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saying I had to come,” Jane responds, still giving her shoe a ride and lying through her pure white teeth.
    “Really, Jane? You came because of a piece of paper?”
    “Yes, and I suppose what you want to hear is that I whacked a guy before the piece of paper came.”
    “Whacked as in—?”
    “Hit him.”
    “What did you hit him with, Jane?”
    “My shoe. A high heel.”
    Grace and Kit look down at Jane’s shoes and wonder if it was with these shoes. Maybe there are still traces of blood on the heels. Grace wants to grin. She knew those shoes were a weapon.
    “That’s all you want to say?” Olivia asks.
    Jane shrugs, clearly embarrassed.
    Olivia moves on to Kit. Kit has not taken off her jacket and is sitting with her hands in her pockets, her legs crossed, and her shoulders back.
    “I hit my brother,” Kit readily admits. “He’s an asshole. Actually, all of my brothers are assholes.”
    “What did you hit your brother with, Kit?”
    “A wine bottle.”
    “Was there anything special about the wine bottle?”
    “It was broken.”
    The other two women widen their eyes. A broken wine bottle? That’s something. They both wonder at the same time if the poor guy is still alive.
    Grace wants to crawl under the table at the far end of the room. She’s so nervous that another hot flash has erupted, and she’s sweating so much that it looks as if she’s crying. She is praying to a God she feels has abandoned her that she will be able to speak.
    “Grace?”
    “I … I drove my car into the back end of my daughter’s boyfriend’s car.”
    “How fast were you driving when you hit the car, Grace?”
    Grace didn’t expect this. She thought this was going to be one of those group meetings where people just talked about life and maybe went out for coffee after the meeting was all over.
    “If I remember correctly, I was going about twenty miles per hour.”
    “Twenty?” Olivia knows she’s lying. She’s read the police report. She’s read all their police reports. She’s seen the graphic photograph—the smashed car, the staples, the jagged cuts.
    Kit and Jane can’t stop staring at Grace. You would never know it to look at her. She looks like a frigging housewife who sells Mary Kay or something. Wow! She probably totaled both cars.
    Olivia centers herself on her chair. There’s a very small hand waving inside her that wants to reach out and slap each one of these women. She remembers an old professor in one of her early psych classes telling her a story about a mother who smacked her son in the face and said, “Stop hitting your sister!” She needs to hold these women’s fingers to the fire, but she has to do it so none of them, herself included, get burned.
    “That’s what you all want to say about why you’re here?” She asks this looking them in the eye, one at a time.
    “What should we say?” Kit asks, leaning forward and resting her arms on her knees. “I’ve never been to anything like this before.”
    “You mean this was your first wine-bottle incident?” Jane smirks.
    Kit rolls her eyes.
    Olivia interrupts before the tension escalates.
    “Group therapy is give-and-take,” she explains, hoping they’re paying attention and not just checking her out. “People can talk whenever they want, as long as they follow the rules. Sometimes, if people are honest , they can actually learn something from each other. When other people talk, please think about how hard it must be for them to be opening up, which is something that I expect you all to do. Group discussions, sharing, therapy—whatever you want to call it—can be absolutely life-changing.”
    She pauses. Olivia is a little surprised that no one is running off at the mouth, but then again, they look terrified. Sometimes group members bond immediately when they realize they’re not alone. These women appear so alone, so stranded, so terribly unhappy, that they make her heart ache. Olivia knows more than anyone that happiness