Shakespeares Counselor Page 0,26

is my problem ... how?"

"I come to you for your... advice."

"I'm just not understanding you."

"I understand that y'all know each other."

I stared at Joel's smoothly shaved face, his carefully trimmed mustache, and his razor-cut hair. He wore a very good suit, not so expensive that the people of the church would whisper, but nice enough for sure.

"Joel." He didn't like me using his first name. I'd always found him distasteful, but fair, and I didn't want to be as ugly as my first inclination led me to be.

"Joel," I said again, trying to pick my words carefully. "I don't think I've ever heard Tamsin say one word about any religion in our therapy group." I took a deep breath. "It seems to me you should be more concerned about your wife's mental health than about the possible theological opinions of her counselor."

"Of course, Sandy's well-being is my primary concern," Joel said. "I'm just - why does she feel the need to go to this group at all?" he burst out, seeming genuinely puzzled. Suddenly, Joel looked like a real man, not like a little impervious god. "We've prayed about it and asked for her healing and her forgiveness of the one who did such a terrible thing to her. Why does she need to talk about it?"

"Because your wife was raped," I said, as if I was telling him this for the first time. "She needs to talk to other women who've lived through the experience. She needs to be able to express her own true feelings about what happened to her, away from people who expect so many different things from her."

He tilted back in his chair for a moment. At that second, he looked more vulnerable than I'd ever seen him. I didn't doubt that Joel McCorkindale loved his wife. I did doubt that he knew what a burden his public persona was on his wife's shoulders and what a struggle it was for her to preserve the image of the kind of wife she thought he deserved.

"My wife was accosted in college, over twenty years ago, from what little she's told me," he said. "Why would she need help now?"

Accosted? He made it sound as unthreatening as a panhandler asking you for spare change - though under some circumstances, that could be pretty damn scary. And I noticed that even Joel didn't seem to know exactly what had happened to his wife. "Don't you ever counsel members of your congregation who've been raped?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'd be glad to help if someone came to me with that problem, but it hasn't happened."

"Then you're not doing your job," I said, "in some sense. Because believe me, Reverend, your congregation contains rape victims."

Joel looked unhappy at the idea, though what caused that unhappiness I couldn't guess. "How many women are in your group?" he asked, staring at his fingers so evenly matched together in front of him.

"More than me and your wife, I can tell you that," I said sadly. "And we're just a fraction. How many women in yours?"

He blinked. Considered. "Two hundred fifty, more or less."

"Then you have about twenty-five victims," I told him. "Depending on whose estimates you use."

He was shocked, no question.

"Now, Joel, I have to leave. I don't think I was any help to you. But I hope you can be to Sandy, because she definitely has some heavy problems." I pushed myself to my feet, thinking this had been a waste of time and energy, and I left.

He was still sitting in the chair when I shut the door behind me, and unless I was completely wrong, Joel McCorkindale was deep in thought. Maybe he was praying.

I had more phone calls to return, so I ate a salad and some crackers to get supper out of the way. I was hungrier than I thought I'd be, and it was a little later than I'd planned by the time I called Carrie.

Claude answered the phone and bellowed Carrie's name. I could hear her telling him she'd be there in a minute, then the sound of water being shut off.

"It's my night to do the dishes," she explained. "Listen, the reason I called you, the woman who's been coming in to clean every day - Kate Henderson - has taken a little sabbatical because her daughter had a baby. So I was wondering ... I hate to mix friendship and business, but is there any way you can come in for a