Chapter Thirteen
Jess
“But why?” I ask Claudia.
We’re back at the diner again, coffee this time instead of burgers.
Turns out therapists aren’t completely opposed to meeting outside their clinical office if you ask nicely.
I’m grateful she picked a booth tucked in the far corner, away from the three other people scattered around the place. It makes this feel a little less exposed.
“Because he asked you to,” Claudia says simply.
I sigh and wrap both hands around my mug. “But how is not talking for sixty days supposed to help our marriage?”
She stirs sugar into her coffee and studies me over the rim of her cup. “Sometimes it’s better to step away and gain perspective.”
My stomach twists. “What if that perspective is that he doesn’t want to be married to me anymore?”
Claudia nods. “That is his decision.”
She says it like it’s a fact. Like gravity. Unavoidable.
I stare out the window.
“Jessica,” Claudia says, her tone firmer now, “you cannot make your husband stay with you.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I know. I do. It’s just… hard to wait.”
“Why is this so hard for you?” she asks.
I run a hand over my cheek. “I just don’t like not knowing.”
She tilts her head. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve just always been like that. I hate being in the dark.”
Her eyes soften with interest. “When was the first time you noticed this impulse to know?”
I think about it for a moment. “I don’t remember the first time,” I say slowly. “But I remember hating waiting to find out my grades. I used to pester my teachers constantly.”
Claudia nods. “What was your home life like growing up?”
I stiffen.
“Can we not talk about that?” I ask.
She gives me a gentle look. “In order to understand your issues, you need to confront where they come from.”
I lick my dry lips and take a sip of water, buying myself a few seconds.
“I… I’m an only child,” I finally say. “Both my parents are pharmaceutical reps. That’s actually how they met.”
Claudia listens without interrupting.
“Growing up, it was like they were a team,” I continue. “Which, I get, that’s what marriage is supposed to be. But it wasn’t just about discipline or rules.”
I stare down at my hands.
“It was everything. What to eat, where to go, what shows we watched, what vacations we took. They always agreed. Always backed each other up.”
My throat tightens.
“And I basically ended up feeling like the outsider.”
Claudia studies me carefully. “You felt outnumbered.”
I nod. “Yeah. Exactly.”
“So when you didn’t know something,” she says, “or when something was out of your control, it felt unsafe.”
I blink.
“I never thought about it like that.”
She gives a small smile. “Not knowing feels threatening to you because, growing up, not knowing meant you were the last to be included.”
The words settle heavily in my chest.
“And now,” she continues, “Logan asking for space feels like being shut out all over again.”
I swallow hard.
“I guess so,” I whisper.
Claudia leans forward slightly. “But this time, Jessica, it isn’t you against them. It isn’t a child being excluded. It’s two adults trying to figure out if they can rebuild something that was broken.”
I stare at the steam rising from my coffee.
“What if he decides he can’t?” I ask quietly.
“Then you will survive it,” she says gently. “Even if it hurts.”
I let out a breath and give a small, self-deprecating smile. “You must think I’m terrible.”
Claudia tilts her head. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” She pauses. “Why do you think I think that?”
I shrug. “I cheated on my husband. I lied to him about it. And now I seem more focused on him not talking to me than on what I actually did.”
She nods thoughtfully. “It’s hard for anyone to look at their own faults,” she says. “Because we can hide from everyone else, but not from ourselves.”
Biting my lip, I admit, “I didn’t go to the bar expecting to… you know.”
“Yes,” she says softly.
“But,” I continue, staring down at my cup, “it wasn’t the first time I’ve gotten even with a man in my life.”
Her expression shifts with interest. “Go on.”
I take a shaky breath.
“When Logan and I decided to get married, wedding planning was hell,” I say. “And not because of his mom, because of mine.”
Claudia glances at her phone when it buzzes on the table, then quietly flips it over and nods for me to continue.
“The woman who barely knew my major in college suddenly had an opinion on everything,” I continue. “The flowers, the cake, the guest list. She wanted control of it all.”
I shake my head at the memory.
“We had a fight about the dress. She wanted me to wear hers. Said if I didn’t, she wouldn’t call her friend to help us get the venue I wanted.”
Claudia’s eyebrows lift slightly.
“I wasn’t going to be blackmailed,” I say. “So, I asked my dad to step in. The coordinator was his friend too. I thought he’d back me up. I’d hoped.”
“But” she prompts.
I let out a humorless laugh. “Predictably, he said no. Told me he wouldn’t allow me to disrespect my mother.”
I imitate his stern tone like the joke it was.
“Anyway,” I go on, “the day of the wedding, not in the venue I wanted, he showed up expecting to walk me down the aisle.”
My throat tightens.
“And I told him no.” I shake my head. “I told him Simone’s dad was doing it instead.”
Claudia doesn’t comment on why I’m telling her all this.
“My dad cried through the whole ceremony,” I say quietly, staring out the window. “Afterward, Logan asked me if I felt bad.”
I swallow.
“And I didn’t. I honestly didn’t.”
I look back at her.
“When I followed that man to the back room,” I whisper, wiping at a tear, “I really thought I wouldn’t feel bad about it either. That Logan deserved it.”
My voice breaks.
“But I did.”
The tears come harder now, impossible to stop.
“I felt like the worst person on this planet.”
Claudia doesn’t rush to fill the silence. She lets me cry, hands folded calmly around her coffee cup.
Finally, she speaks.
“Guilt can be a powerful teacher,” she says gently. “But it can also be a prison.”
I sniff and wipe at my face. “Feels more like hell.”
“That’s because you’ve been living in it without moving through it,” she replies. “By suppressing what you did for a year, you managed to add to it.”
I nod. That seems about right.
“I feel worse now than when it happened,” I admit.
“You made a mistake,” she continues. “A serious one. And you’re allowed to feel remorse for that. But your guilt is not just about you anymore.”
She pauses, letting that sink in.
“There’s another element, your husband. His feelings. His pain. His need for space to process what happened.”
I stare down at the table. “I know.”
“And right now,” she says carefully, “Logan isn’t asking you to fix everything. He’s asking for time to decide what he can live with.”
“I hate that I hurt him,” I whisper.
“Caring doesn’t erase consequences,” she adds gently.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask.
“For now?” She offers a small, reassuring smile. “Respect the boundary he set. Work on understanding yourself. And learn to sit with uncertainty instead of bulldozing into it.”
I swallow. “I’m not very good at that.”
“You’re going to have to be,” she says gently.
We spend the rest of the hour talking about exactly that, me giving Logan the space he so desperately needs, and what it actually looks like in practice.
Claudia suggests I focus on myself in the meantime. “Find something that belongs just to you,” she says. “A passion. A new hobby. Something to pour your energy into instead of your anxiety.”
I think about it for a moment, then nod.
“I actually have just the thing in mind,” I tell her.
Logan
Wednesdays seem to be therapy days around here.
I have a Zoom session at ten with Dr. Brett, and when I mentioned it to Jess, she promptly scheduled one with Claudia.
Calling your therapist by her first name is not something I understand, but it’s her therapist, so I bite my tongue.
My session with Dr. Brett goes pretty much the same as the last few.
Take time. Talk about your feelings. Dig into your childhood.
Why do therapists always fixate on childhoods and parents?
What does whether or not I was read a bedtime story have to do with my wife having an affair?
My childhood was normal.
Okay, my parents’ start might not have been, but they did everything they could to give us a regular, American upbringing.
“What do you mean their start wasn’t normal?” Dr. Brett asks.
I look away from the camera, biting back the familiar cringe that always comes when I think about it.
“My dad,” I begin slowly, “was… is… bisexual.”
Dr. Brett doesn’t react the way Jess did when I told her. Her mouth had dropped so far it practically hit the floor.
“I guess you don’t really think of fathers being bisexual,” I continue with a shrug. “But whatever. Anyway, he had a high school sweetheart, a man. When they went to college, I guess they decided to open their relationship.”
Dr. Brett nods, listening.
“My dad apparently sowed his wild oats and ended up getting my mom pregnant. She was ready to raise the baby alone, but Dad didn’t want that. So he broke up with Manuel, his boyfriend, and stepped up.”
“That’s quite a beginning,” Dr. Brett says. “When did you find all of this out?”
I clear my throat.
“My parents sat me and my brother down a few months after his eighteenth birthday. Told us the whole story. And that they were getting divorced… and Manuel was back, but the two were completely unrelated.” My eyes roll unintentionally.
“And what did you think at the time?” he asks.
I open my mouth, then hesitate.
“Honestly? Shame.”
“Shame of your father?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Not of him. Of the fact that he spent more than twenty years hiding who he really was because of one mistake.”
“Did he call it a mistake?” Dr. Brett asks.
“No,” I admit. “But it was implied.”
“Was it?” he presses gently.
I frown. “I mean… yeah.”
“Your father chose to be a dad,” he says calmly. “As you said, your mother was ready to do it alone. He chose to stay. So why should you feel guilty about that?”
“I don’t feel guilty,” I say automatically.
Dr. Brett leans back in his chair.
“Interesting,” he says. “Because you’ve used the words pregnancy, baby, and mistake several times. But not once have you referred to that baby as you.”
“I mean…” I look away. “That’s also implied.”
Dr. Brett doesn’t say anything. He just watches me over the top of his glasses.
The silence stretches.
“It… didn’t feel good,” I admit finally. “Knowing your dad missed out on his life because of-” I trail off.
“Because of you?” he asks gently.
“Why are we talking about this?” I snap, pushing away from the desk and standing up. “How is any of this relevant to what’s happening with me and Jess? What does my dad’s relationship have to do with my wife cheating on me?”
Dr. Brett takes his glasses off and folds them carefully.
“Do you know why we call childhood the formative years?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
He doesn’t wait for one.
“It’s because, directly or indirectly, they affect the rest of our lives,” he says calmly. “Whether or not a child grew up in a secure household affects their ability to put themselves first, to feel safe, to trust.”
He studies me over his folded hands.
“So tell me you never felt insecure growing up,” he adds quietly, “and I’ll stop asking.”
I’m tempted to lie just to end this line of questioning.
But I can’t.
“Growing up,” I start slowly, “Dad and Darren had this bond. It was easy between them. Like they just… clicked.”
I stare past the screen, thinking back.
“Me and Dad? We clashed. Fought a lot.”
Dr. Brett nods, encouraging me to continue.
“Mom used to say it was because I reminded him of himself,” I go on. “That we were too similar.”
“And did you believe that?” he asks.
“I did,” I admit. “At least for a long time.”
I swallow.
“But when I found out everything, about Manuel, about how it all started, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe it was something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe he resented me,” I say quietly. “For changing his life.”
The words sound even worse out loud.
“Have you ever spoken to your father about this?” Dr. Brett asks.
I let out a short laugh and sit back down.
“Feelings aren’t really something West men talk about.”
Dr. Brett gives me a small smile and puts his glasses back on.
“Let’s change that,” he says.