Chapter 10 #2
“Right.” I tried to loosen up, but my posture was still straight as an arrow on the couch. The cushions felt comfy enough beneath me, but I wasn’t quite ready to lean back and relax. It was like my body knew it should be ready to bolt at any point, if things got too serious.
“Let’s start with the basics then,” Cheryl began, taking a chair across from the couch and clicking a ballpoint pen. There was a yellow legal notepad in her lap. “Okay if I take notes?”
“Um, sure. I guess.”
“Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz later.
” She met my eyes, smiling warmly. “This is mostly just a way for me to keep track of what we’ve talked about between sessions so we can smoothly move back into the conversation next time.
Let’s start with your family . . .” she trailed off, opening the conversational door for me to step in.
“Okay, well, I’m the youngest of two kids. Owen—that’s my older brother—he’s three years older. I guess you could say we grew up solidly middle class. My mom was an accountant, and my dad was a sales rep.”
“Great. And your parents—did they ever travel for work?”
“My dad, yeah. Business trips, a few times a year.”
She jotted down some notes. “Were they happy parents?” She looked up at me expectantly.
Her question gave me a slight internal jolt. I don’t think I’d ever really thought about whether my parents were “happy parents.” I chewed my lip.
“Mostly, I think . . . we were kind of just a normal, suburban family. Went to church most Sundays. Went to neighborhood barbecues, that kind of thing. They split up when I was 15.”
She gave a knowing soft smile. “It happens. Tell me about their divorce. Had they been fighting? Did you have to move?”
“That’s the weird thing. I don’t think I ever heard them fight.
They probably did, I guess, but they must’ve kept it behind closed doors or after Owen and I had gone to bed, so the divorce was kind of a shock.
And um, yeah, not right away, but Mom couldn’t keep the house on just her income.
I think the mortgage was probably really high, though she never talked about that.
We moved into a smaller house, Mom and Owen and me.
It wasn’t far, though, so we got to stay in our same school. ”
“And your dad?” she prompted.
“Cliff,” I nodded. “He had an apartment in town for the first couple years. We saw him . . . once or twice a month, I guess. Owen and I were teenagers, so a lot of weekends we preferred to hang out with friends. Owen had graduated and was waiting tables, and I was busy with school.” I felt a slight pang of guilt.
Should I have tried harder to maintain a relationship with him?
“Where is he now?” Cheryl’s question disrupted my spiraling thoughts.
“Austin, last I heard. His company transferred him. I didn’t hear from him much after that.
He didn’t make it to my high school graduation—or my college one, for that matter.
He still calls on my birthday most years, sends gifts on Christmas sometimes.
Actually, it’s probably been a year or so since I’ve heard from him at this point.
He’s just . . . not really a big part of my life.
” I took a breath. “It wasn’t some big traumatic event, though.
More like he just faded into the background . . .”
“Still,” she soothed, “losing a parent—in any way—leaves a mark. A hole in your life left unfilled. And whether you realize it, him leaving at such a critical time—your senior year of high school? That’s already a time of big changes.
His departure from your life may have had a greater impact than you realized. ”
Huh, I thought. Never thought about it that way. I appreciated the validation Cheryl gave me in that moment. She made me think about the situation with my dad, too, in a way I really hadn’t before.
He left me. The man in my life, up to that point. Did that make me subconsciously fear that others would leave me, too? It was something I’d have to chew on later. Cheryl was clearly good at this talking-it-out thing.
“Do you ever think of getting back in touch with him?” Cheryl prompted.
“Not really,” I admitted. “I kind of feel like he had his chance with Owen and me. Owen was even madder than I was when my dad left. I don’t know that there’s a relationship left there to repair,” I concluded. “I’d rather focus on reconnecting with my mom.”
“It’s important to set boundaries, even—or sometimes especially—with our parents. Tell me about your mom,” Cheryl breezed on.
“My mom. Her name’s Deborah. She . . . she did her best. She really did.
She raised Owen and me, pretty much on her own even before the split, and all while she worked full time.
She took care of the household—laundry, meals, cleaning.
She passed up promotions so she could drive us to our games and practices. She sacrificed a lot.”
“And you aren’t close with her now?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Why?”
I met her eyes, and she didn’t appear to have any agenda, just simple curiosity. I finally leaned back into the soft throw pillows behind me.
“We just . . . we aren’t the same, Mom and I. She’s so strong, so stoic. She’s kind of a badass, but in a quiet way. I admire her, but I also don’t feel like I’m very much like her. Mom always acted like if she just kept working hard, pushing forward, nothing bad could touch us.”
“Do you have an example of that?”