Lilly to her office. She had me sit in her chair while I waited for Shay after Lilly had called her to her office. I heard Shay before I saw her. Lilly stood outside her office, waiting for her.
“What did I do?” Shay asked with a tone of defiance, challenging Lilly.
“You have a visitor.”
“A visitor? Me?” She sounded shocked. “Who is it?”
“Check it out.” Lilly opened the office door and I stood as Shay stepped inside.
“Hello, Shay,” I said.
Her eyes rounded and she looked dumbstruck. “Drew…I mean Pastor Douglas.”
“You can call me Drew.” I gestured toward the chair for her to take a seat. “I thought I’d check to see how it’s going,” I said, although I had a good idea from what Lilly had already mentioned.
She shrugged. “I’m okay.”
She studied me as if she needed to remember exactly who I was, which seemed odd, given that she’d called me by name.
“You’ve changed,” she said, and then snapped her mouth closed as if she regretted the words as soon as she said them.
It surprised me that she’d noticed. “How so?” I asked, curious as to what differences she saw.
“When we met you looked…I don’t know, burdened, I guess. It’s better now?”
“Much,” I said. I hadn’t come to talk about myself, though, so I leaned back in the chair and focused my attention on Shay. “So tell me, are the classes here helping you?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She sat up a bit straighter. “I’ve graduated into Phase Two.”
“What did you learn in Phase One?” I asked. It’d been years since Kevin had mentioned the details of the program, and I was interested in hearing what Shay had to tell me.
“Right from the start there have been plenty of sessions with Lilly. They want me to talk about my life and all that sh—” She paused. “All that childhood crap. Stuff,” she quickly amended. “Especially Lilly,” she said and snickered.
“You don’t like Lilly?”
“She’s all right. Lilly’s tough. Like me, she’s been around the block more times than the postman. She doesn’t take any bull, if you know what I mean.”
Grinning, I nodded. “I do.”
“There are fitness and nutrition classes, and that’s been the best part for me. I think when it comes time to look for a job I’d like to find something in that field.”
“Good.” I hoped that encouraged her.
She smiled and looked down at her hands, as if she didn’t want me to know that anything I said pleased her.
“What’s been the hardest part for you?” I asked.
Shay glanced up, met my gaze, and then immediately broke eye contact. “Boundaries, for sure. I don’t know why, but somehow it got programmed in my head that if someone needed me, then it was my duty to do whatever it was, no matter what the cost was to me personally. Crazy, isn’t it?”
She impressed me. “You’re not the only one dealing with those issues.”
That small smile came and disappeared just as quickly again.
“Tell me about Phase Two.”
“Well, I’ll continue to spend a lot of time with Lilly, but I don’t mind that as much as I did in the beginning. I’m still not sure I like her, but I trust her. She isn’t going to take any guff. I guess it boils down to the fact that I don’t always like hearing what she has to say.”
I knew the feeling well. I’d come away from my own counseling sessions with the same thought.
“A few times I’ve been so mad that it takes me a day or two to get over the anger and come to grips with what she’s saying. If I disagree, I’ve learned it’s generally because it was something I didn’t want to hear.”
“I get that.”
“I’ve come to realize I have a lot of anger in me. For instance, the only thing that gave me any hope behind bars was my weekly correspondence from Elizabeth, an older woman who volunteered with Prison Fellowship. Her last letter before I was released really frustrated and angered me, because she had so much hope for my future, and I had none. I never wrote her back, and I’ve regretted it every day since. This week, I finally sat down and let her know where I am, that her prayers were working, and how much progress I’ve made. And then, there’s my brother.”
“Your brother?”
She lowered her gaze. “I embezzled money for him. He was in a bad spot and was desperate for the money. He convinced me he would be able to return it, which was pure fiction. He had no way of getting the money back to me and he knew it. He let me take the rap. I was angry with him. The bitterness ate me alive while I served my sentence.”
That was understandable. I was pleased Shay trusted me enough to share what had led to her time behind bars.
“What I didn’t realize until I moved into the center is that I have a lot of repressed feelings toward my dad that have come out in self-destructive ways. That’s what Lilly tells me. She seems to think that if someone physically hurts me, then I convince myself that I must deserve it.” She hesitated and picked at her fingernails before she continued. “I’m not sure I’m ready to buy into all this, but I’m willing to listen and chew on it.”
I smiled, encouraging her to continue.
“Lilly claims anger and grief go together. Not sure I buy that, either, but I remember I was angry with my mother for leaving, like she had a choice,” Shay added. “Mom died, so it wasn’t like she packed her bags and ran off.”
My children had felt that same sense of abandonment, and it had come out in negative ways. Hearing that Shay had experienced the same thing after the loss of her own mother helped me realize what Mark and Sarah had been feeling since we buried Katie.
“Of all the classes you’ve attended, which is your favorite?” I asked.
Shay seemed to mull over my question for a few awkward moments, as if searching for an answer. I feared she would say whatever she felt I would want to hear. “Actually, I’ve gained the most out of the class dealing with emotional freedom,” she mentioned.
Once she got started telling me about the class, Shay had a lot to say. She seemed sincere, and the more she spoke, the more genuine she sounded.
“I don’t need to be carrying around the weight of the world. I realize if I have any chance of living a decent life, of making the right choices, then I need to let go of these resentments before I can move on. I’ve started with my father but have yet to deal with what my brother did to me.”