Chapter 35
The next afternoon I had a session with my therapist. I didn’t have to keep doing the therapy sessions as a condition of my medical leave, but I felt like they were helping, despite all the questions she answered with questions.
I’d reduced it to twice a month but planned to stick with it at least until the end of the year.
“I got an email from a legal recruiter the other day.” I wasn’t sure why I wanted to tell her, honestly. Maybe because I was proud of myself for declining the opportunity the recruiter presented without agonizing over it.
“How did that go?”
“The opportunity was with a firm that just opened their Boston office. They’re looking to build out their private equity practice group, so it’s a good fit for my background, but I don’t think I want to go back to a firm.
” Maybe not ever. “So I responded right away that I wasn’t interested at this time. ”
“How did you feel after you sent that message?”
“Good. Relieved. I haven’t second guessed it. I’m not ready and I think I might not ever be…”
Wendy nodded. “Have you thought about your personal definition of success lately?”
“Yes. I thought about what you said, about who I want to be. This summer…I’ve felt like I’m getting to know myself again. Who I was and what I wanted before my career became everything, and who I want to be now.”
She raised her eyebrows, indicating I should go on.
“I want to be an optimistic person, someone that lifts up the people around me and makes them feel important. I want to show up and feel present with loved ones. For myself, I want to learn to appreciate simpler things again, keep prioritizing my physical and mental health, and learn to not be so focused on accolades and money as representations of my worth. And I do want to give writing a go. I’m finding that I love it.
I wake up every day excited for my day.” I shook my head. “It’s such a strange feeling.”
She gave me the widest smile I’d ever seen from her. “That’s great, Val.”
I felt a surge of schoolgirl pride, like I’d made some progress after all.
She looked down at the notebook on her desk. “Who are the people you want to lift up? Natalie and your other friends, your grandmother, your parents?”
“Yes, all of them. And Luke, my, uh…boyfriend. And his daughter, Luna. The little girl I’ve been watching this summer that I told you about?”
“The one who lost her parents?” Wendy clarified.
I nodded. I’d asked her a few weeks ago about Luna and how losing her parents so young would impact her. Luna seemed well-adjusted now, so loved by Luke and her grandparents, but I worried that someday that wouldn’t be enough to fill the void left from losing both biological parents.
I’d asked Wendy if she thought, in her professional opinion, that this would be the case.
She essentially agreed—that at some point Luna would ask more questions about where she came from, and she would feel the grief like it was the first time, once her more mature brain comprehended the loss anew.
“It’s going to be hard on her,” Wendy had said. “It’s going to be hard on her uncle, too.” I’ll help them through it, however I can, I vowed in my head. Nothing had happened between me and Luke yet by that time, but that hope was already there—that I’d stay in their lives.
“You feel good about this new relationship?” she asked now, a hint of skepticism in her tone.
My mind raced through scenes of this summer: sharing confidences, sharing meals, the trip to Menemsha where he told me how he saw me after I said I didn’t know who I was without my job.
“Yes,” I said, absolutely certain. “He’s been really good for me.
Luna, too. She reminds me what matters in life, you know?
It’s been fun hanging out with her, seeing the world through their eyes. Rooting for them, feeling needed.”
Her pen raced over her notepad. “It sounds like it’s been very positive, then,” she said finally. I could almost hear the but that threatened at the end of her statement.
“You have qualms?”
Her eyes flashed to mine through the screen.
“I think qualms is too strong a term. I just want you to look out for yourself, stay in touch with yourself, you know? You’ve been through a lot, but it seems to me you’re a lot happier, and more comfortable in your own skin, now.
Keep in mind that taking on a family, especially one that has been through what they’ve been through, is a big undertaking. ”
I nodded. I knew it was. Irritation at the constant reminders of what a big undertaking Luke and Luna were mixed with my own trepidation over the degree to which my life had changed in the last five months. Nevertheless, it just felt right.
“I know. I won’t lose myself. I actually feel like he’s helped me rediscover parts of myself that I like, parts that got buried under my work and ambition.”
“Well, that is a really good thing.” Her eyes twinkled with encouragement.
And then our time was up.
I went downstairs to fill my water bottle and found Mimi sitting at the kitchen table, a crossword spread in front of her.
“How was your session this week?” she asked. I’d kept Mimi in the loop about the therapy sessions, usually just that I was having them and not necessarily the details of what we talked about. But today I broke tradition.
“Everyone keeps saying—Luke, my therapist—that embarking on a relationship with Luke and becoming a part of Luna’s life is a lot to take on.
” I searched Mimi’s face for her reaction, but her expression revealed nothing of what she was thinking.
“It bothers me.” I pushed a breath out in an exasperated huff and dropped into a kitchen chair.
“I mean, I get it. It’s not exactly what I pictured.
I pictured meeting someone a similar age to me that wanted a family but didn’t have one yet and starting that family together.
I didn’t picture having an eight-year-old stepdaughter at thirty-one years old.
It is a lot. But…I don’t know. I just can’t imagine anything else now. If that makes sense.”
“It does,” Mimi said.
“Am I missing something? Should I feel more nervous about it than I do? Because the idea of not being there, with both of them, is so much scarier to me than the responsibility I’d be taking on trying to learn how to be a mom.
” I thought about the conversation we had with Luna in the car after she lost her tennis match, how Luke encouraged me.
He didn’t want me on the sidelines, that much was clear.
We’d be a team. In a way, we already were.
“The idea of not being there as she grows up feels like a knife in the stomach,” I added.
“Then I think you have your answer,” Mimi said, sincerity shining clear in her eyes.
I nodded, brows furrowing. Why do I always let what other people say make me question myself?
As if she could sense my need for more reassurance, she went on, “Life is never what we picture. It gets complicated whether it starts out that way or not.” The wisdom of her words struck me. “Now that they’re in your life, what do you want?”
“I want to be with Luke. I want to be the best mother, or mother figure, I can to Luna. I want to write, and keep figuring out what makes me truly happy, because it wasn’t climbing the corporate ladder.” I paused. “But I also want to get married and have some of our own children someday, too.”
Mimi’s smile reached her eyes. “I don’t see any reason you couldn’t have all those things.”
“But Luna deserves a real mother, someone who loves her unconditionally. And if I still want to have my own children, will she feel left out?” I asked, voicing a fear I’d barely formed or articulated, even to myself.
“You wouldn’t let that happen.” Mimi reached for my hand on the kitchen table, her hand soft and delicate, resting on mine. “Val, I have known you your entire life, and your heart is so big. Your capacity to love is infinite. You already love that little girl, I can tell.”
My chest constricted and my eyes filled. “I do,” I choked out. Mimi stood up and pulled her chair next to mine so she could wrap an arm around my shoulders.
“You’ll be an amazing mother figure, an amazing female role model for her after she hasn’t had one for a long time.
You’ll give her the chance to be a mother’s daughter and, hopefully, a big sister someday.
” Mimi gave my shoulder a squeeze and dipped her head to look at me.
“What a beautiful thing after all that she lost. All that Luke lost, too.”
I nodded, not able to form words over the lump in my throat.
After a few watery blinks and deep breaths, I said, “I already love her so much, I couldn’t love her any more.
” I wanted to be there for every one of Luna’s first days of school, all her graduations, her wedding, and all of her triumphs and losses.
When did I get so invested? It snuck up on me, and it couldn’t be undone.
“I know,” Mimi said. I could tell she believed me.
“But this is so complicated. What if I get attached to her, and to Luke, and then I’m the one that gets hurt?” I’m already in too deep. I couldn’t imagine leaving them, but what if he left me?
“Do you think that’s going to happen? What do you feel in your gut?” Her tone was leading, like she already knew what she thought, but she wanted me to get there on my own.
I hadn’t asked myself that question before. I swiped under my eyes, considering. I had always trained myself to assume my relationships might not last, because none of my prior relationships had. But with Luke, it felt so different.
“Caring for and about others seems to come so naturally for you. You’re intuitive and creative and empathetic.”
“Stay.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“I want to be near you all the time, talk to you all the time. Touch you all the time.”
“I can guarantee you, there is no way you’re any more attached than I already am.”
“No,” I said to Mimi, my tears quelled for the moment. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. My gut is telling me he’s just as invested as I am.”