Chapter 30
THIRTY
Alex
After lunch, Max drops me off for therapy. I wasn’t even allowed to drive myself, like I was a fucking flight risk. To be fair, I am.
The office is close to the Scala house, and I wonder if Connie chose her based on distance alone.
Her office is in an older building that has a courtyard with fig trees growing in the center. The smell in late July is almost off-putting.
But the inside is nice enough. It looks like most generic waiting rooms. Magazines on the coffee table. A small fridge filled with water bottles and several sound machines, all whirring at the same time.
It sucks here.
Therapy fucking sucks. I’ll have to tell my story all over again. And talk about how I have attachment issues. Maybe even a smidge of PTSD. And it’ll be the same shit as every other therapist for the last twenty years.
Just give it time. It’ll get better. Newsflash: shit never got better.
I’ve seen so many therapists in my life, chances are slim that this will be the one to stick. And yet, I’m here because Connie told me to be.
“Alexander?” An older woman with long gray hair and purple glasses asks.
“Yeah,” I stand, and she extends a hand to me. When I take her hand, her shake is firm. It’s strong.
“I’m Maureen. Why don’t you come on back?” Like I have any choice not to.
She closes the door to her office. The space centered around a large window, offering a floor-to-ceiling view of the fig trees. She motions for me to sit on a couch that looks like it’s from the seventies but still pristine condition.
She pulls out a notebook, sits cross-legged in an egg chair, and looks at me.
“So Alexander, is that what you go by?” I nod. She makes a note. “So, let’s start at the beginning.”
“Which beginning?” The beginning of my problems? The beginning of my relationship with Emma?
“Yours. I want to know everything about you.”
“That doesn’t seem relevant. Would hate to waste your time.”
“Not to me,” she says, staring at me with hands clasped together, resting on the notebook.
“Fuck, I don’t want to do this,” I say, pushing a hand through my hair.
“What would you rather be doing? In the realm of reality, what would you rather be doing?” Yoga? Fuck no. Sleeping? Maybe.
“Probably sleeping,” I give her an honest answer.
“Is that something you do a lot?”
“Lately.”
“What’s lately? Last month? Last six months? Last couple of days.”
“Last couple of months.” She nods at my answer, making a note.
“What’s something else you do a lot of?” Drink, self-loathing, fighting. She gives me a closed-mouthed smile when I don’t respond. “Listen, my job is to help. But I can only be as helpful as you allow me.”
“So let’s just say, you’re bleeding out, but instead of telling me that, you tell me you have a scratch.
So…I give you a bandaid when you need a tourniquet.
I don’t know what I don’t know. And I can’t know unless you tell me.
” She’s no-nonsense about it. Why waste her time when it’s wasting my time as well.
Fine. “Well, lately, I’ve been drinking a lot, getting into fights. I spend a lot of time just thinking about how much I hate myself.”
“And is all of this recent as well? As in the last couple of months?”
“Yeah, mostly.”
“Is there something that’s changed for you…in the last couple of months?”
“I miss my wife.” She nods, making a note.
“You’re married?” Technically?
“I don’t know anymore.” She nods.
“Do you want to be married?” To Emma? Yes. Maybe. Ultimately, no.
“It’s complicated.”
“Then let’s uncomplicate it.” I laugh at her suggestion.
“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I say at the sheer immensity of it all.
“Then let’s start at the beginning.” Damn, she is good.
I sigh, “Alright then. I was born on January 3rd to Georgia and Ray Palomino. Newlyweds, middle-to-lower-class family. Georgia was a secretary, and Ray worked construction. My first memory is sitting on a diving board with a cabbage patch doll while my dad screamed at me. I was maybe two and a half or three.”
Maureen makes a note. She ends up making lots of notes over the next 45 minutes. I only get through kindergarten when our time runs out.
“I’ll see you in two days,” She says with a gentle smile.
Can’t fucking wait.
august
Connie has me on a strict program. I work out every morning, we have some sort of family company for lunch, therapy or meditation in the afternoons, and then I have to cook dinner in the evenings. Maybe I don’t have to, but it’s not like there’s anything else to do.
Matt moves in my second week at the house, but the routine stays the same. He only eats dinner with us a few times and he never speaks, at least not to me.
My phone stays off, dead in some corner of my room.
With the nights cooling off, we’ve been taking the dogs on long evening walks after dinner. We don’t talk all that much, Connie and I, but sometimes he’ll tell me about Georgia. Sometimes he’ll tell me how Brit is doing. Sometimes he tells me about myself, and what I was like as a little boy.
I always viewed Constantine as a father figure, but it never occurred to me that he is my father.
Always has been. He’d been the one to drive me to boot camp in Arizona.
He’d been the one that bought me the Jeep.
He’s always been there, loving me from the sidelines when I wouldn’t accept it, and now taking care of me, when he knew I needed it.
“Do you ever miss Julie?” I ask him one night because I’ve never heard him speak her name, not once.
He rears back in surprise. “Well, no. I don’t miss Julie. I miss the idea of her, but never her. I do miss your mother, though. Everyday.”
It’d been three years since her death. “Yeah,” I didn’t share the same sentiment, though. “Why did you love her?” I don’t mean to ask how I do. It almost sounds cruel.
“Well, she was undeniably the best person I knew. The way she endured… Alexander, she was so strong. And being with her was the only time I felt…free. It was the only time I felt like I was really me. The best version. Isn’t that what love is?” It isn’t pain?
I guess I hadn’t learned about love the same way other people do. I learned it looked like a broken and bloodied face. Bruised ribs. Shouting matches that went late into the night.
“I guess,” is all I say because the pit in my stomach is weighing me down. The pain and the guilt gnaw at me because I’d had that. With her. With Em.
When we get back to the house, Carl nods, giving us his nightly greeting. “Evening, sirs, uh, I just want to let you know,” except this is new, “Miss Britain is here, I let her in.”
Fuck, the last person I want to see.
“Thanks, Carl,” Connie says, patting him on the shoulder as we pass.
We enter through the front door, letting the dogs off their leashes, then head for the living room.
I’m stopped in my tracks by the sight in front of me.
“Brit?” I ask. She’s on her tiptoes, hugging Matt.
She lets him go at the sound of my voice. “Yeah,” she blushes, pushing a few stray tears away. It’s none of my business though. Whatever the fuck just happened… Whatever the fuck it means, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see it.
She walks over to me, going back on tiptoes to hug me. She holds on tight.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she whispers in my ear. She moves on, giving Connie an extra long hug, too.
“I just came to check on you, both.” Yup, well, this is it. “You look like you’re doing okay.” She eyes me warily. Then does the same with Connie.
“I’m fine, Brit,” I say, and she nods.
“Okay, I, uh, can’t stay long. Elodie and I fly home tomorrow. And it’s Caroline’s Big senior year, so we’re staying back East for a while. I guess I just wanted to say bye. And make sure you’re good?”
“All good,” I say with false confidence.
“Okay, then.” She gives me one last hug, and another to Connie, putting a kiss on his cheek.
“Love you, Dad,” she says to him, and Connie’s eyes turn watery. His hand shakes slightly as he gives her one more short hug.
“Love you too, Peanut.”
They both share a shaky smile and then she’s gone.
I’ve never heard her call him dad before. Or say I love you. The moment…feels mournful.
I watch my sister leave, Connie excuses himself, and then I’m left with Matt, who also has tears in his eyes.
What the fuck?
“What-” I go to ask, but Matt stops me.
“Just not right now,” he says before walking away. What the fuck?
“How does that make you feel that Georgia sent you to live with Ray while Britain lived with her?” Pissed.
“I don’t know.” Maureen smiles at my agitated response, like she’s holding back a laugh because this is how it goes. I’m always holding the real feelings in. “Fine, I hate her for it.” It’s the first time I’m saying the words aloud. It’s damn near freeing to let it go.
“I think that’s fair,” Maureen says. She never judges me once I do say the truth; in fact, she never makes me feel bad about anything, ever. There’s no guilt, no shame, just validation.
“Did you ever talk to her about this betrayal? Can I call it that? Do you feel like it was a betrayal or neglect?” Yes, to both.
“Yeah, you can call it that, and no, I never talked to her about it.” I hardly talked to Georgia at all once I turned 18.
“Did she ever say sorry or express guilt?”
“Not to me,” I anger. Talking about this always ended with me angry.
“Do you think she was, though?”
“I don’t fucking know, Maureen. I’m not a fucking mind reader.” She gives me the same tight-lipped smile she always does.
“This subject seems to be particularly hard to digest. So switching gears, I’m going to give you a scenario, okay? And we’re going to walk through it together. So close your eyes.”
This is fucking stupid.
“Eyes closed.” Reluctantly, I close my eyes, tuning out the woman with long gray hair and purple glasses sitting in an egg chair.
“I want you to picture Georgia. A version of her you’d look back on fondly.” She was wearing a dress, it was maroon with white polka dots, and she had on white high heels, and she was happy. Dancing in the kitchen while she cooked dinner, singing to me.
“Now, Georgia, she’s going to tell you she’s sorry. She says it. See it in your mind as she says, ‘I’m sorry, Alexander, for failing you.’” I can see it. I can see Georgia take my hands in hers and say it.
“We’re going to choose to believe her. That she is sorry. Can you do that, Alexander?”
I open my eyes. I don’t know.
“Can you forgive her?” Maureen asks again.
I think about Connie telling me all she endured. I think about the morning she woke me up to go to Arizona and how her face was black and blue. I think of the woman who had to make choices and probably did the best she could with what she had.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Maureen hums, “I think that’s fair, too,” and then checks the clock. “I’ll leave you with this to think about today: Forgiveness doesn’t change our past,” no shit. “But it does render our future.” Goddamnit, Maureen.
It’s all I can think about for two days straight. I think about it while I’m lying in bed staring at a ceiling fan. I think about it the second I wake up.
Forgiveness doesn’t change our past, but it does render our future.
Forgiveness is another one of those childhood lessons I think I missed. How would my life look if I hadn’t, though?
The difference is easy. I’d be married to Jess right now. And I don’t even want to be married to her.
But maybe I wouldn’t end up married to her, because she would still need to say sorry in order for me to forgive her. And she hadn’t. Still hasn’t and likely never would because I don’t think she is sorry.
She’s twisted our reality as such that she has no fault in our story.
I pictured Georgia and Jess as two sides of the same coin. I was always conflating the two of them, resenting one for the other’s mistakes. But the difference is, Georgia was sorry and couldn’t say it. Jess wasn’t sorry and, therefore, never did.
I make the decision, right then, to forgive them both. Or at least try to because at the end of the day, I can’t waste any more time thinking about either of them.
october
“How are you feeling today?” Maureen’s classic opening line.
“Let’s just cut to the chase?” I’m not in the best of moods today. Some days are better than others. This isn’t one.
“You’ve been coming twice a week, for nine weeks now, and aside from telling me some very basic information about how you met, you haven’t brought up your wife at all…
” Fuck. I want to go back, and answer the first question with something that will distract her.
Something along the lines of, ‘How can I reparent my inner child?’ Something she could monologue on for an entire session.
I don’t want to talk about this. Anything but this.
I clear my throat, adjusting the way I’m sitting. I look up to the ceiling, and clear my throat, again.
“What do you want to know?” I ask Maureen.
“Where is she?” I don’t know. I’ve looked too.
She isn’t at our house in Spearhead. She isn’t at her condo in town.
Hadn’t gone to her trailer in Vegas. She hadn’t used our credit card, hadn’t touched our bank accounts.
She isn’t on social media. Becks hadn’t heard from her, and neither had Brit. Blanks wasn’t talking to me.
So I really don’t know. My last resort is to call her…and I won’t be doing that.
“No clue.”
“Did she leave you?” Maureen asks.
“No.”
“You left her?” Not exactly.
“Yes. Sort of.”
“Did you break up with her, or tell her you want a divorce?”
“Sort of. I…I told her I didn’t love her anymore…” Maureen makes a note. “And then I kissed Jess at her wedding…in front of Emma.”
Now, Jess, Maureen knew. She knew everything. The good, the bad, the ugly. She knew about Damian and about Jess and mine’s demise. She knew why I loved her, and hated her both. But Emma, no, I’d kept her close.
“May I ask why you kissed Jess at her wedding?”
“I needed to do something unforgivable.” Maureen stares at me, waiting, unsatisfied with my answer.
“I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t come back.
Because Emma would have kept coming back to me.
No matter how shitty I was, no matter how much I fucked up her life.
She would have kept coming back, and I couldn’t let her do that. Couldn’t let her throw her life away.”
“The last time you were intimate with Jess, you were married then, right?” I look up to the ceiling before replying, the shame reaching unbearable levels.
“Yeah.”
“And did Emma know?”
“Sort of.”
“Explain?”
“I told her, and then we were in a car accident, and she was in the hospital for six weeks...” I bring my head down to finally look at Maureen.
“I think you should start at the beginning. It’s time to tell me about her.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yeah.”