Chapter 27 Kit
After my fight with William, I went straight back to Creekstone.
I told Aunt Rita what had happened. She encouraged me to wait before I did anything rash.
She thought I should talk to William when I calmed down, but I just couldn’t.
I didn’t trust myself not to get manipulated again.
I kept replaying our conversations, and I kept coming to the same conclusion.
William had played me to get what he needed for the promotion.
Our relationship was just a byproduct of that manipulation.
I believed that William did love me, but I also believed his initial effort to get to know me was just part of a long con to get me to sell my land.
If he really loved me, he would have shown me enough respect to explain to me what he was really doing in Creekstone.
I just couldn’t trust any other narrative.
I moved to D.C. and lived in my dad’s guest room for the summer.
He traveled so much that he was barely there, but when he was there, he was careful not to push me on any topic around William or Creekstone.
He was careful not to ask me what my plans were for the future or if I had talked to William.
Instead, he just let me stay there in his Dupont Circle flat.
I spent my days languishing. I read and did some writing.
I visited the museums and played chess in the park.
I reconnected with a few of my old graduate school fellowship friends.
By the end of the summer, I had decided that since I was already in D.C., I might as well stay and finish my fellowship. I arranged to start in August. My dad offered to let me stay in his apartment because he was going to be doing an assignment in southeast Asia, and he wouldn’t be home much.
For the first few months, I was very stuck on feeling betrayed by William.
He was texting and calling me occasionally, begging to talk.
I knew he had been to see Veronica and Aunt Rita, but I told everyone I didn’t want to hear anything about William, so there was no way for anyone to help me work through my anger.
I stayed mad until about mid-July, when I decided I’d be staying in D.C.
for my fellowship. I knew I wouldn’t be back to Creekstone or Atlanta any time soon.
After that, staying angry at William felt pointless.
And once the anger was gone, a sadness slipped in—one unlike anything I had ever experienced.
The grief I felt when I lost my mom was different.
It was something that had been accumulating for years before she was actually gone.
Even though we had time to prepare, it still felt like a cloud that stayed with me.
This felt like a different type of devastation. It was sudden, jarring. Mistakes were made, and trust was broken. I kept recalculating what could have been done differently or what I should do now, but I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts.
Even though I tried to keep busy with friends from my graduate fellowship, I always found myself alone at the end of every night.
That’s when the deep sadness would resurface and a darkness would take over.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to restart therapy, and I found someone who specialized in grief and loss.
The therapist's name was Kathy. She was a petite Asian American woman with a small office just a short walk from where I was doing my fellowship. Our sessions started slowly. I tried being upbeat and inadvertently downplaying what was bothering me. Kathy was patient.
Once I got comfortable and started to get into the real reasons I was in therapy, Kathy listened without judgement. She asked soft questions like, “How is this breakup different from your breakup with Matt?”
That was easy to answer. Matt had never manipulated me the way William had.
Kathy let me lay out my entire indictment against William.
I told her all the reasons his nondisclosure was a betrayal and how I was certain I could never trust him again.
She never pushed back. She let me work myself back up into a defensive frenzy.
Then one day, I said I figured William must feel the same way—he’d stopped calling and texting me, after all.
Even though I had done nothing to encourage William to send those messages, part of me clung to them as a sign that he still loved me.
Kathy then said gently, “Do you regret creating a non-communication boundary with William?”
“No.” I was defensive and explained that I just felt that it was a sign that he had lost interest, like I knew that he would. I didn’t see it as William respecting my boundaries.
And Kathy, in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard from someone saying something so unpleasant said, “I think it’s fair for William to assume you wanted him to move on. You stopped communicating with him two months ago. Is that not what you hoped he’d do?”
I had to sit with it for a while. Our next session it came up again.
I admitted that I missed William and wished I could talk to him.
I wished all the hurt feelings would go away and everything could go back to normal, but I just couldn’t get over it.
Kathy waited a full minute and then asked, “What is stopping that from happening?”
I knew the answer was me. That was easy to admit, but the next part wasn’t.
I was afraid I had ruined everything. I was afraid that the way I recoiled and put up my defensive wall made me a giant red flag.
I was afraid William had realized he was better off without someone like me and that was why he had stopped calling me.
I was afraid I’d walked away too soon and now we’d never have a chance to work it out.
In one session, Kathy asked me what was special about our relationship.
She noted that it seemed to be such a short amount of time, overall, less than six months, that we were friends and lovers.
I had been with Matt for nearly five years, and I didn’t experience this level of sadness after the breakup.
I knew why. I felt a connection to William that was unlike any connection I’d ever had before.
William was attractive. He was fun. We loved to spend time together.
He was kind and thoughtful. It was easy to be happy with William.
But the truth was, William was also easy to be with when things were hard.
He didn’t get defensive or shut me down during arguments.
William didn’t try to solve my problems when I was stressed.
William didn’t ask me to handle my grief within parameters that were more manageable for him.
That feeling of safety and acceptance opened the door for me to be more vulnerable with William.
So when I felt hurt, I recoiled all the way to the furthest, safest place I could go.
Kathy was great, but like all therapists, she didn’t have any concrete answers for me.
She didn’t push me to make decisions or act.
Instead, she helped me realize that I wasn’t preventing myself from getting hurt by walking away from William.
Without ever talking to William again, I was still hurting months later, and it was possible some of this hurt could be resolved by talking with him.
Kathy wasn’t trying to put the blame on me for what William had done, but she pointed out that I had to take responsibility for ending things.
William had tried for two months to work things out with me, and I had shut him out completely.
I did that because I wanted to feel like I had control again, but I was left with a sense of emptiness and a lot of what-ifs.
Maybe I could have forgiven William. Maybe I had missed the boat with William.
Maybe it was true that it was over, but unless I was willing to put myself back out there, I would be alone.
Kathy was helping me think about whether I might be willing to put myself back out there—with William, or, if not him, maybe someone new.
I had gotten comfortable thinking about it in a theoretical way in therapy, but I wasn’t ready to take the next step.
I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to send William a text and for him to leave me on ‘read,’ or how it would feel if I called and he didn’t pick up, and I realized I had done all of that to him.
Aunt Rita came to visit me a few times during the fall.
She was traveling with a new boyfriend, and anytime she passed through Washington, D.C.
, she would make a point to schedule a layover long enough to see me.
During one of her visits late in the fall, we met for coffee before she left town.
She pressed me a little about coming home for the Christmas Tree Decorating Contest. I hesitated, but Aunt Rita was adamant.
I told her that I wasn’t ready. She said she was getting married over New Year’s, and Christmas might be the only chance to meet her fiancé before he became her husband.
I was shocked. I wanted more information about this fiancé, but she stood her ground.
She said that if I wanted to know more about her engagement, I needed to come home.
“This isn’t fair,” I said. “You’re being awfully coercive.”
Aunt Rita’s eyes grew wide, and she laughed in amazement.
“Kit, what’s not fair is that everyone has been walking on eggshells around you for six months.
We’re all afraid to tell you that our lives have progressed and grown because we can’t talk to you about William or Creekstone without fear of you cutting us off. That’s pretty damn coercive.”
I sulked. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
Aunt Rita straightened up and took a sip of her coffee, keeping her eye on me. “Kit, I know you’re hurting, but a lot of good things have happened in Creekstone since you left, and some of them have been because we sold that land. I hope you’re going to be able to see that when you come home.”
I sighed. “I’m sure I will.” I was pouting a little.
“Can I tell you a story, Kit?” Aunt Rita asked softly.
“Sure,” I said without looking up at her.
“Both of your parents avoided telling you the whole truth about their relationship. They wanted you to focus on the love they felt for you, not what was between them. But when your mom and dad dated, things were getting serious. Your mother was in love with your dad. Your dad was a war correspondent and traveled to some unsafe places. Your mom asked him to get reassigned. I guess you could say it was kind of an ultimatum. He kept saying he would, but he never did, and he went away for a two-month assignment. When he came home, your mom was gone. She had moved back to Creekstone.”
“Oh,” I said leaning forward. “I didn’t realize.”
“That’s right,” Aunt Rita said, leaning back in her chair.
“Your dad finally figured out where your mom was and came to Creekstone—only to find her six months pregnant with you. He wanted to stay. He begged her to be with him. He promised to quit his job. He said, had he known she was expecting, if he’d had all the information, he would have done everything differently. ”
“Why didn’t she tell him?” I’d heard some of this story before, but not like this.
“Your mom was stuck on the fact that he didn’t ask for a reassignment.
She felt betrayed and lied to. So, she told him she had moved on.
Your mom later told me she had a certain vision for the kind of life you needed and how she wanted to parent you.
It was in Creekstone. She said that even though she loved your dad, she didn’t want him to quit his job entirely.
She believed he was—and still is—a talented journalist, and she didn’t think it was fair for him to give that up.
So, she made the choice for him. For those first few years, your dad made overtures that he wanted to be with your mom again, but your mother always said no. It was brutal.”
I was stunned. “I had no idea.”
“Now, listen,” Aunt Rita said sternly. “I didn’t tell you this to change your opinion of your parents.
They both loved you and wanted to be in your life.
They both had full lives. And I believe they’ve both been happy since all that happened.
I know we can’t change the past, and I know your mom was just following her instinct to protect herself and to protect you.
But I have always wondered—if your mom could have found it in her heart to forgive your dad—would things have turned out differently?
I’ve always wondered if it’s possible that your mom was too rigid about what was best for you and for her.
“And now it’s like—” Aunt Rita’s voice cracked. “I’m watching it all happen again.”
I let my eyes fall back to the table.
"Kit, I’m not asking you to get back with William. I’m just asking you not to shut down and shut everyone out. You’ve got to be able to grow, even when you’re hurt. You have to heal, dear.”
I was quiet. Aunt Rita nudged me. “Kit?”
“This seems silly because it’s still several weeks away, but I promise to come home for Christmas.” I crossed my arms and muttered, “That was quite the speech.”
Aunt Rita smiled. “I rehearsed it with the lady I was sitting next to on the plane.” She laughed and stood up, giving me a hug. She had to head back to the airport. Aunt Rita had given me a lot to think about, but one thing was for sure, I had to go home for the holidays.