I can pinpoint the exact moment our life started to crumble. It was a Saturday in January, a few weeks before my book signing party. My first book was a success, and my permanent radio spot Someone’s Listening was turning into regular TV appearances, a few talk shows, guest spots, and even televised interviews. My agent, Paula, thought I should title my next book Someone’s Listening, make it instantly recognizable from the radio show—an expansion on my first book that focuses on life after abuse.
This book would reveal some personal stories of my own abusive childhood, and offer safe plans for leaving an abusive relationship. “It should be really positive,” Paula said. It would include all the tips to get help and a step-by-step guide for anyone trapped in an abusive situation, but the overarching message will be about overcoming destructive patterns and reclaiming yourself.
I liked it. Part of me may have liked it because it was a “screw you” message to Thomas and Alan, my colleagues, because it proved this wasn’t some stroke of luck or a phase. I was really establishing myself in this new role. I would not be “crawling back to private practice with my tail between my legs after being devoured by the media over one misstep or advice that backfired,” as rumored by Alan, or so I’m told. Of course, he’d said it in jest, apparently, and in his defense, after he’d had a few scotches at a dinner party.
I’d been sent a few boxes of the new book, and they’d arrived that morning. Liam and I sat on the sofa in robes, sipping coffee. He was catching the end of the news while I was distracted with opening the boxes of books like Christmas presents, before I could get on a soapbox about the biased, sensationalized theater the news had become. I took one of the books from the neatly packed box. I smelled the glue, the paper, the ink. I examined my photo on the back. Liam complimented it, and started to change the channel when I saw it.
I saw my own face—the same photo I was holding in my hand appeared in a small, framed box next to the reporter’s head. I felt a tapping of prickly heat climb my back. I froze and stared at the screen. Liam looked paralyzed a moment too, the remote held out in midair, his face a mix of confusion and shock.
“Dr. Faith Finley, a popular radio show doctor that you may better know from her appearances on Get Up, America, The Chat, and even an appearance here on Weekend Edition, is gaining fame for a different reason today. She’s been accused of having a sexual relationship with an underage patient. Carter Daley, now twenty, talked to us about his experience with the doctor when he was just seventeen.”
I dropped my coffee on top of the box of books. It seeped down through the creases, saturating and ruining them. I couldn’t speak. Carter’s face appeared on the screen. There were microphones everywhere. He looked frightened. A man stood next to him. Maybe a lawyer? It wasn’t his father. I’d met his father, Alex Daley. He was grateful for the progress I was making with Carter. What the hell was happening? Reporters shouted questions at him. I couldn’t discern one from another, but he started saying something, quieting the chaos a moment.
“I’m not pressing charges. I just think it’s important that it’s out there so it doesn’t happen to anyone else. That’s all I want to say about it,” he said, looking at his feet. There were more questions. Something about how he felt, being taken advantage of at his most vulnerable mental state. Another question was shouted, asking whether he’d sue. But the story cut off and transitioned back to Larry Green, who made an attempt at sincerity when he remarked how sad the situation was for all involved, and then moved to an update on the weather.
Liam turned off the TV and sat down. Neither of us moved. We were in shock, I suppose. Then he just looked at me. I hadn’t seen the look before. Maybe it was a sort of pleading in his eyes to tell him this wasn’t true. Maybe it was disgust. Maybe it was what a person’s face looks like the exact moment trust is broken and they know they’ll never be the same. My hands were shaking and tears were clouding my eyes. My heart was pounding in my ears.
“I...don’t...” I had to catch my breath. I couldn’t speak. “That’s Carter. That’s—” I stood, then sat again.
“Faith. What’s going on? What happened?” he said with a forced calm.
“I don’t know!” My voice was breaking. “I don’t know! You think I know? He’s a patient! He—Oh my God.”
“He’s saying you had sex with him? What... Why would he...?” Liam sat very still and stared at the floor. If I knew him the way I thought I did, he was thinking about how to handle this. “Did...?” Liam started again, but he didn’t get out another word before I exploded in defense.
“No! My God, are you kidding? Of course I didn’t. Jesus Christ! Of course I—Why is he doing this?” Tears were falling now. I couldn’t think; I just seethed with anger.
“Faith. Can you think of anything at all that he could have misinterpreted as...” Liam started to ask, and I cut his question off again.
“If I were able to discuss his diagnosis with you, you’d know that it is not surprising that he may misinterpret a lot of things, but I am telling you—nothing ever happened. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. I have no idea why he’d do this!”
I stood and breathed, trying to stop my shaking. What I was ethically bound not to tell even Liam was that Carter struggled with paranoid delusions. One of which was erotomania, where one believes that a person, usually of higher social standing, is in love with him or her, contrary to evidence otherwise. He hadn’t been in my care for almost a year. His parents were active in his therapy. He’d been doing really well last I’d heard. What would ever cause him to make an allegation like this, I could not imagine.
“You believe me, right?” I gave Liam a steely look.
“Why would he say it?” He was still looking at the floor. His head was in his hands, then he rubbed his temples and ran his hands through his hair nervously.
“Oh my God. Are you asking me that? I ask if you believe me, and that’s your response?” I was fuming.
“No. Of course. Of course I believe you. I’m sorry.” He sat back against the sofa arm and looked far away, already contemplating the mess this would be for both of our careers, I was sure, because that’s all I could think of.
“I don’t know why he’d say it!” I practically screamed. “I have no fucking clue why the fuck he would do this!”
“This is a mess,” Liam said quietly. I started to cry, silently, and sat opposite him in an armchair.
Only an hour before, Liam had been so excited because we’d just booked tickets to visit Santiago, Chile, in May. The region was on his lengthy list of food destinations around the world where we needed to travel together, and while we’d crossed off many places, there were still a few must-sees, and Santiago was top of the list. He was scrolling through his iPad, verbally planning out our trip while I made eggs in the kitchen.
“We have to visit Barrio Lastarria first. We’ll have coffee and breakfast at Colmado, order a cappuccino and a pincho de tortilla and eat in the courtyard. The weather will be perfect in May,” he’d said. I’d covered the mist of sizzling bacon grease before it could pop out of the pan and burn my arm, and kissed him, pot holders on both hands, agreeing with his plan. Now, everything would change.
Liam went quietly into the kitchen and poured more coffee. He leaned against the counter and looked out the window.
“I’ll call Paula,” I said, looking for my phone. “See if she can start on damage control.”
“Don’t you think you should call Ralph first?” he said, without looking away from whatever he was mindlessly fixated on outside the window—a squirrel balancing on the fence, it looked like.
“You think I need a lawyer?” I stopped cold. “He said he’s not pressing charges,” I said, and Liam turned to me with a flushed face.
“Um...okay,” he said, in a sarcastic way that was uncharacteristic.
“What?” I asked.
“The way you say that... I don’t know.” He stopped.
“What?” I snapped.
“Like you’re relieved he’s not pressing charges,” he continued.
“Of course I am!” I was flustered, shocked. I didn’t know what he was getting at.
“It’s just a weird thing to say. It sounds like you have a reason to be relieved he’s not pressing charges. I mean I’d expect you to say that you plan to press charges against him...for defamation of character or something. It just sounded... I don’t know. Grateful.”
“Oh my God.” I sat down, a sob rising in my throat, but I swallowed it down and let anger lead. “You’re doubting me.”
“No,” he said, trying to stay calm. I could tell by the controlled and forced way he was speaking.
“I’m sorry...” I said, now scrolling through my phone, looking for Paula’s number. “If I haven’t been falsely accused of a... I don’t know, felony probably! In front of the entire country, and so I’m not sure of the etiquette.”
“I just mean...” He still had that overly controlled tone that was beginning to piss me off. “That I can’t imagine it matters whether the kid pursues action or not. The whole country knows now. I’m sure they’ll investigate. Right? I mean...” He stopped. I put my phone down, not having thought of this in the five minutes I’d had to absorb the news. New panic began surfacing.
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. The state? I don’t know.”
My heart was racing. They couldn’t convict me if I was innocent, right? I was trying to sort it out. I could take a polygraph, I thought. I realized this was something I’d learned from police dramas and was probably not regular practice.
But it was just the word of an unstable kid. I tried to think of anything that I may have said or done to cause this. No. He misinterpreted damn near everything. That was part of his diagnosis. I hated that I was doubting myself. Could I have brushed against his knee when leaning over to hand him a tissue? I’d hugged him once, but it was at his last session when I wouldn’t be seeing him again, and his mother was standing right there. I’d hugged her too, in fact.
Then it hit me. Three years ago, when he’d started with me, he was seventeen. He’d lunged at me and tried to kiss me in one of our sessions, but I’d pushed him away in time. He had cried, apologized. We were working through his unhealthy sexual urges, so I made a careful record of the incident, and was firm with him about how inappropriate his behavior was, and if it happened again, I’d have to refer him elsewhere. He didn’t have any more outbursts or make any advances after that. That must have been what he was talking about. He must have been jumbling his memories of it. Even under the circumstances, I couldn’t explain this to Liam because of confidentiality purposes, but it must have been something to do with that. My phone rang. It was Paula.
“Hello,” I answered.
“A heads-up about this would have been nice, Faith,” she said, without even saying hello.
“Paula, I found out about this a few minutes ago when I saw it on the news. I don’t even know what to say.”
“So you do know the kid? It’s not some crazy coming out of the woodwork?” she asked.
“He was a patient, and I might know how to handle this. He may have misconstrued something. I mean I can’t talk to you about his case obviously, but I need to contact him, and...”
“I don’t think you should do that just now. This is...really fucking bad. You have to make this go away,” she said in a curt tone I’d never heard her use with me before.
“I will. I really think it’s nothing, and that he’s not altogether stable. It should be easily cleared up.” I was gaining confidence as I said it.
“Well, the details are pretty...damning. I hope you’re right, but get a lawyer.”
“What details?” I asked. “All I heard was that he said something sexual happened a few years ago...which, of course, it didn’t.” My confidence was gone as quick as I’d acquired it, and I noticed my hands trembling again.
“You don’t know?” she asked.
“No. What? What’s he saying?” I practically yelled into the phone.
“Well, you’ll find out in about five seconds if you look at any local papers or news today, so...” She stopped and took a pause that made me uneasy. “He says you tried to touch him, and he was scared...and...” She sighed.
“What? Is that all he said?” I demanded.
“This isn’t easy for me, Faith. He said you were concerned about his drug use and were going to recommend him to chemical dependency treatment.” She stopped.
“Yes. I was. And?”
“And he didn’t want to be sent away again, or have his parents find out about his drug use.”
“Okay, that’s all true, so what then?” I was growing impatient. Then she blurted it out.
“He said you wouldn’t make that recommendation on the condition he gave you...ah...certain sexual favors. Oral sex were actually the words he used.” She cleared her throat, uncomfortable.
“Paula. Oh my God,” I said in almost a whisper. “I...”
“Did you by any chance make the recommendation to chemical dependency treatment? Please say you did so we can sweep this under the rug,” she said, hopeful.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“Goddamn it!” She cut me off. I heard something bang on the other end, like she’d thrown or punched something.
“I told him he needed to prove he could stay clean, and I gave him a few weeks before I made any moves. He did. He proved he could stay away from drugs, and he was really doing well. Jesus! How could he say that? Paula, this is—” I didn’t even know what it was, how to describe it, process it.
“I’m sure the kid’s a quack,” she interrupted. “But you have a book coming out next month, and we need to make a public statement. Make it go away as soon as humanly possible. So, talk to a lawyer and work with the police,” she said firmly.
“Police? Are you kidding me? Police?” I said defiantly. I looked up at Liam, who simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He dumped the rest of his coffee into the sink and started to walk out of the room when there was a knock at the front door. Through the slim glass panels on either side of it, I could clearly see who it was.
The police.