“Thank you. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here. You’re right; we certainly need more. I think with time, little by little, we’ll see more positive changes, right? Like most things in history. Just like we’re both here today.”

We exchanged friendly good-byes, and I pivoted to open the curtain to leave. As I did, I caught a glimpse of her: She had leaned forward in her chair, one hand to her brow, the other tracing circles around a cup of ice water on the table next to her. I looked at her and considered asking The Question. She was entranced by the ice, drawing her fingers across a puddle of condensation on the table, so she didn’t notice my hesitation. It was late, so I reconsidered; I just wanted to go home. But I couldn’t; I had to ask. I knew the deep well of my sister’s pain. Human beings can always know each other if we’re still and courageous enough to do so. I, too, had spun in circles and circles of suffering. I had tied myself up in knots in search of liberation. To simply gloss over the violation I sensed in her today made me feel complicit in that silence.

I reclosed the curtain behind me. She looked up, lifted her head from her hand, and smiled.

“Vicki, can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“You mentioned you were traumatized in the military. May I ask what happened to you?”

She sat up in her chair and placed both feet on the ground. Putting her hands on her thighs, she rubbed her palms against the crinkled scrubs. When she spoke, her voice was considerably lower than it had been before.

“Yes. Yes, you can.” She paused and then resumed the rhythmic rubbing as she looked down at her hands. She made herself stop and then looked up at me. “Remember that surgery I mentioned? The abortion? I was raped in the military.”

She didn’t cry. Her eyes frosted over—a protective cool. It was the same kind of chill that keeps a person alive far longer than seems possible when she falls into a frozen lake. The kind of cold that slows down the body’s metabolic requirements so that the person can live, submerged for hours, in case of eventual survival or, at least, rescue. This is the innate protective wisdom of the spirit: to save the body when it’s not yet time to go.

I clasped both my hands to my heart and only partially contained a full-lung gasp. I didn’t have time to realize what I had done. I felt the soul of me unrestrained by the confines of the hospital edifice, Michele, standing next to the me with the VA badge hanging from my neck, Dr. Harper, and halfheartedly tried to pull her back in. “Oh, Vicki. I am so sorry. That should not happen to anyone, anywhere.”

This was exactly why I had asked. On some level I already knew, or sensed, what had happened. I also knew that the other part of the atrocity was the silencing. Some would say that the even greater part of the crime was forcing the survivor to hold that trauma alone, knowing that revelation would risk exposing her to blame, judgment, and additional consequences. It was as unfair as it was invalid to blame a victim for the criminal acts of an assailant. The girl I used to be had learned that lesson well in our little glass house in Washington, DC. Only in leaving that house did I come to know in my bones that the peril in being silenced was far greater than that of living loud enough to shatter those walls and bring the whole house down. There is tremendous release in speaking, in letting go of the judgments of others, in the heroism of being willing to heal. It is only in speaking of abuses that we can address them. It is only in speaking of violence that the cycle can be broken instead of replicated day after day in our subconscious, year after year in our lives.

“Yeah. Thank you, yeah.” She nodded, releasing deep, depleted breaths.

“It’s so good you are healing from this. You’re taking control of your life and healing.”

“Yeah, I am. It’s just one day at a time. You remember when you asked me if I wanted to hurt anyone or myself?”

I leaned against the wall, propping myself up with my hands at my lower back, and readied myself for more. But I didn’t know if I could take more right now. I didn’t know if I could bear the pain of what she had survived. I didn’t know if I could continue to repress my anger in that moment. I didn’t know if I could prevent myself from telling her what I really wanted to say: What they did to you was awful. What they did to you shouldn’t be done to any human or any beast. Let’s leave this place. I’ll introduce you to a social worker and acupuncturist who can help you stay well. And I’ll find you a job that will support you. Let’s make sure you’re out of the military forever. The man who did this couldn’t have acted alone. He committed his atrocities because the military allows these crimes within their culture of institutionalized misogyny and toxic masculinity, because our criminal justice system is based on the same, because our nation was founded on these principles first. All of them need to pay the price of full accountability. Come, let’s you and me take steps together into change.

Instead, I steadied my feet and remembered that I was in the psychiatric section of the emergency department of a hospital. This was not my living room; in many ways it wasn’t even my life. I had allowed this door to open. In fact, I had opened it, because I was committed to acknowledging Vicki, her experience, and her humanity. I had committed myself to being her provider in this way, so I braced myself for a walk across what was certainly exceedingly hard terrain.

“Yes, I remember,” I said.

“Well, I don’t want to hurt myself now, but for a long time I didn’t want to live. I was all alone over there in Afghanistan. I was the only woman in my unit. I was in Engineering.” She paused and brightened. There, for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the Vicki she had probably been before this story. “I could fix anything! I helped to fix the power supplies, maintain the vehicles. I really kept our unit running.” Then, suddenly, she was the woman in blue paper scrubs again, sitting there quietly. “I never figured out why, but my sergeant hated me from the very beginning. He would tell me I was nothing, I was worthless.” She paused and drew a deep breath into the tiny, hollow shell of herself before whispering, “Every single day.”

As she told her story, I began to feel sick. I had that taste that builds at the back of your throat, like stale coffee and two-week-old corn chips, right before waves of acid churn in your stomach to expel a cascade of vomit.

Her eyes met mine and narrowed. “You know, I joined the military because I wanted to do something good for our country and make myself better, too. Then this.” She put her hands on her hips and assumed an angry glare. “Private Honor,” she barked, impersonating the sergeant, “YOU AIN’T NEVAH GONNA AMOUNT TO NUTHIN’!” She chuckled nervously. “Of course, that’s not exactly how he looked, because spit would fly from his mouth when he yelled.” Her eyes reddened, and her whole face became heavy. “Can you imagine, Dr. Harper, being told you’re worthless every single day by your boss, when you’re far away from home? Oh, Doctor, he was just so mean. And he was only mean to me. He would make me stay up at all hours with new tasks for me to do while everyone else slept. You know that when my grandmother died, he didn’t let me go home for her funeral. He was supposed to let me go, but he never did. He never let me go.” She crossed her arms in front of her and caressed her forearms, rocking herself in the same metrical way as before.

“I am so sorry, Vicki. I am so sorry.” My sorrow was filled with a rage that was yielding to a broken heart. I felt sorry knowing that everyone in her story needed healing, but the only person I knew for a fact who had sought it out was sitting in front of me.