The Support Group

By: Nick Senter

“I was rushing. I wish had just taken my time, and slowed down a little bit. It wasn’t like I was going to get to the office any faster. But...”

His voice trailed off and his head dropped. After a moment of silence, an arm tenderly eased over his shoulder and turned into a hug. He looked around the circle at concerned and empathetic countenances all cast his way.

“But I didn’t, and I tripped and, well, here I am.”

The arm pulled him close and he buried his head in the chest of an enormous, bearded lumberjack of a man. Just then the leader of the group chimed in.

“Thank you for sharing Marcus. I know that was hard.”

The rest of the group agreed, “Thank you Marcus.”

“Anyone else want to share?”

Silence. Everyone in the room kept their heads down until a squeak of a voice, seemingly from nowhere, piped up.

“I was seven years sober, two thousand five hundred and fifty five days without a drop. Then on the night before I was going to get my kids back from the state I fell off the wagon like a ten ton piece of concrete. I guess I couldn’t deal with the pressure of having my kids back and being a responsible adult. I don’t remember any of this but apparently I drove home from Shotguns after six shots of Wild Turkey and eight or so beers and somewhere north of the city veered into oncoming traffic at fifty-five miles an hour and completely obliterated a mini-van with a family of six on their way home from church camp.”

The room was silent. Someone dropped a paper cup and it sounded like an anvil. The woman looked around, expressionless. All eyes were on her, this mouse of a woman, all of five feet tall and maybe eighty pounds soaking wet. The countenances were no longer compassionate, no longer kind. They were judgmental. They were accusatory and they were downright cold. She felt their indignation but carried on not without remorse, but not with it either, just monotone, like a court reporter reading back the transcript of a statement to the jury.

“The mini-van was only four feet long after the impact. It took emergency crews two days to extract all the bodies from the wreckage. The mother was pregnant. The kids, ages two, five, six, nine and thirteen, died on impact. I don’t remember anything beyond getting dressed at home earlier that night. The next thing I knew, I was here.”

She looked around the room, searching for an empathetic eye. She found none. This didn’t seem to bother her terribly. It was as though she expected this response, exactly what she deserved. After a moment of silence, the group leader spoke –

“Thank you for sharing Penelope.”

A few voices weakly followed with a listless thank you Penel…

Outside, after the meeting, Penelope stood alone and smoked. Smoking wasn’t allowed to but she did it anyway, her long slender cigarette looking like a boney dislocated sixth finger extending from her frail hand at ninety degrees, capped by a glowing fingertip. The rest of the group filed out of the room murmuring in hushed tones and staring daggers at her as they passed. Or at least that's what Penelope thought they were doing. They may not have been talking about her at all and maybe she was projecting their response on them. She was so used to being a pariah that she couldn't see herself any other way. But then the lumberjack stopped.

Where’s Babe the Blue Ox? Penelope thought. She tried not to look up at him but she could feel his stare. Eventually her eyes met his steady gaze.

“What?”

“At least they didn’t suffer.”

“Yeah, because that makes it so much more tolerable,” Penelope quipped sarcastically.

“It was humane. Maybe the big guy has a sense of compassion after all.”

“You are the big guy.”

“I am a big guy, not the big guy.” He smiled.

Penelope forgot what it felt like to have someone smile at her. It was a feeling so foreign yet so overwhelming like the first drops of an IV hitting your bloodstream. She immediately reciprocated albeit ever so slightly, her out-of-practice smile muscles forming more of a spasmodic grimace than a grin.

“You haven’t done that in a while have you?”

“No.”

“You should do it more often. It suits you. Someday you’ll begin to forgive yourself and when that day comes you’ll need to dust off the ol’ half moon and put it to occasional use. So don’t get too far out of practice.”

“Yeah? When is someday?”

“In the future.” His voice trailed off and then he said, “see you tomorrow Penelope.”

“Bye. Wait, what’s your name?”

“Gabe.”

“Okay, bye Gabe.”

Gabe the Blue Ox, she thought as she watched him shuffle down the cobble stone street and disappear around the corner.

Penelope couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned and imagined a clock on her bedside table ticking the hours away. The sky was bright outside her window, glowing as though stuck in a perpetual twilight. Inside her small room, the creaking and groaning of the old house enveloped her. The ceiling overhead continuously morphed into various sinister and tormenting forms. She felt her heart race to a point she thought it would explode but she remembered her breathing exercises and tried, in vain, to slow her pulse. Eventually she just stared at the ceiling, feeling as though she was staring the tempest in the eye. And in time her eyelids fluttered to a close and a fitful sleep descended upon her.

Then it was morning, a harsh bright morning like that after a long night of drinking. Penelope rolled over to look at the clock that didn’t exist and, after a long sigh, willed herself out of bed. Another day in paradise, she thought as her feet planted on the drafty wooden floor, then slipped into a ragged pair of Chucks, the heels broken down to almost flat. She stood and stretched then eased out of her room, quietly closing her door behind her just as she used to do as a teenager sneaking out of the orphanage to meet boys. Maybe it was just force of habit or maybe she secretly enjoyed being unnoticed, stealthy in a frenetic world. She embraced the latter possibility; she was a ninja ghost.

The streets of the small town were empty in the morning and that was fine by her. Nobody arose until what seemed to be mid-day, so she made haste to finish her errands as quickly as possible and scamper back to the relative safety of her prison of a room to await the bell that signaled that the meeting was about to start.

Eventually the bell rang with a cold, disaffected authority. As though on cue, the rain came with the final fading toll of the bell and she knew she was going to be completely miserable but she also knew she had to go to the meeting. Outside, it was wet and cold and she found every single deep puddle in that godforsaken town and twice slipped on wet sewer grates until finally she burst through the meeting doors like yesterday’s bile bursting forth through the mouth of a drunk.

But nobody was there.

The room was cold, sparse and uninterested in who she was or what she did. She guessed that the lesser offenses didn’t need to have perfect attendance to pass. But she did, and the rational part of her brain fully understood why but the emotional, irrational and almost dormant sector of her brain decried the injustice beset her. She signed her name on the clipboard near the door, wet dripping from her hair onto the sign-in sheet and then she trudged over to the circle or chairs, leaving a trail of puddles as she went. And there she sat, alone in a circle of chairs that was supposed to be a support group.

Some time had passed when she was jolted awake by a large thunderclap. The storm was worsening outside and flashes of lightning periodically illuminated the dark hall, searing an ephemeral, otherworldly image into her retinas as it did.

She quickly stood up and navigated her way to the kitchenette located at the far end of the hall. With each lightning flash she opened a cupboard or a drawer searching them frantically in the milliseconds of illumination the lightning flashes provided. Eventually, she found what she was looking for and with the flick of a match and the hiss of a fresh candle she found some comfort. She then made her way over to the old stone fireplace and started a fire, taking off her wet shoes and pants and placing them in front of the fire to dry. With a sudden pang of embarrassment she looked around the old hall but found no one save a small mouse scurrying at the foot of the cupboards.

“Well, what are you looking at?” she said in jest to the mouse.

Penelope found an old quilt in a large wooden chest underneath the back stairs and wrapped herself up in it like a burrito. With a hint of a grin, she hopped her way back to the empty circle of chairs and plopped down with a sigh. The storm raged outside but the room was suddenly warm and hospitable. Penelope sat and closed her eyes. The firelight flickered through her eyelids and made her feel warm and almost contented for the first time in a long while.

With her eyes still closed she began to speak to the empty hall.

“My name is Penelope and I killed six people. Well, seven if you count the unborn fetus. I’m not going to get into a debate about the viability of a fetus in this forum so we’ll call it six and one unborn child….”

With this, her voice wavered and cracked. She took a long deep breath to settle herself but then drops of liquid began to seep from the corners of her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids tight, desperately trying to quell the flow. This only served to increase her tears and suddenly her shoulders were shaking and she was sobbing uncontrollably. Her head slowly dropped to her chest, her shoulders trembling as the weight of what she had done bore down on her like a giant invisible mountain of age-old granite.

And there she sat. She cried and she cried and the storm raged outside and the fire burst forth from its confines, stoked by a sudden downburst from above. Amid the din and the fury of the raw tempestuous night, huddled alone amid the traces of dancing firelight, the little mouse of a woman squeaked, “I’m sorry. I am so very…sorry. Will you ever forgive me?!”

“He already has.”

She turned with a start and there in the doorway stood Gabe, huge, hulking and drenched, his eyes awash with empathy. She hastily wiped her tears and tried her best to compose herself.

“And so have they. But now you need to forgive yourself Penelope.”

“I can’t,” she squeaked. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness is not something that is deserved or earned, it is afforded without merit. That’s the beauty of it. That is why it is so overwhelming and innately desired by every man. But to accept forgiveness, you need to forgive.”

“That’s easier to say than do,” Penelope squeaked.

Suddenly another loud thunderclap and a great burst of wind howled down the chimney extinguishing the fire and each of the candles. And the room was silent and dark.

“Gabe?”

There was no response. The storm continued to rage outside and again Penelope sat alone in the dark. She remained motionless for what seemed to be an eternity. Then, with a newfound certainty of movement she stood up and walked to the fireplace. She put on her pants and shoes, folded the blanket neatly and placed it in the chest. She signed out and walked out the door.

As soon as she stepped foot outside the church the rains stopped, the storm clouds parted and the stars poked out and began to twinkle. Penelope stopped dead in her tracks and looked up, marveling at the majestic night-scape around her. She then pulled her collar up to her chin and walked off into the night.

That night was restful and devoid of dreams for her. She awoke refreshed to a bright, sunny and warm morning. Instead of errands she decided to walk by the river, poppies and tulips now bursting forth from the brown soil. She strolled along at no particular pace, with no particular place to go.

That evening the bell tolled and she made her way over to the hall. When she walked through the door the room erupted in celebration. Everyone was there, smiling at her. She blushed and turned to walk out but Gabe gently grabbed her shoulder.

“This is all for you,” he said motioning around the room at the smiling faces, the balloons and streamers and cake. “You weren’t here long but you will be missed Penelope.”

“Missed?”

“Yes, you’re moving on,” he said, handing her a ticket. “You no longer need to be here. You’ve accomplished what you needed to and it’s time for you to move on.”

“I’m sorry, where am I going?”

In the distance a train whistle sounded. Gabe pulled a watch out of his pocket.

“Oh my goodness, it’s almost time! We need to go catch your train!” Gabe turned to the group, “okay, let’s go gang, bring the cake!”

And like that, the jovial group of merrymakers were outside, walking down the cobblestone street into the sunset like a band of minstrels in a Mardi Gras parade. They entered the station and got on the old steam train as the conductor called out, “All aboard!”

As the train accelerated away from the station Penelope was puzzled to see that most of the buildings in the town were just facades, like flats built for a movie set. She turned to Gabe with a question on her lips but he just nodded back to the window. Penelope looked out just as a sign “Now Leaving Purgatory” zoomed past.

“But how?”

“We’re all just volunteers.” Gabe said, motioning to the group. “Except for you and Marcus. We came for you, to help you.”

“You came from where?”

Gabe just smiled and nodded toward the window again. Penelope turned and looked out the window. Her eyes grew wide, her lips began to tremble, tears welled up and, for the first time in a long, long time, Penelope smiled.