Chapter 5
She wore a graphic T-shirt under a sleek cardigan, dark-wash jeans, and red sneakers with a cream V on the side and brown rubber soles. The outfit screamed style, not professionalism, and was the equivalent of Solo showing up to a Fourth of July parade in her fatigues instead of dress uniform.
She looked at her phone. One minute had ticked away since the last time she’d looked, and there were still no messages.
The elevator pinged down the corridor, but the footsteps were too heavy to be Janie’s, and someone tall and bulky passed by a few seconds later.
Maybe she’d been delayed with a client or was stuck in an Uber in downtown traffic.
Or maybe she just wasn’t coming and had already given up on their marriage and their triplets.
Rae’s office door opened. “Still no sign?” she asked.
Solo shook her head and tapped her phone screen. “No messages either.”
Rae opened her door wider and gestured for Solo to enter. “Let’s get started, and Janie can join us when she gets here.”
Solo liked Rae’s optimism, even though she knew Janie had left Solo and the kids over the weekend.
She pushed up from the chair and marched into Rae’s office with renewed purpose.
If Janie had given up, maybe it was more Solo’s fault than she thought.
She had some work to do on herself, so she should get on with it.
The faster she achieved that, the sooner she could win Janie back and reunite their perfect little family.
She dropped into the simple, high-backed chair that was closest to Rae’s seat, and sat erect, ready to get down to the session.
Rae gestured to the three-seater couch Solo and Janie had sat in for the previous sessions. “No sofa for you today?” she asked.
Solo shook her head. “I don’t want to get comfortable. That’s one of my problems, I think.”
Rae took her position and readied her pen and note pad. “What makes you say that?”
Solo rubbed at the light covering of navy paint on her forearm hair, then rolled her sleeves down, not wanting the distraction.
She had to be fully present, that’s what Lori had said.
“We went out to the theater last month for the first time since the triplets were born,” she said, “and it was Gabe who had to tell me to look at Janie. How messed up is that?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that my best friend—well, from my end anyway—shouldn’t have to tell me that. Janie had been ready for nearly an hour when Gabe and Lori arrived, and she looked stunning. I should’ve seen her, but I was too busy with the babies, too comfortable in our relationship.”
Rae scribbled something on her notes. “Can you expand on the best friend comment?”
“Why?” Solo frowned. “This is about me and Janie.”
“Yes, but this is only our third session and our first without Janie. In order to help you achieve what you want from our time together, I need to fully understand you and all of your relationships, as well as how you view them.”
Solo rocked on her butt cheeks, already regretting her choice of chair.
“Gabe was my sergeant in the Army, and she’s the unofficial leader of our team, even now.
When we were serving, she was the person I went to whenever I had any issues.
And that hasn’t changed now that she’s come out and moved to Chicago, now that the gang is back together.
” Though she’d been happy after meeting and marrying Janie, and then having the triplets, Solo had still missed her buddies and hadn’t tried to replace them with new friends.
“What’s making you smile?” Rae asked.
Solo put her hand to her mouth to check, almost not believing Rae. “I don’t think I’d realized how much I’ve enjoyed the past couple of months.”
“What have you enjoyed about that specifically?”
“Being so close to everyone again,” Solo said. “Gabe, Shay, Woody, RB. But especially Gabe. And working together in an enclosed space, just like in the Army.”
“Were you unhappy before Gabe came to Chicago?” Rae asked after adding another note.
“I didn’t think I was, no.” Solo looked up at the ceiling, searching her memory of the past three years. “Janie was the best thing that had happened to me, and then the triplets gave me a new sense of purpose.”
Rae nodded slowly. “Do you feel like you didn’t have purpose before your children were born?”
Solo pulled at her earlobe. “Yes. No.” She threw up her hands.
“I don’t know. Coming out of the Army was hard.
I had a job to do there, and it was important…
But it became less so when—” It was like a giant iron hand wrapped around her whole body and squeezed, stopping the words from emerging.
Three years on, and she still couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.
Rae inclined her head slightly. “When?” she asked softly.
Solo tried to open her mouth, but her breathing became quick and shallow. She tugged on her ear again, pinching it hard this time in an effort to regain control. “My…” She squeezed her eyes closed. Don’t be such a fucking baby.
“Relax and breathe slowly,” Rae said. “There’s no time to rush.”
Solo pulled her phone from her jacket pocket, flipped to her contacts, and pulled up her dad. After they’d talked on Monday, she’d switched the photo back to one of both her parents. She showed Rae the screen.
Rae looked over her glasses and smiled. “That’s a beautiful photo,” she said. “Your mom died?”
Solo nodded, assuming Rae had worked it out from the contact details. “2021. Breast cancer. Forty-nine.” She swallowed, the short, sharp sentences sticking in her throat like mini cactus balls. “I had to get out and start a family—Jesus.” That couldn’t be, could it?
“What’s wrong?” Rae paused, mid-writing.
“Did I just use Janie to start a family?” Solo got up from her chair and went to the window.
She scanned the street, but there was still no sign of her wife.
How long would it be before she couldn’t call Janie that anymore?
She turned back to face Rae. “Is that why Janie says I’m so distant?
Because it was never really about her, and only ever about her having the babies?
” Solo stumbled at the horrific thought and had to rest her butt on the windowsill. “No wonder she’s left me.”
“Slow down, Hannah,” Rae said. “Tell me about when you first met Janie.”
Solo smiled widely, very much aware of it this time.
“I was on leave, and I’d gone to blow off some steam in Vegas.
I was at a club called Infinite.” She glanced at the ceiling again, instantly able to recall the layout of the club, the dark lighting, the pounding bass, and then…
Janie came from behind and walked past her.
She inhaled deeply, as if she could almost smell Fenty over the scent of the fruity candle in Rae’s office.
“Tell me what you’re seeing,” Rae said.
Solo sat in her chair again before describing the experience. A tingle ran through her whole body as she retold their meeting.
Rae smiled. “What you’re feeling now, does it seem real to you?”
Solo nodded and sighed deeply. “It was real. It is real.”
“And when you used to think of starting a family,” Rae said, “did you think about how you wanted to feel about the woman you’d do that with?”
Solo gave a short huff. “I wanted the real thing.” Just like she’d seen in all those Hallmark movies she loved and watched in secret for years, not that she was going to admit that to anyone, even her therapist. “And I got that with Janie. I love her. I love Janie.” She rubbed the heel of her hand on her forehead.
“I feel like I’m being run over by a tank, doc. This therapy shit is brutal.”
Rae chuckled. “Indeed it is.”
“Why is my own brain fucking with me?” Solo pulled at both her ears. “If I don’t know what I’m feeling, how am I supposed to fix everything?”
“There’s a lot going on in your life right now, Hannah,” Rae said gently.
“And there’s been a lot of changes happening too.
You told me how the garage was your dream, and it’s been a whirlwind over the past two months since your team all came back into your life.
All of that while you’re trying to raise not just one child but three.
Then there are the problems in your relationship with Janie.
And it seems like you may not have fully processed the grief over your mom’s passing.
That’s a lot for anyone to parse out and make sense of. ”
Solo dropped her head against the high-backed chair. “Jesus, doc, are you trying to tell me I’m going to be in therapy for the rest of my life?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything, Hannah,” Rae said. “You’re going to work out all the answers for yourself. That’s why therapy is so hard.”
Solo frowned. “But you’re going to help me, right?”
“I’m going to give you some tools to help yourself.”
Solo rolled her eyes. Why were therapists so expensive if the client had to do all the work?
“I know that must sound strange, and you might be wondering what you’re paying for,” Rae smiled as if she knew exactly what Solo was thinking, “but I promise you that the changes you’ll make and the realizations you’ll come to will be all the more powerful because you’ll be the one in control of them. ”
“Okay,” Solo said slowly. “But you are telling me that it’s going to take some time to work everything through?”