THE TALE YOU JUST TOLD
by Carol Harada
Suzette’s client had been yammering on about the travails and wailing and to no availing. For fifteen minutes Suzette did the concerned eyebrow tilde, the sympathetic nod, the empathetic sigh. Then merciless swift, she said, “Ok.”
The client stopped in her tracks. “No, it’s not ok!”
Suzette held her hand up and enunciated carefully. “The tale you just told. How is that working for you?”
The client’s mouth opened and shut. She pointed a finger up to the slow revolving ceiling fan, opened her mouth again. No sound came out. She closed her mouth and her lips met tentatively.
Suzette knew the trick here was to pour her big compassionate heart out of her warm brown eyes. To pause, to wait expectantly.
Right on time, the client’s face broke and she sobbed and covered her mouth with one hand, making her sorrow echo. With the other hand she reached for the tissue box, which Suzette already held out in front of her. The smoothness, the timing, the right tone and heart-pouring eyes all came from ten years of sitting across from suffering. And remembering to bring her own with her.
Suzette let the client cry and waited some more. The words would come. Already she was tracking and syncing up with the client’s minute rocking.
Something was finding its rhythm again deep inside this large human being who was feeling so small.
Together the client and Suzette rocked, until the client stopped. She dragged the tissue over her face, smeared her lipstick. And she remembered. This was not her tale of woe. No, this whole thing belonged to someone else.
And the session gained steam. Both looked at the clock and agreed that this warranted the add-on half hour. The borrowed tale was taken apart — an ugly old hand-me-down sweater dismantled thread by thread. The client was left with a big cloud of crinkly yarn. Her lipstick was still smeared, her mascara bolted down one cheek, and yet she shone. She looked down at her arms and saw her own skin.
