With her own nervous system sorted out, her next task is to tend to Haemi's.

She's not really sure yet what the Amentans have going on, biologically, but they sure appear human and nothing that's happened so far cuts against the theory that they have very human-like nervous systems. Ramona will be on the lookout for evidence that there's something else going on, but until then, she's going to treat Haemi like a human with her nervous system in hyperarousal -- fight or flight. Mostly fight, in Haemi's case.

People in hyperarousal can't be curious - that part of their brain is shut down. If their brains are human-like in this way, Haemi (and probably Tish as well) won't be able to get interested in Meelia's story until they're feeling more safe and calm than this.

So Ramona needs to thread the needle. She needs to validate them as hard as she possibly can, create more safety for them, without letting them walk all over Meelia and Ramona in the process.

Ramona speaks slowly, in short sentences, leading with the validation part.

"You're right, of course."

"Everyone here agrees that you're right."

"It was very bad that guard was seriously injured. I am not asking you to have an open mind about that."

She pauses.

"I'm not asking you to think that serious injury was no big deal, something to be flexible about. Changing your mind about that is not a goal of this therapy."

"Do you believe that?"

"It's certainly news to me!"

"Do you believe that understanding and approval are two separate things? That you can really get why a person did what they did, why that made sense from their perspective, without condoning it?"

Haemi looks at Tish for help.

"I think - is it okay if I butt in here, I'm usually more the talker -"

"Yes, of course!"

Ramona honestly is having trouble even figuring out how these two are different, so this is a valuable clue!

Haemi led with anger and Tish led with grief, but then Tish had a lot of the same anger Haemi did. She hasn't seen the grief from Haemi yet. She'll keep paying attention, looking for clues, trying not to let them blend into Haemish in her head. If they actually do therapy for a while she'll probably ask to see them separately to try to get a better sense of them.

Meanwhile, if they want to cut in for each other, why not?

"I think a lot of things that might come up in the course of understanding a grave wrong that was committed, even if you're doing it in - almost a literary analysis style - will tend to come off as apologism if there isn't a really firm shared foundation of all, already, knowing, that it was a grave wrong. I think Haemi's focusing on Poante not just because his family's worked for hers for the last three generations but also because it's not clear if there's that understanding about the rest of it. There are four people in this room, not just three. I think we'd have an easier time with focusing on what you think is most likely to be helpful if could be sure we were all - metaphorically speaking the same language, I assume we are not literally doing so."

"Okay, let me just verify something with Meelia really quickly, because she said it at the beginning of the session and I want to make sure I remember it correctly. Meelia, I think you said that you didn't realize you were hurting Poante, and once you realized that you hurt him, you knew it wasn't okay. Is that right?"

Meelia is crying, but can apparently say words while crying cause it's important.

"I knew I was hurting him when I did it," she says, wiping some tears out of her eyes.

"I thought when it happened that it was important but sad and it happened really fast and now when everything is less all happening I um. Think I would like it to have not happened and should have chosen a better way but um. Think that rushing and things happening fast is sorta how I am and that it was important to find out about prob-lems Amenta had very fast."

"Doesn't make it less sad though and I feel really bad about it."

Oh there are more tears now, she can wipe those away too.

"Oh, that's even stronger than I realized. Thanks for that clarification, Meelia."

She turns back to Tish and Haemi.

"Does that help, to hear Meelia say she agrees with you that she hurt Poante and that it was wrong? That's not in dispute, we're not here to argue about whether it was wrong."

"All three of you indicated at the outset that you would like to better understand each other. I'm here to help you do that, and when that's done, we can also see about some of the more specific things you wanted, such as processing your grief."

"Is there more that you need to ask me or hear from me before we can continue to work on understanding?"

"I think that helps, thank you."

Ramona needs a second to retrace the entire stack of what they were doing before they got tangled up, and the clients might have lost track too, so she reviews her notes and organizes her thoughts.

Goals:
- Meelia: mutual understanding, share POV about Reds
- Haemi: mutual understanding, wants Meelia not to think they were wrong to be hurt
- Tish: mutual understanding, grief processing

Goal 1: Mutual understanding
- chronological storytelling plan: before Meelia arrives, while things are still good, when things go wrong
- so far: exchanged stories of the time before Meelia arrived, learned that the Amentans had a strong amaliens-as-children frame, while Meelia had a strong go-fix-stuff frame. Tish hoped for a 1-2 year stay.
- was in the middle of assessing the Amentans' take on Meelia's go-fix-stuff frame when a bunch of hostility spilled over and had to be contained, probably not worth going back for that sub-goal right now

There are various loose ends, like learning more about pollution and how Reds are treated, but Ramona mostly expects those things to come up in the course of the story.

"So far, we've talked about what happened before Meelia arrived, and we learned that you had pretty different frames for the purpose of the visit. Next, I'd like to talk about the period of time after Meelia arrived but before anything really serious went wrong. How long was that?"

Ramona is looking around to see who has an opinion about that.

"Very short. She spent the night in our house twice and the third night -" hand gesture.

"All right. Let's just talk about those first couple of days, then. Tish, would you like to go first this time? I'm interested in hearing your personal experience of those few days before anything went seriously wrong. Anything that you observed, thought, or felt is fair game. What happened? What were those days like for you?"

"We picked her up at the shuttleport. She did some cartwheels on the moving walkway... we asked if she wanted to see the city first or go home and she wanted - she said to go to home. She was cur- she expressed curiosity about somebody knitting on the train... we said we'd get her some knitting things, I don't think she ever wound up using them... she asked questions about our farm and we answered those. She watched me answer some emails. We showed her her room. She was pretty bouncy, I mentioned trampolines and she looked very keen so I ordered one. We'd already gotten her a pocket everything and I showed her that. Got her a bath, she said she preferred them to showers. She fell asleep afterward with a great big smile, I have pictures... in the morning by the time I got up she was on the new trampoline, she's very acrobatic. Then she wanted to explore the farm, I went with her, I remember I told her about what pollinates our peaches... her mouse ran off and she told me I didn't have to worry he'd get run over or anything. He found an earring for her and she wanted to get - she sounded interested in getting her ear pierced to wear it, so we went into town and did that... I had to explain about crossing the street, since she could sleep off any injuries she got but she'd have really scared someone if she ran into traffic... we talked about doing paintball since she likes running and dodging - since she presented herself as liking that. We wandered around the city for a while doing everything that caught her eye. As far as I know. There was a fountain she played in for a while, that was when Haemi met up with us. When we got home we tempted her into the bath with a bath bomb. And the next day she - started going into the red district."

"Wow, it sounds to me like you did everything you could to please and delight her. You paid attention to all of her cues and tried to set up a lot of lovely experiences for her. How did you feel about it?"

"It was idyllic," Tish sighs. "It was just what I'd wanted out of the whole thing, those first couple of days... showing her new things, and playing with her - she invited us to do gymnastics with her and came up with some introductory exercises that wouldn't hurt Haemi's ankles, and I love the - feeling of being pulled out of my routine to go play -"

"How about you, Haemi? Anything you want to add? Did you have a different experience or does Tish's description sum it up for you also?"

"I wasn't up for tromping around the city so I wasn't there for that part but yes, that's what happened, that's - what we'd wanted."

Ramona has mostly been asking Meelia first, whenever there's a question for everyone. The general heuristic in relational therapy is to go first to the weakest, quietest, most withdrawn, least bought in, most vulnerable, whoever it seems like might benefit most from first-mover advantage. Based on first impressions, Ramona thought that was Meelia.

But as they've gotten deeper into the session, she changed her mind, and asked the Amentans first. She correctly guessed that this part of the story would be pretty straightforward for them, but she kind of expects that Meelia's answer will be more complicated.

"Meelia, before I ask you about your first few days in Amenta, do you have any questions for Tish and Haemi about what that part was like for them? If it's all making sense you don't have to, but this is a good spot for it if you're curious about anything."

"I don't think I have any questions about it right now?"

"Fair enough! In that case, let's switch. Meelia, what would you like to tell us about your experience of those first few days? You don't need to do a play by play of the events, necessarily, unless you remember them quite differently from what Haemi and Tish described, but I would like to know how you thought and felt about it -- how did you experience your first few days on Amenta?"

 "I think I liked those first few days and they were fun though I wouldn't have wanted them to go on like that for a long time since they weren't... important?"