Chapter 29
Ethan
The counseling center sat tucked behind the library, a small brick building with white trim and a porch that sagged a little under the weight of too many winters.
If you didn’t know what it was, you’d think it was just another old house in Maplewood, quiet, unassuming, softened by climbing ivy and the smell of damp leaves.
I parked out front, hands tight on the steering wheel, and glanced back at Lily.
She sat small in the backseat, swinging her feet and clutching the stuffed fox Claire had given her, ears bent, fur worn.
The morning light filtered through the window, catching the shimmer of her bangs and the tired bruise-purple shadows beneath her eyes.
She hadn’t said much all morning. She didn’t need to.
Her silence was loud enough. She didn’t want to be here but it was for her own good.
Dad opened her door gently. “C’mon, kiddo,” he said. “We’ll be right here.”
She slid her hand into his.
Inside, the waiting room was warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon tea. A basket of children’s toys sat under a low table beside a rack of pamphlets with words like grief, attachment, trauma, coping.
The kind of words you don’t want to admit belong to a six-year-old.
Dr. Nora Alvarez stepped out a moment later. She was taller than I expected, soft-voiced, warm brown eyes, hair streaked with silver pulled into a loose bun. Comforting in the way a hearth is comforting. Her whole presence was warm.
“Hi, Lily,” she said gently, crouching so they were eye-to-eye. “Do you want to come in and see my drawing table? I have the new markers we talked about.”
Lily nodded, still gripping my dad’s hand, then let go, only to follow Nora down the hall.
The door shut softly behind them.
The quiet that followed felt unnatural. My shoulders itched. My hands fidgeted against my jeans. Dad sat beside me, calm in a way I couldn’t imagine, his breath steady. His presence always filled a room.
Twenty minutes passed.
Thirty.
My nerves stretched tighter with each tick of the clock.
Then the session door opened again, and Dr. Alvarez poked her head out and looked straight at me. “Mr. Walker? Could I see you for a moment?”
Lily walked out ahead of her, heading straight to my father without hesitation. He scooped her up effortlessly. She pressed her face into his shoulder and clung. He patted her back in a slow, rhythmic pattern, the way he did with all of us when we were kids.
“Go on,” he murmured to me, not unkindly. “I’ve got her.”
I stood. My legs felt heavier than they should have.
Inside her office, the walls were lined with books and framed watercolors. A diffuser hummed quietly in the corner, releasing the scent of eucalyptus. A small couch sat opposite an armchair. Dr. Alvarez motioned for me to sit.
I did, cautiously.
She took the armchair across from me and folded her hands. “Thank you for stepping in,” she said softly. “I know this isn’t easy.”
My nerves screamed. “I thought this was about Lily.”
“It is,” she said. “But part of caring for a grieving child is checking in with the person raising them. A guardian’s mental health affects a child’s more than most people realize.”
I scoffed without meaning to. “I don’t think Lily’s grief hinges on whether I’m… fine.”
“Doesn’t it?” she asked gently.
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.
She continued, “Before we go any further, I want to be upfront with you. This is a small town. People talk. I’ve heard pieces of stories about your past. But I won’t believe anything about you unless it comes out of your mouth. If you don’t want to talk about something, we won’t. You set the pace.”
My throat tightened. The relief was immediate and embarrassing.
“Now…” she said, leaning back just slightly, “what’s weighing on you the most right now?”
I barked out something that might have been a laugh. “How long do you have?”
“As long as you need.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “This whole thing. I don’t know if I’m doing anything right. I don’t know if I’m enough for her.”
“She told me something,” Nora said gently, “that surprised me. She said you’re quieter now. That you weren’t like that before she ran away.”
I stared at the rug beneath my feet, breath stalling.
“She… she noticed?” I managed.
“Children always do.”
I closed my eyes. Shame burned hot and bright under my ribs. “I guess I’m not hiding it as well as I thought.”
“Why do you think you’re quieter?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, sarcasm rising as a shield. “Why do you think? Take your pick.”
She didn’t soften. Just waited patiently.
The fight drained out of me all at once.
“…everything,” I whispered. “Everything is bothering me.
The dam cracked.
“I didn’t go to the funeral. My parents had to do everything, plan it, organize it, stand there alone, while grieving their eldest son and daughter-in-law. And I was too far away, too disconnected, too stupid.” I cut myself off, breath shaking.
“And Lily,” I continued hoarsely. “She deserves better than me. I should be more understanding less frustrated. She should be with someone steadier, someone she could rely on.”
The room blurred.
“And?” Nora’s voice was barely above a whisper. “What else are you carrying?”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to say her name.
But it came out anyway.
“Claire.”
My chest caved inward.
“I ruined the one thing that mattered,” I whispered.
“The one thing that was mine to protect. Mine to care for. And I broke her heart in the worst way possible. God, I don’t even know how badly.
She’d never make me pay for it. That’s the worst part.
She’s… kind. She’s always been kind. And I left her to pick up the pieces alone. ”
My breath stuttered, a wet sound catching in my throat. “I can tell by the way her friends look at me. The way people whisper when she walks into a room. I’m just now seeing how bad it was. I left instead of taking responsibility. I left her with all of it.”
Tears slipped down my face before I realized they were there.
“I’m the most irresponsible, selfish person in every room I walk into,” I gasped. “It’s like, I’m a tumor. Something rotten that hurts the people that are the closest to it.”
My vision tunneled, my shoulders shook. I bent forward, trying to swallow the sobs rising up too fast.
Dr. Alvarez quietly handed me napkins.
I took them with trembling fingers, wiping my face like a child. Mortified. She didn’t speak. Didn’t fill the silence. Just sat with me, letting the room hold the weight I’d been carrying.
Eventually, when my breathing evened out, she said softly, “When did these feelings start? Were they with you even before you came home?”
I nodded without looking up. “…yeah. But I could bury them back then. Now they’re all I think about.”
She leaned forward. “Ethan, today you took a step most people never take, you said the truth out loud. You accepted your guilt. And you’re going to be a parent now. Lily needs you to be whole. But you need you to be whole too, have you gone to therapy before.”
A tired exhale escaped me. “No.”
“You’ve been pushing everything down for years,” she said gently. “You haven’t opened up to anyone close to you. Not really. Therapy works, if you let it.”
And God help me; relief broke through the exhaustion like a crack of light.
“I… I do feel better,” I admitted quietly. “Not good. But… like I’m not suffocating quite as hard.”
“That’s a start,” she said simply.
A good therapist knows when to stop. She stood, letting the session end before I unraveled again.
When I stepped back into the waiting room, Dad didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t need to. I’d been crying up a storm in there, and if there was a God with even a passing interest in me, I hoped He’d also taken into account Dad’s selective hearing and spared him the worst of it.
Lily had fallen asleep curled on his chest, her mouth parted, her little hand gripping his shirt. He shifted, careful not to wake her, and carried her out to the car.
We drove home in silence.
Not because there was nothing to say.
But because with my father, silence had always been our default.
And for the first time in a very, very long time.
I felt calm.