Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Kylie
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Briggs asked as I followed her down the hallway, past the reception desk, to her office at the back of the small building.
Something smelled good. I wasn’t sure whether it was her or the air. It was an intriguing combination of citrus and spice. Whatever it was, it was pleasantly soothing.
It felt a bit strange to be here, but not as awkward as I had anticipated.
Being that Piper was one of Travis’s many cousins—Piper’s mother, Maryanne, was Curtis’s baby sister—I knew her on a casual basis.
I’d seen her around town and at various family functions.
I wouldn’t say we were necessarily close, but I liked her immensely.
She was also Kate’s psychiatrist and had been since shortly after my daughter was kidnapped.
I’d come to a few sessions when Kate invited me, but left some of those discussions to be between doctor and patient, trusting that Piper would do right by my daughter.
From what I could tell, she definitely had.
“I’ve been worse,” I answered easily. It was the same response I’d used numerous times when well-meaning people asked.
“But you’ve also been better.” Dr. Briggs turned and offered a smile and a gentle wave in the direction of the couches and chairs. “Have a seat. Anywhere you’d like.”
Making my way to the cream-colored leather couches, I took Piper in.
She looked the same as she had before. In fact, I wasn’t sure she’d aged a day in the past two years.
Having gotten her height from the Walker side of her gene pool, she was tall for a woman.
Somewhere close to six feet in the relatively tame heels on her cute black ankle boots.
I wasn’t sure where she got her sense of style, but I had to admit, I was jealous.
Between her short, sleek, dark hair that framed her pretty face, the rectangular-framed glasses perched on her perfectly angled nose, the pinstriped black slacks, and the white, silk button-down shirt she wore, Piper looked as though she should be sitting at a desk in a corporate office with a big city backdrop, not here, in this relatively plain little space.
Taking a seat on one of the cream leather couches, I peered around, checking out my surroundings.
On the far side of the room, there was a four-legged white desk with a small filing cabinet on one end and a closed MacBook on top.
There on the desk was a candle—Bath I just want things to go back to normal.”
“And you believe the same definition of normal from before applies to now?”
“Normal’s normal,” I muttered, although it was a defiant answer, not something I believed in the slightest.
“Do you really believe that?”
I sat there for a moment, wiping my eyes, trying to get myself under control. I breathed in deep, letting it out slowly. If this was going to work, I needed to be honest. With Dr. Briggs and with myself.
“No. I don’t. I know nothing will be the same ever again.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said, her tone gentle, reassuring.
At least I heard something that made me hopeful. “What do you mean?”
“I think normal is a relative term. Before you were taken, before you suffered unimaginably, your life was good, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“But it wasn’t perfect.”
“Of course not. No one’s life is.”
“But it was a version that you see as being better than this one.”
“Yes. No.” I shrugged. “Not necessarily.”
Dr. Briggs didn’t speak, but I could tell she was waiting for me to elaborate.
“I like what I see when I’m in that house with them. I like the way they interact with each other. Travis and Gage have done a good job raisin’ them. And they’ve done right by each other.”
“In what way?”
“They’re close. All of them.”
“Tragedy tends to bring people closer.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“After my mother disappeared, my relationship with my sister and father changed. We grew closer, depended on each other more.”
“Where did your mother go?”
“I have no idea. She up and left one day. We didn’t hear from her again.”
“Is she alive?”
I nodded. “Alive and well. She’s even got another kid.”
Dr. Briggs continued to watch me. “This information is new to you?”
“Yeah.” I wiped a piece of nonexistent lint off my leggings. “She just showed up one day.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve got a unique perspective on what your family is going through.”
My gaze snapped up to meet hers. “But I didn’t leave them. I was taken. There’s a difference.”
“I’m not saying the reasons for the absences are the same, Kylie.
However, you, your sister, and your father lost your mother in much the same way.
One day she was there, then she wasn’t. Your children and your husbands are experiencing the same thing, despite the underlying circumstances being different. ”
I stared at her as that sank in. She was right. I didn’t leave my children, but they didn’t understand that. They weren’t old enough to truly comprehend what happened. Which was why I hadn’t explained it to them.
But Travis and Gage…
“Did you know Travis and Gage got married?” I asked Dr. Briggs.
If the topic shift surprised her, she didn’t show it. “I did, yes.”
“So that means I’m no longer married to Travis.”
“Are you asking or telling, Kylie?”
“I don’t know. But you can’t be married to two people. Not legally. I know because I wanted to be married to both of them, but we couldn’t.”
“You’re correct. Legally, you cannot be married to two people. As for which of the marriages is now nullified, I don’t know. I think that’s something you might need to discuss with a lawyer.”
I stared down at my lap again. “I know. But Travis and Gage are so happy together.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I can see it in their faces.”
“And you think their happiness has to do with one another. Not with the fact that you’re home?”
I shrugged.
“Travis and Gage believed they had lost you forever, Kylie. They love you very much. That love didn’t die when they thought you had. Now that you’re home and safe with them, perhaps you’re seeing the happiness they feel because of that.”
Yeah. It was possible. Maybe.
I looked up again, meeting Dr. Briggs’s gaze. “If that’s the case, why won’t they touch me?”
“Do you want them to?”
I swallowed. “More than anything.”
“Have you told them this?”
“No.”
“Perhaps that’s a conversation you should have with them.”
“What if they don’t want to … be with me again?”
“I don’t think you’ll know the answer to that until you’re all on the same page about what you want.”
Yeah. That made sense. Too much sense.