Chapter 8 Emma
Chapter eight
Emma
“Good evening, Mrs. Jones.” Dr. Belo smiles as I barrel through her office door. She gestures to the empty couch, and I drop into it, my eyes immediately flicking to the door behind me. Steven isn’t here yet.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m fine,” I lie as the last thirty minutes replay in my head.
She gives me a look, disbelief deepening her crow’s feet. Then comes her signature sequence: the subtle chew on the inside of her cheek, fingers tapping, head cocked just so.
It’s ridiculous, really, how effective it is. My own personal truth serum. She doesn’t have to say a word. Just go through these motions, one by one, and I’m an open book.
So she does.
And I unload.
“I don’t understand why he’s not here yet!” I snip. “I’m sure it’s work. It’s always work, and I won’t say anything about it. I know he’s exhausted. I’m exhausted too. Look at me!”
I throw my hands up toward my head, looking wilder than I should.
“My day was chaotic. We all had to share a car today—Steven’s car, which is so tiny it’s like a clown car when we climb out of it.
He got snippy with Sawyer then with me. Then he sent flowers, which were pretty, but ginormous.
They fell on the floorboard, and who knows, he might think I did it on purpose. ”
She arches a brow at me. “Okay, he won’t, but I’ll think he thinks that, and that’s our problem.
Just assuming but not talking. Too exhausted to even try.
Then I had to rush my meeting today, rush home to check on the baby, and then get here before four o’clock, mind you.
And he said he’d walk from the hospital, so of course he won’t be here on time anyway, because it’s five blocks away.
” I gesture wildly to the clock hanging above my head.
Dr. Belo listens, crossing her legs and pulling out her notepad.
“And I think I’m getting a sinus infection.
” I practically whimper this because the timing is annoying.
“I can’t stop sneezing. My throat feels like someone has shoved a handful of Tic Tacs back there, and they won’t go down.
I can’t tell anyone this because a sinus infection isn’t enough to slow me down with everything going on.
And my boobs hurt all the time. My hair is falling out.
I finally just cut it myself because I couldn’t take it anymore. ”
“It looks nice,” she says.
“I’m already down two teachers this semester, just hired a new guy too, but of course he wants to do football, not theater or arts, which is what we need help with.
The boys’ birthday is coming up, and I haven’t even ordered a cake.
And Josie is with the nanny. For the first time in four months, she is with someone who isn’t me, and I can't even convince myself that it’s okay.
I just have to stay busy, constantly moving, not thinking, just going, until I can get home and be with her.
” My chest is aching now, and sweat pools under my arms. “And I have no idea how to tell my husband I’m over here drowning. ”
I want to cry. Dr. Belo can tell I do too. But I don’t. I just inhale a sharp breath, pinch the bridge of my nose, and rest my head back against the wall.
A gentle tap-tap breaks the awkward quiet that follows my outburst. Steven steps inside, looking tired and sweaty.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” he whispers, quietly clicking the door shut behind him.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” I say.
He stands in the doorway, looking at me. The exhaustion seems to melt from his eyes, like just seeing me is enough to breathe life back into him after a grueling shift. The sight makes my stomach clench.
But then he blinks, and his face shifts. Everything shifts. He straightens, puts on a fake smile, and his eyes go cold as he greets Dr. Belo.
He hesitates then sits beside me, leaving too much space. It’s like he can’t decide if he wants to be close or not. I hate it, because I’d probably do the same. Just another Tuesday with the Joneses, I guess.
“So”—Dr. Belo eyes the gap between us knowingly—“how are we doing?”
Steven clears his throat but doesn’t say anything. Neither of us does.
After a beat of silence, she continues, “Look, I know this is hard. Separation isn’t easy—”
“We aren’t separating,” Steven retorts.
“We’re discussing options,” I amend.
“No. We aren’t separating.” Steven speaks through his teeth, the light in his eyes going dark. “We’re going through a hard time, sure, but we aren’t separating. That’s asinine.”
“It’s not asinine,” I argue. “A lot of people separate, and things get better.” Heat rushes to my face.
“It’s out of the question.”
“I’m not saying I want to.”
“Emma, you don’t know what you want right now. You’re exhausted.”
“You are too,” I grit out, wanting to explode. Just once, I want to unload all the irrational anger that seems to fester behind my breastbone on a constant basis. But I don’t. I exhale slowly and speak even slower. “What else are we supposed to do, Steven?”
“This! Therapy,” his voice rises. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To work through things?”
“We’ve been at this for a month, and things aren’t getting better, Steven!” Now my voice is rising.
“A month isn’t enough time to make a decision, Emma,” he growls. “You don’t get to make that decision without me. You don’t get to give up on us just because it’s hard. I get you’re going through things and you’re feeling…” His mouth tics as he fights against the words he wants to say.
“Feeling what?” I snap. “Depressed? You think my postpartum depression is the reason our marriage is falling apart?”
“Yes! I mean, no. It’s not that. I just… You just don’t know what you want.”
“And you do? Truly?”
His nostrils flare as his eyes burn into me. The muscles in his forearms tense, a twitch running through them with the effort of holding himself together. Gone is the calm, steady man I fell in love with, replaced by someone defensive and furious and too proud to admit he’s just as lost as I am.
Dr. Belo clears her throat, reminding us we aren’t alone.
“Why don’t we start over?” she advises, adjusting her crisp white button-up shirt and sitting up straighter. A power move, I’m sure. She’s the one in control, not us. Granted, I don’t remember the last time I ever felt in control.
“Emma?” She turns to me.
“Hmm?” I don’t look at her. My eyes seem to have found solace in the obscure bird painting in the corner of the room. The most colorful thing in this place.
“Let’s give Steven the chance to hear you out. You share, and he will listen.”
“I was—”
Dr. Belo cuts Steven off with a slow, commanding lift of her hand. He sucks in a breath and waits his turn. I stare at the birds. One is perched on a line, looking up at the sky, while the other is on the ground, looking up at the other.
“They probably can’t hear each other,” I murmur to myself, imagining the bird on the ground shouting at the other for help, for encouragement, for anything, and the other one has its head up in the clouds, blinded to the things at his very feet.
“What?” Steven grunts. “Can you focus on us, please?”
I gawk at him, at his tone, at the audacity that he would claim I’m not focusing on us. All I’m doing is focusing on us. That’s all I ever do is focus on us, we, them—everyone that isn’t just me.
“I’m here, aren’t I? This is me focusing on us.” I fling air quotes around sarcastically.
“Emma, please,” he says in a despondent, quit-embarrassing-me kind of way. “Just talk.”
“I’m trying. I’m putting myself in an uncomfortable situation to try, but you expect me to figure out my feelings after a few sessions.”
“That’s not it, Emma. I just want us to figure this out.”
“Do you? Or do you want someone else to see me losing my mind since having a baby?”
“Emma!” he shouts. “I said that one time. I’m sorry! I was mad. You chucked the remote and shattered it. What was I supposed to say?”
“That’s a good place to begin,” Dr. Belo chimes in. “Why don’t we calmly start with this event and try to figure out where our communication went wrong, hmm?” She scribbles on her notepad, her thin-frame glasses inching closer to the tip of her nose.
“It was last week—”
“It was last week,” I cut Steven off before he can finish.
“I was getting everything ready for our last week before I went back to work. I had a list. But Steven wanted me to relax.” I hold up air quotes.
“I didn’t have time. But he kept pressing, said let’s watch a movie together, and I threw the remote across the room. ”
I shrug like the last part of that is normal behavior and no one should be concerned. Steven sighs softly, looking at Dr. Belo, probably telepathically saying see what I mean?
“And what were you feeling when you reached for the remote?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Mad. Annoyed. I felt like I wanted to jump out of the window and figured maybe throwing the remote was the safest option?
” I feel the lump in my throat swell as the words roll out of me.
“I felt like no one cared about what needed to be done but me, and of course I’d love to sit down and relax, but I was afraid if I didn’t get everything done, then the next day’s list of things would pile on top of it, and then it would snowball, and I would get suffocated.
And I didn’t know how to communicate that without feeling like I had to destroy something.
” Tears, slow and painful, start to cloud my vision.
“How did reacting that way make you feel?”
“Embarrassed,” I whimper, and Steven scoots closer to me.
“Were the children around?” She asks this, and something inside me breaks apart. I let out an uncontrollable sob, shame and guilt washing over me at the idea of my children seeing me react that way. Treat their father that way.
“No,” Steven says, “they were in bed upstairs.”