“You’ve made agreements”, Clarisa said.

“You’ve made agreements, and you just keep them without thinking about it.”

“What do you mean?”, Jennie asked her.

“You made some agreements a long time ago, and they drive you around- like rules for certain truths in your head- and you don’t question them and they keep you down.”

“What kind of rules are you talking about?”

“Like, about love. You always go for a Dean or a Donnie- that sort of guy who sweet talks a lot in the beginning and takes you out for dinner a few times, and then moves into your life and just squeezes you for stuff. Guys who move in and drain you and tell you once a week they love you.”

“Donnie never told me he loved me like that- except once, after he got buzzed at the county fair.”

“Well, the point is, you made an agreement that the only kind of man you can get is a user, and that that’s enough. As long as he comes around once and a while and winks at you, he can do whatever he wants to you.”

“I agreed to marry Donnie after Jasper came on the scene, sure, but…”

“Jasper is your child, Jennie. You wanted a family, and Donnie was his daddy.”

“Yeah. I suppose you are right.”

“Well, you agreed somewhere to accept that men who don’t treat you real sweetly must love you. That’s how agreements work. You talk yourself into something that you think is true inside.”

“I never told myself I wanted to be treated poorly by men. I always wanted one just to treat me like a pretty flower, or like that pretty cosmetologist Barbara, or like the Statue of Liberty maybe, that gigantic woman with a crown…”

“She’s made of stone, Jennie.”

“Yeah, but she’s beautiful and free and can see far away into the future, and people love to go see her.”

“She’s a statue, Jennie.”

Silence.

“I just don’t see how I got here. I don’t want to agree any more to be a man’s money bag and babysitter. I never wanted that in the first place. Never.”

“You have got to rise up then, Jennie! You have got to change the way you think and the way you speak about the future and about your love life, and tell yourself to be different, to not settle for those kind of boys.”

As the two sat in the morning light spilling through the window and over the small wooden table in Jennie’s kitchen, they both stared at the half full coffee mugs in each of their hands. And then Jennie began to sob and covered her face with both hands.

“I never agreed to not be lovable, Clara.”

“I know, hun” said Clarisa as she moved to sit next to Jennie on her bench. “I know.”

Clarisa hugged her and let her weep as she thought about her own unforgiving father.

“Sometimes we just come to agree with whatever folks we love tell us about ourselves. And sometimes, we just agree with what folks we want to love us tell us about ourselves too.”

“Or we agree with what they don’t tell us about ousrelves.”

And Clarisa wiped her tearing eyes with her free hand while Jennie quietly cried.