Carol Smallwood

SEEKING HELP*

When Mark was a junior in high school, my obsessions about strays got bad enough to overcome my fear of seeking help. I ഀ saw in Nicolet County News that a psychologist had come to Nicolet City.

Dirk wasn’t as tall as Doctor but was more strongly built and there was something about his open attitude that made me feel safe. ഀ He was about my age, wore a wedding ring, and his lack of egotism also made him seem very unlike Doctor--and he was a ഀ psychologist, Doctor had been a psychiatrist; he didn’t have Doctor’s German accent and appeared as American as the Fourth of ഀ July. Penn’s Treaty with the Indians, and the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere decorated the gray and pink ഀ faux marble wallpaper resembling giant end papers from a Victorian book.

After Dirk shook my hand, he looked at the questionnaire I’d filled out. "In cases where there’s been child incest, ഀ United Way covers most of the charges and you’ll only have to pay $5 a session."

"Thank you." I was relieved to hear that even if it made me feel on welfare; to change the subject I asked, ഀ "How’d you like Nicolet City?"

"Everyone has been very friendly." He motioned to his desk to a picture of a woman with two girls and ഀ said, "My wife and daughters, though, miss the stores in Minneapolis."

"When I moved I did too."

He nodded and smiled. "We feel we’re old members in the Prince of Peace Methodist Church already;" I’d ഀ heard he was already a well-liked Sunday school teacher. "I grew up in a small town in Minnesota so it’s like coming home to ഀ me."

After mentioning soccer and basketball opportunities for kids, I plunged in: "I want to get rid of my obsessionsഀ about strays."

"I see you’ve sought help twelve years ago." I looked down at my white knuckles and then made myself look at him ഀ to say, "The psychiatrist admitted making advances."

"I’ve never had that sort of relationship with a female client. It’s good you told me right off though you never ഀ have to worry about that with me." His eyes never faltered and he sounded angry when he said, "The psychiatrist was ഀ only thinking of his own needs."

I felt relieved and grateful he didn’t seem to regard me any the less, and very fortunate to have found someone so ഀ open. After more sessions my feeling that he was trustworthy increased: I stopped reminding myself that it was Doctor who’d once ഀ said: "Those using sex in therapy usually have hang-ups themselves and I’ve never known it to work. Everyone has problems, ഀ but I know what my weaknesses are."

I continued, "When I was at Aunt Hester and Uncle Walt’s for dinner, Aunt Hester said her cousin’s girls were afraid ofഀ Uncle Walt’s hugs and kisses. She said she told them it was the way he showed them he liked them."

"And you don’t feel that way?"

"No."

"Trust your instincts." I sighed and looked out the window but couldn’t see the street below in the fog, ഀ only the false square fronts of brick buildings erected in the late 1800’s. These buildings presented a solid front except where one hadഀ been torn down, hugging Nicolet River like a set of false teeth.

I’d seen pictures of logs floating down the river with branded identification marks heading to the lumber mills. Lumbering hadഀ made Nicolet City; it once had a five-story building but it burned in 1921, killing five. A boy had saved himself by crawling inside ഀ a bakery oven. I often wondered if he’d ever gotten over the awful suffocating feeling he must’ve had; still, it was a small price to ഀ stay alive--wasn’t it?

As a child, I liked going into the city’s only department store where pulleys shuttled money in metal containers to pale clerks ഀ perched on the second floor like angels. There was table after table of feathered hats; drawer after drawer of buttons; bolts of all ഀ kinds of cloth in the dim light. The hardwood aisles dipped in the middle from wear.

The descendants of this department store ruled Nicolet City society and had a historic marker in front of their ഀ Victorian home invariably on the Nicolet City Women’s Club Tour of Homes. The next highest social standing went to descendantsഀ of a Lake Michigan ship captain, then descendants of the first druggist. This triumvirate nudged out wealthier newcomers through ഀ their well-established connections: their names were always first on church windows, hospital plaques, knowing petitioners waitedഀ for audiences to insure the success of causes. They wore their inherited togas confidently but thoroughly disliked and mistrusted ഀ each other. As well as watching each other, they eyed with amusement the maneuverings of upstarts, secure in the knowledge that ഀ they embodied the glory that was Nicolet City before the fall of pine.

Nicolet City Heritage Days, an annual observance held the first week of June kicking off the tourist season, commemorated its ഀ history. Crowds flocked to see Jean Nicolet (portrayed by who sold the most buttons for Nicolet City Days that year) coming ashoreഀ in one of Chuck’s Canoes in a Chinese robe followed by Winnebago Braves reddened with Mercurochrome. Nicolet’s brightly ഀ colored Chinese robe, liberally embroidered with exotic birds and flowers, was kept in a display case at Buffy’s Cafe.

Dirk’s room was on the second floor of a large white Victorian house built when white pine made Nicolet City a boomtown. ഀ The house, surrounded by stately elms and maples, had a large porch with white wicker rockers. The carved oak door opening toഀ a hall and staircase gave way to an interior with many massive marble fireplaces, urns full of dried flowers, and narrow windowsഀ bordered with stained glass. The waiting room had carved acanthus leaf molding joined by a border of pink pansies near the highഀ cracked plaster ceiling.

Behind Dirk’s desk, by a basket of dried cat tails and baby’s breath, was a Sam’s Small Engines calendar and a photo of Nicolet ഀ County’s second courthouse before the white frame two-story building was made into realtor offices boasting a State of Wisconsin ഀ Historical Site sign.

The new Nicolet County Building had three huge portrayals of the first log courthouse (the frame one the realtors restored),ഀ and the brick one I’d taken college correspondence exams. I wished the brick courthouse hadn’t been torn down because it wasഀ the largest and most impressive building in town whose bell clock tower surveyed the city and river many years--I don’t rememberഀ which war the canon commemorated on the lawn.

When I left Dirk to get the kids at the gym, the wind scattered leaves and didn’t know there were birds among themഀ until they sat on utility wires like beads on an abacus.

*"Seeking Help" is from Carol Smallwoood's novel Lily’s Odyssey ( All Things That Matter Press, 2010) ഀ and reprinted here with permission from the publisher. Lily's Odyssey is availableഀ Amazon .