Chapter 37 The Climb
The Climb
Eve
Stefani Clemmons: Also, you’re still not available Wednesdays, right? Want to make sure we have everyone accounted for as far as office space and time.
“So. What’s on your mind today, Eve?”
Eve stared at her psychologist, Dr.Garvey, for far too long, trying to conjure a suitable response.
Because whenever she asked, the answer was essentially the same—Jamie.
He’d been on her mind for two months now, which was the last time she’d heard from him.
And each day was a little easier, the pain subsiding a little bit more, at least, but he wasn’t gone from her head or heart. Not really.
But after her full-fledged breakdown in Stella’s office, Eve knew she needed help.
More than the temporary bandage that Tennessee provided.
More than the balm of Jamie and his wonderful life.
More than even the welcoming arms and support of her closest friends.
She needed to heal. And she wasn’t going to do that in Gatlinburg, with all those memories of Jamie plaguing her.
She also no longer wanted to be alone. Maybe she never did.
So Eve firmly planted herself in New York.
After a hellish search and a referral from one of the actors in Gamba , she was able to get into a cute enough two-bedroom in Crown Heights with lots of windows and a rooftop deck showing off Manhattan.
It was barely affordable, but Eve had learned she couldn’t put a price on her sanity.
So now, two months into the new year, she had a play debuting in eight weeks, a new apartment to house all her troubles, and… she was trying therapy again.
Because Leo was right. Maya was right. Even her parents were right, to some degree.
She couldn’t keep meandering through her life half-fulfilled.
She couldn’t keep ignoring the pain eating away at her.
It put her to bed and was waiting at the door when she woke up.
It wasn’t working, walking around like she didn’t notice it following.
She couldn’t outrun it. So it was time to face it.
But having been in therapy for a few weeks now, it was grueling to sit there and examine it all. It felt like having open heart surgery without the anesthetic.
Still, she showed up every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., ready to do the hard work.
After auditioning three other doctors Maya helped her find, she’d finally settled on this one, Dr.Jocelyn Kootin-Garvey.
Eve had been very clear that she wanted a Black female counselor, the non-Black women of the past having failed her.
She was lucky to be in New York, where that was an easier task than in a lot of other places.
She’d chosen Dr.Garvey because she specialized in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy.
But Eve also just liked the way she looked.
She had a kind face, and she was well put together.
She wore her natural hair cropped and dark blond, and she rocked a flawless red lip in her profile picture that immediately told Eve she knew what she was doing.
In her videos, she spoke crisply. She was succinct but warm.
She seemed like someone Eve could be friends with.
And then Dr.Garvey made it clear in her first visit that they would absolutely not be friends, which Eve enjoyed, too.
Her office was painted a soothing sage green with walls full of books, which always put Eve at ease.
Her furniture was contemporary but comfortable—big, cushy gray chairs sitting on a shaggy off-white rug.
The space was big but still felt cozy, Eve noticed, as she sat there for almost an hour each week.
She’d been with Dr.Garvey for only a month now, so they’d just scratched the surface of her many issues, but Eve liked her.
“I saw Leo the other day,” Eve said, taking a deep breath. “Got some furniture from the old apartment.”
In Eve’s first two sessions, most of the focus was on her parents, which took up a lot of space, as they tended to do.
Their last meeting was easier, as it was spent mostly on Maya and her other meaningful friendships.
Proof that she wasn’t all bad. But she’d been doling out information about Leo and Jamie little by little, not wanting to delve into her biggest mistakes.
But it was silly to keep avoiding the reason she was there.
“You wanna talk about him?” When Eve shrugged, Dr.Garvey nodded and sat back in her chair. She crossed her legs and set her notepad in her lap. “Let’s talk about Leo.”
Eve didn’t know whether to start with the good or the bad—not that there was a whole lot of either; for the bulk of their five years together, things were uneventful.
Boring. They met, fell into mutual like, and they tolerated each other.
He supported her financially while she was a fledgling playwright, and less so once she started teaching; she supported him emotionally while he processed the trauma attached to his father.
There it was, the parent thing again. In previous sessions, she talked with Dr.Garvey about how her parents’ expectations weighed her down.
But her parents didn’t mean to. She understood that now.
But it didn’t make the damage any less harmful.
Any more irrevocable. As the Philip Larkin poem goes, “They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.” Leo’s dad did it to him. Maya’s dad to her. Jamie’s mom to him.
It made Eve reexamine why she wanted to be a parent so badly in the first place.
At seventeen years old, she would have done nothing for that child but ruin him.
But there was something in her that felt robbed of the opportunity to try.
To prove that you can be a good parent, a thoughtful parent, a gentle parent, even if you never had one.
It was possible to break the cycle. She and Leo both believed that and desperately yearned for their chance.
“I should’ve been nicer to him,” Eve finally said.
“And I’m not saying that I was mean. I think I was kinder than I needed to be in a lot of instances.
” Dr.Garvey didn’t speak, which Eve had learned was a habit of hers; she often allowed Eve to go on long streams of consciousness and gently nudge her toward her own conclusions.
She’d ask questions, but they never felt like real questions.
It was more like Dr.Garvey reading her for filth, under the guise of curiosity.
Eve didn’t necessarily like it—why was she depleting her savings just to listen to herself speak and potentially be insulted every ten minutes?
—but somehow, perhaps due to her sheer desperation, it was working. So Eve continued.
“I just know that I probably wasn’t fun to be around. If I were him, I would’ve dreaded coming home to someone who rarely expressed much beyond apathy. I didn’t see it when I was in it, but knowing what I know now, I think it’s kind of a wonder he stayed with me as long as he did.”
“And what is it you know now?”
“Just…understanding what a relationship should look like. I’ve seen them from the outside.
My parents, I think, probably have a healthy marriage.
I told you about Maya and Siobhan. But I think I got a glimpse, from the inside, with Jamie, and that sort of genuine delight I experienced, it was always missing with Leo. ”
“Can I ask, what is it that made you want to be with him in the first place? Was it security?”
Eve turned sullen as she relived their so-called romance, how they found love in the wreckage of Leo’s shitty relationship with his father.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think…some part of me was looking for a challenge. Or a distraction. After his father died, I thought it would be nice to be able to put him back together again. So I became his friend, his confidant, his caretaker. I don’t know if it was ever love.
But there was a connection. Being there that way.
That was intimacy you can’t fake.” She nodded as if trying to convince herself.
“And how long did this version of your relationship go on?”
“Too long. Probably…a year, year and a half?” Eve said. “I didn’t enjoy it, but it was a good diversion. I could convince myself I was happy.”
“What do you call ‘happy’?” Dr.Garvey asked, jotting down a few more notes.
“Well…it was, you know, a partnership. We enjoyed one another’s company, for a while at least. We traveled. We made ‘couple’ friends. We moved in together. He kept going to therapy. I wrote some plays.” She smiled. “Things were normal.”
“And you equate ‘normal’ with ‘happy’?”
“I did.” Eve nodded, feeling silly for it now.
“I was getting the life I thought my parents cheated me out of. I was finally back on the right track. Husband, baby, career. All the things well-rounded women are ‘supposed’ to want. Because if you just want a family, you’re simple.
And if you just want to focus on your career, if you have no interest in children, you’re too severe.
You have to want it all, or you’re broken.
Walk that tightrope. And if you don’t get it, you’re a failure. ”
“Did you actually want any of it?”
“It’s hard to say,” Eve answered pensively.
She shook her head. “I don’t know when I decided I wanted a baby.
I don’t know if it’s even a real desire.
Do I want to be a mother ? Would I grow tired of it, even if I love my child?
” she asked, thinking of Lucy and the things Jamie once revealed about her.
“I don’t know if I want a baby or if I just wanted back what was taken from me. ”
“And was the miscarriage the first time you felt that unhappiness with Leo?”
Eve paused before replying, again, not wanting to give the easy answer. “Looking back, I was always unhappy. I was with him, I took care of him, because it felt like the right thing to do. You don’t let someone drown if you can save them.”