Chapter 20
“I feel like we’re having a bonding session, so let’s do a trust exercise,” CK suggested, rubbing her hands together with
a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “You know, one of those activities where you trust someone to catch you. We used to do
this in basketball to help with team bonding.”
“Celia Kate, I’m not interested in any hippie trust exercises. Besides, which one of you would dare to volunteer to catch
me?” Gemma joked, but CK’s expression made her quickly apologize for poking fun at herself again. “Seriously, I’m not into
all of this . . . feeling things, therapy. Can’t we just paint each other’s toenails and pig out instead?”
Moira, her face still damp, remembered aloud, “Years ago, Jeffrey and I went to a leadership retreat and did something similar.
I couldn’t believe they expected me to catch Jeffrey—he was six foot three and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds! Poor
thing. He ended up spraining his ankle. It was a running joke that he’d never trust me again.”
“Were you drunk when you were supposed to catch him, Mo?” Gemma teased, and Moira playfully stuck out her tongue at her.
“What if,” Erin suggested while sitting on her crossed legs, “instead of you old ladies with your bad backs and frozen shoulders
trying to catch someone—”
“Watch it, there, Erin, with your high metabolism and normal estrogen levels,” Gemma said.
Erin continued, “How about we play ‘Fear in a Hat’ instead? Everyone writes down their fears, tosses them into a hat, and
we can take turns reading them out loud. The idea is that talking about our worries helps us deal with them better.”
Gemma raised an eyebrow and argued, “We’ve been talking about fears all night. I’m over it. We already know Moira’s couch
is scared it’s going to be puked on and CK is scared to cut the cord and—”
“Okay, that cord joke is aging like milk . . . and Tyler,” CK said.
“Yeah, we’ve been talking about the things that worry us, but this is about digging deeper and uncovering things we don’t
even realize—our subconscious fears, right?” Erin explained. “I read about this online and tried it when I was working up
the courage to leave Phillip. It really helped me face why I was scared to leave him. It’s like a therapeutic brain dump.”
“I’d like to leave my subconscious alone, if you don’t mind,” Gemma protested.
“A brain dump is like freestyle writing, right?” CK asked, and Erin nodded. “I let my kids do that in our composition class.
It’s a lot of fun for them. You just let your thoughts flow without worrying about grammar or spelling. As soon as something—anything—pops
into your mind, you put it on paper.”
“I have carpal tunnel,” Gemma said, rubbing her wrists. “Probably from the repetitive movement of digging into potato chip
bags and—”
“Moira, Nell, are you in?” CK interrupted, not wanting Gemma’s self-criticism to go any further.
“Might as well,” Moira said as she stood up and walked over to the large dresser across the hall. She returned with enough pens and sheets of paper for everyone, Dove and Pearl following closely behind her.
Gemma, Nell, and Erin sat on the stools at the kitchen bar while Moira grabbed a magazine from the ottoman in the center of
the room and tossed one to CK as well. CK leaned back against the bay window and began to write, while Moira sat back in her
chair as one of the fluffy white cats crawled into the crook of Moira’s arm and the other resumed her perch on the back of
the chair near her head.
After only forty-five seconds or so, Gemma shifted on the hard barstool and complained, “How long are we doing this?”
“There’s no time limit. Take as long as you need,” Erin answered while continuing to write a streak.
“I may be here all night,” Nell mumbled to herself.
Erin continued, “And don’t let the fact that someone is going to read them out loud make you hold anything back. Just write
whatever pops into your mind.”
“What? I thought this was for our eyes only. Someone is going to read it out loud?” Gemma groaned.
“That’s the point. If you’d been listening instead of complaining when Erin was explaining, you’d know that,” Celia Kate answered.
“I’d rather do that trust exercise where one of you tries to catch me.”
The sound of pens scratching on paper filled the kitchen and hearth space. It was a therapeutic noise, with each woman deep
in thought.
About ten minutes into the journaling session, Gemma stood up from the uncomfortable stool and stretched her back.
She walked back into the warm hearth room, where the fire was still crackling, and settled into a high-back chair with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
She held back from making any jokes while the other women were focused on their writing.
As the minutes passed, one by one, the women began to finish their entries. Moira retrieved a sparkling crystal vase from
one of the built-in shelves by the bay window and passed it around. Each woman slid her folded sheet of fears into the vase
before returning it to Moira.
A sense of nervousness surrounded them, and Moira said, “Okay, so now we lay it all out there? Do we talk about what we have
read when we’re done?”
“No, not until we’ve read what everyone has to say,” Erin said. “Who wants to go first?”
CK volunteered, and Moira passed the vase down the line of friends to where she relaxed on the peach cushion in the window
seat. Celia Kate shook the vase, took out a sheet of paper from inside, and then set the vase filled with the remaining papers
next to her on the cushion. She cleared her throat, sat up straighter, and slowly unfolded the crisp sheet of paper before
beginning to read.
I’m feeling hungry right now, even though I just ate a couple of hours ago.
I had two large plates of low-country boil.
I haven’t had a low-country boil since our Howell family reunion last year, but it wasn’t very good.
The mudbugs Uncle Gene brought tasted like mud, literally.
Anyway, I had some peach cobbler tonight too, but the hunger is still there.
Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever eat a low-country boil again after Moira .
. . never mind. You’d think that after watching someone barf I wouldn’t even be thinking about food, but I am.
I’m not sure if it’s my mind messing with me, my blood sugar acting up, or just plain boredom.
All I can think about is ice cream, specifically mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Tyler can’t stand mint chocolate chip—he says it tastes like chocolate toothpaste.
He likes butter pecan instead. Mama makes great homemade butter pecan.
I like butter pecan too, but not as much as mint chocolate chip.
Tyler keeps his butter pecan ice cream in the fridge out in the garage because he thinks it will be safe from me there, but honestly, I wasn’t even planning to go for it anyway.
The other night, when Carolina walked in holding a milkshake, Tyler joked, “Oh, Carolina, better hide that from your mom.
She’s gonna tackle you for it. And you don’t want a tackle from her. She could be a defensive lineman for the Falcons!” Carolina
laughed, which stung a bit because I thought she would recognize when his jokes turned cruel. Honestly, Carolina has picked
up a bully’s attitude from her dad. I think back to the email I received a few years ago from Laurie Parton’s mom, who said
Carolina was giving her daughter a hard time at school. When I brought it up, Carolina admitted it and didn’t show any remorse.
I wasn’t surprised by that email; her mean streak definitely comes from him.
But this is supposed to be about my fears.
What am I afraid of? Besides my daughter being known as the mean girl?
I’m not scared of leaving Tyler or being single.
Honestly, I like the idea of living on my own and doing what I want without anyone looking at me with complete disgust. I don’t need his money.
I don’t need him. I have every right and reason to leave.
Still, I’m worried about how divorcing him would impact Carolina with so much else happening in her life right now.
I worry it will make her more defensive, more of a mean girl.
I guess I also worry that our daughter will take his side.
I worry she’ll agree with him that because I’m big, I don’t deserve a faithful husband.
If I leave him, I’m scared she’ll leave me.
Dr. Dempsey really laid it on the line during my last visit. He talked about how I should fear things like diabetes, high
blood pressure, plaque buildup, and dying young. He didn’t sugarcoat anything. He called it like it is and sure didn’t tell
me I’m wearing my weight well, because I’m not. I know I’m not. I don’t feel good most of the time and I don’t like looking
in the mirror either. Seeing myself in that bathing suit today in the bathroom mirror made me want to go to bed and hide under
the covers. Even while laughing by the pool and talking about fun stuff, I couldn’t help but think every few minutes how much
I hate my appearance. I’m tired of that. I’m tired of happy moments being interrupted with depression over how I look in a
mirror.
Even though Dr. Dempsey tries to scare me into losing weight, I don’t think I will ever lose it. I am well aware that I eat
my emotions and my fears. Food has always been my go-to in stressful situations, and what is more stressful than knowing your
husband is having an affair and your only child is about to leave home? My word. I’m liable to be six hundred pounds by Christmas.
My wrist is starting to hurt. I won’t aggravate my carpal tunnel by digging any more into my emotional attachment to food.
But one more thing—my biggest fear of all?
Tyler keeps telling me I’ll never be thin, or worthy, and I fear that I might prove him right.