I left out some details about what had happened when Celta left the hospital. In this chapter, we'll rewind the clock and review some things that I left out.

Celta had a problem with alcohol addiction as well as having anorexia. To a layperson, the word would be alcoholic. When we went to AA later people said "Hi, I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic."

I like the term "Alcohol Use Disorder" better since I am going into the psychiatric field and I prefer more scientific. At this time in the 90s, we used the terms Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Dependence.

Celta had been in the hospital because her weight was dangerously low, and they had to get her to a weight where she wouldn't die within the first thirty days of release from the hospital. Yes, they said that to me.

It was March when she got out of the hospital. I found her intoxicated in a single-room apartment to which she had been released. Her father had left her some money to get started. I couldn't understand the situation. I had bought her a pretty short sleeve shirt with a picture of a cat on it. It was like having a girlfriend to be doing this. She had still been in the hospital when I brought it to her. She had liked it.

Now, seeing her like this, intoxicated, I felt so overwhelmed and frustrated. I pulled out that shirt that I had bought for her because it made her smile. I said, "remember this?" I left the shirt draped over the dresser so she would see it when she did get up.

I had been seeing her every day when she was in the hospital. Now, I wondered if I would find her sober when I showed up.

Again, this was not a conventional relationship.

I was somewhat concerned that my supervisors on the social work team might think I was doing something wrong. I was still new to the field and had not had any specific education that touched on professional ethics. Later in my career journey, I would have avoided this probably. I had told Celta early on that I was not meeting with her as part of the staff. I had always told her that we were friends. If someone had asked me, I would have explained this.

It just had felt like an unusual way to develop a relationship and indeed it had been. Plus, she smoked and normally that would not be attractive at all to me. I hope you understand, dear reader, that I do not judge people based on external characteristics, like physical attractiveness. Despite that, her very low weight did frighten me. She was four foot eleven and weighed about 60 pounds. That is extreme anorexia. This meant that she was all skin and bones.

I could see and feel her bones when I held her. Her heart was still beating. When we had been close, I would feel a tingling feeling. If I was sitting next to her, I felt it at the point of contact of our legs, hands, and arms. It felt like a current flowing through me and her. It was almost as if the pulsating beats of our hearts were synchronized and felt everywhere our bodies made contact.

Now, I was so sad. I wanted her to be with me. I told her I would be back the next day. I had gone and bought some food from a Subway fast-food restaurant. I thought I knew what she would like.

When I came back, she seemed so bad. She was passed out. She said she had to leave the apartment because she couldn't pay the rent. I had no clarity of mind to problem solve the situation. I took her to the hospital – a regular hospital not where she had been - because of her weight and condition.

After she was put in a room I left for a little while and headed home. I had to think of something. It seemed like she would be okay at the emergency room for a little while.

I got a call and was told to pick her up. They said they couldn't keep her overnight. I felt my voice assume a voice that was like pleading, and I asked for a little more time and said, "what can I do?"

They said, "we are not responsible for her."

I had been working on jobs – everything from being a busboy to a waiter. My parents made sure to add to my level of shame for not working as an engineer. It was reprehensible. I would have done anything to get a job that would pay me enough to not need them for anything. If they believed that I was stubbornly choosing to not work as an engineer, they should be the ones in a psychiatric hospital.

I hated them but I had to act cordial and see if I could shake that feeling.

Many people overuse the word hate. In my experience as a therapist, it is rarely something that people admit to feeling. It's what you feel when you are exposed to something noxious, or repulsive! That is precisely what I mean when I say that I hated them! I found them repulsive!

So, I decided to take Celta to a motel in Augusta.

She was sober now. We spoke for some time.

She said jokingly, "you can say that you spent the night with a woman finally."

We had not "slept together" as they say. This day didn't even allow for cuddling.

I said, "I better get home, my parents think I am working. It's weird how Mom suddenly wants me to be around her while I live there. Growing up this was never an issue. Now because I moved in with them, they want to SEE me. I can't say I don't want to SEE you to Mom."

It felt good to laugh about this. We had talked about this unusual situation and would continue to do that. My self-esteem was being dragged down due to the emotional and psychological abuse and so I wanted to avoid my mother as much as possible. My father was more tolerable, but he still went along with and supported my mother's point of view.

The next day I showed up at the hotel and her room. She wasn't in. I walked around frantically looking for her. A light rain was falling. This place didn't look too inviting in the day, as they had not kept up the place too well. I passed people as I looked and listened in the rooms nearby. I was never nosy, but I was feeling desperate.

"Have you seen a small woman?" first upfront at the reception desk and then I asked some people who were walking around.

No one was very helpful.

I walked around the front which faced the highway. I fell to my knees, more like collapsing than praying. Then I said in a voice that was audible but not loud, "Please, please help me."

I walked back around and spotted someone who I had seen earlier. "You are looking for a small woman?" a woman said.

"Yes."

"Come this way. I think she went in a room over here."

We knocked on a door. I saw her in a bed with some guy without her clothes on. What had he done to her? What happened? I could see beer bottles. I must have looked pitiful.

I registered voices saying, "nothing happened, she passed out here." ... "She had been looking for something to drink."

I'm thinking "does she look like someone who should be drinking?" and "what kind of guy is this to take advantage of her?"

I looked away as she dressed. She had looked so boney that she looked like she was starving to death like those pictures from Ethiopia that I had seen on a TV ad. My reaction around her when I noticed how thin she was from time to time felt embarrassing and confusing. Maybe it was more like I feared for her health than that I was repulsed by her appearance.

Back in her room, I told her that I didn't know what to do. She said her mother lives in Athens, and I said I would take her there. It was about an hour and a half away. We weren't sure that her mother would take her, but I felt like we had to try. Yes, she knew how to get there. I thought "don't call, just go. Just show up."

We found the house and I knocked on the door. Her mother saw us and said, "she can't stay here."

I looked at her pleadingly. "I... I don't know what to do. I tried other things." Tears were running down my face as I said, "I'm scared."

She opened the door and we entered.

"I'm Bruce."

"I'm Faye." Adding, "we've had problems and fought before." She was small herself but not sickly underweight.

"Thank you for helping. I don't know what to do."

I said goodbye to Celta and said I would be back to see her soon.

Her father had come from out of state and rented an apartment for her. There was one more episode of Celta drinking before things settled into relatively normal life. When I say "normal life" I mean she was not drinking. She had gone on what seemed like a binge of drinking and then stopped. There would be one other episode months later but that was it.

This was when I met a couple that was friends of the family. The woman was the one that told me that Celta cannot love people and that she is a user and a manipulator. She warned me not to be an "enabler."

Indeed, people with substance abuse or use disorders can be like that. They can act like sociopaths where they use people, lie, manipulate others, and might appear to act like they don't have morals. However, I am a bright person, and I am observant when it comes to the actions and intentions of others. Celta was never asking me to do things that I didn't want to do. In fact, I could tell that she was genuinely concerned about how I felt, and she was extremely concerned about my happiness.

There is something that is so very profound about this story. I honestly never knew anyone who was so interested in me and no one had made me so happy. This is an observation I was making as the story moves into April of 1990.

As I mentioned at the end of the last chapter, things got better after she settled into an apartment in Athens. Something amazing was happening because she had been living a life previously that threatened her health and was characterized by excessive drinking. Her weight had been so low that it threatened her life. I can discern these facts.

What was different now? Our connection had undeniably made a difference.

I knew my parents were extremely judgmental of others. So, I was keeping this relationship to myself. I had enough to deal with when it came to them without getting into a fight if they said anything derogatory. Still, their lack of curiosity was strange.

I was calling Celta every night. We talked for at least an hour. At some point in May, I started telling Celta "I love you" every time we spoke. Just as I was saying goodbye with a promise to call the next day and she would answer, "I love you too." I felt butterflies in my stomach. After I put the phone down, I would look up at the ceiling with a smile on my face.

Most of the time I came on Sundays. She had suggested the Botanical Gardens in Athens. They had a flower bed in front of the main building. In April the pansies were in bloom. I was looking at them holding Celta's hand as we imagined what kind of expression they had on their yellow or violet faces.

Inside the building, they had exotic plants with different names. Some were trees with variously shaped green leaves. A wide range of flowers. Some of the trees sprouted flowers as well. There was a restaurant upstairs and another downstairs. It always seemed too quiet, and Celta didn't even mention eating there. We would walk around the grounds most of the time. They had paths or trails with various plants labeled along the way. Along the parking lot, there was a place that was slightly woodsy.

During this time, when we were apart, she continued to compose hand-written letters to me, and we found things to talk about on the phone every day.

I would treasure those letters. Her letters made me feel like I was with her even when we were apart. I would read them again and again. There is something magical about a person sharing their most intimate thoughts and observations in real-time, uncensored - a stream of consciousness observation.

"I think it is amazing," I said to Celta.

"What?"

"Well, your letters to me are about your experiences and observations. Yet they feel like gifts to me. I used to think that we should not just talk about ourselves and our own feelings. That's not true."

During this time, I would often go to the Catholic Church with my parents and my brother on Saturday evenings. Then I would drive to Athens on Sunday.

Celta started going to the AA – alcoholics anonymous – meetings in the mornings. I thought that her anorexia and the psychological were equally serious, but I was too new in the psychiatric field to know what would be best for her. She told me to come with her.

I said, "are you sure I can?"

"Yes, it's an open meeting."

"Okay."

I sat there holding her hand... occasionally looking around... often my eyes rested on her while she seemed to be listening.

Just before the end of the meeting she gestured to get up and said we can go now. She had told me her religion was Episcopalian which is similar to Catholicism which I had known. As we got up and started walking out the front door away from where we parked and toward the church, holding hands, I felt ten feet tall, that feeling I would have with her.

Sometimes we showed up a bit early and stood outside where they had the meetings. We stood there, arms around each other, looking at each other, lost in words, dreams, and our own world.

One time I stepped away to use a restroom that was in another area and some people were talking. Some of the literature caught my eye. I was feeling a bit out of place though. A guy and a woman approached me. "I'm Linda," said the woman. The guy said, "Oh, you're Celta's boyfriend."

Without a second thought, I just said "Yes," and said we are going to church now. I had not even thought about what I had just said until later and it just brought a smile to my face when I reflected upon the moment. For some reason, I didn't mention that to Celta.

I walked upstairs and found Celta standing by herself in the hallway. I smiled and wrapped the fingers of my right hand into the fingers on her left hand and we walked toward the doorway passing others who were congregating. It felt like a formal procession. That's why they assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend. What else would one think?

I would open the doors for both of us hearing the lyrics from the song "Miracles" by Jefferson Starship drifting through my mind.

If only you believe in

miracles, baby

so would I

{pause}

I might have to move

heaven and earth to prove

it to you, baby

And we walked like this the short distance to the church. I spotted Faye, Celta's mother and we walked there. I slid down the row and next to her mother with Celta on my right – me in the middle. No one gestured for Celta to sit in the middle next to her mother.

On another visit, Celta mentioned that she had met a guy named David at one of the AA meetings and asked if we could visit him. I took it like she was reaching out to help someone like I might do the same. He was staying in a residential facility for people with alcohol problems.

When we got there, I noticed the long entrance roadway into the place. It was a nice summer day with the green grass flowing over a gentle hill.

"Were you here before?" I asked her.

"A couple of years ago for about a month."

We found David and decided to walk a bit toward a shaded area. I reached for Celta's left hand and she took my hand. I guess I felt a little jealous. She looked at me and just smiled. I managed a smile back.

There was another visit where Celta asked to visit David again. I couldn't let her down, but I wanted my time with her. No, she wasn't looking at David like she looked at me. I was a bit surprised at my feelings. I was slightly upset but didn't say anything. As I took her hand we walked a bit and then she reached out to take David's hand too with a playful childlike look on her face.

We were near a swing set. "Have a seat, I'll push you," I said.

I pulled her forward a bit and pushed her back.

David started to talk about something then his voice trailed off.

I was pushing Celta away and she would return. Not too far, just past the triangular poles of the swing set. Her brown hair caught the sun at the farthest crest – just to the right of her head. Everything was quiet. Our eyes were locked. She smiled that look that said she was happy to be with me. I mouthed the words "I love you" silently, and she smiled, in a rhythm with the swing, as she was closest.

It was hypnotic. We breathed with each cycle of her moving toward me and then away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed David shift a bit almost restless. I then felt bad for him. Celta had not averted her gaze from me. She seemed content.

After another few moments, I noticed she was wanting to swing higher. I wondered, "could she fall?" and then gently caught her legs and said, "what if you fall?"

She just smiled.

"It's getting late," I said.

On another visit, we went to a zoo that was near the Botanical Gardens. They had some black bears, a few monkeys, a few wolves, foxes, a bobcat, snakes, turkeys, dear – not in the same enclosure, of course. It was called Bear Hollow Zoo.

I told Celta that this felt like I was going on a vacation when I came. An escape. A getaway – that's a good word.

I got to meet her father too. He was nice and he took some photos of us.

The time I spent with Celta seemed to sustain me through the workweek.

I have no idea why but there was a period of just over a week in early September where she had another drinking binge. I wasn't mad, I was mystified by what happened.

Then things seemed normal again with our relationship. I felt comfortable with her.

It seemed like she picked up on my feelings around this time and the sense that I was hurt and scared. It wasn't like she intended any harm to me. If she had this problem for all these years and it had been so troublesome to everyone, what was different now?

She seemed a bit off the next time I saw her. I guess it was like she felt shame for her problems and the impact they might have on me. I had mentioned previously how someone who knew the family told me that Celta was just a user and manipulator. Those are words I knew that people say to people like Celta hoping to motivate them to change.

But she was beating her problems.

When she had been in the psychiatric hospital, I remember they said they worried that if she died within 30 days of her release, they would be libel. So, it seemed like she had to gain a certain amount of weight. It seemed like they then changed their mind and decided that they can't keep her forever. It had been a grim prognosis and it offended me. But she had lasted all these months and seemed okay despite being so thin.

It felt like love had saved her – not just my love for her but her love for me – our mutual love.

We began talking about our relationship and the nature of the relationship. She had this pensive look on her face as if she was remembering something as she looked away, out the window. Then she said, "I love you, but I am not in love."

"Okay, because... I don't know either what we have." I answered. "And..." I started to say something. "I don't know what to say. I haven't thought about things like this before."