Nothing Less than Magic

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

It’s been five days since I came home, and I’m feeling a lot like my old self again. Not entirely ready to take on the world but strong enough to go into the office and do a little work. I call myself an Uber, because I’m still not ready to drive. And I don’t want to zap my strength walking.

Ronnie’s waiting for me with a cup of Peet’s coffee. “You’re sure you’re up for this?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“Your agent called. The mockup for the new calendar is ready. I’ll cue it up for you on the big monitor.”

In September, I was beyond psyched for this calendar, a fun project that I thought could make a difference in the lives of couples working on their marriages. Now, it just seems . . . ridiculous. Like fodder for an SNL skit.

But I go through the motions, flipping through the months, reading the inspirational sayings at the top of each page, and trying to remember if the fonts match the ones I chose when we first started.

“What do you think?” Ronnie is looking over my shoulder.

“Yeah, I think it’s good. What do you think?”

“It’s great.”

I turn to look at her. “It’s a joke, isn’t it? Like seriously mockable.”

“What are you talking about? This is your baby, Chels. You worked so hard on this. And look at it”—she points at the screen. “It’s a homerun, a complete grand slam.”

“Really? You don’t think it’s stupid? You don’t think it’s beneath my dignity? I have a doctorate degree in psychology, for God’s sake, and here I am hawking calendars. What’s next? Inspirational bookmarks? Charm bracelets?”

Ronnie laughs. “You think you might be overreacting just a little? So it’s not the Stanford Prison Experiment. It’s what you do. You make psychotherapy accessible to the masses. It’s a good thing. What’s with the sudden angst?” She gives me a soft appraisal. “Look, a lot has happened. You’re finding your way after a significant injury; let’s take it easy today. Not make any big decisions.”

I get to my feet, go over to her, and lean my head on her shoulder. “What would I do without you?”

The rest of the day I dedicate to answering emails and posting on social media, though my heart isn’t in it. My heart is in Ghost in a small cabin by the lake and a gold-country town where I had a life beyond work and Austin.

I can’t help but wonder about Misty, about her odd and rather cryptic predictions, if you can even call them that. To be generous, she did sort of foreshadow my return to the real world. But the psychologist in me realizes that was merely my subconscious talking.

Still, I hop on the World Wide Web and search for her. Madam Misty, Universal Diviner. Much to my surprise, I get more than a dozen hits. She even has a website, which I immediately click on, then navigate straight to her bio. Her picture looks nothing like my Misty. This one is cherubic with short gray hair and resembles someone’s sweet, round grandmother. Not the lithe Stevie Nicks, ballet-dancing figure in my dream.

According to her bio, she’s had the “sight” since childhood and that by the time she was a young adult, police departments around the state were using her “supernatural powers” to solve crimes. She lists several missing-person cases, including one I’m familiar with because it was headline news a few summers ago.

I move over to her contact information, copy her address, and plug it into Google Maps. Madam Misty, Universal Diviner is located off a stretch of highway four miles from Ghost, not far from the drive-through coffee shop that always has a long line. According to Google Earth, it’s a trailer park that I must’ve driven past at least a thousand times. In the image, her shingle—the same design as the one in my dream—hangs on a post on the dirt shoulder between the entrance to the park and the highway.

I’m absorbing the discovery when my phone rings. Same number as the one I didn’t recognize from my missed call the other day. I consider letting it go to voicemail—I get a lot of nutty calls, as you can imagine—but at the last second pick up, hoping . . . I don’t have a clue what I’m hoping exactly. And to add voice to it would only make it that much crazier. But this is the thing. While I don’t recognize the number, I do recognize the area code.

“Hello.”

“Hey, it’s you. I mean, of course it’s you. I just didn’t think you’d answer.”

“Who is this?” The voice isn’t remotely familiar. It’s distinctly male, but that’s the only thing I can place about it.

“It’s Leo Antonelli. I hope I’m not disturbing you, but Austin gave me your number and said it would be okay for me to call on your private line. I just wanted to see how you were you doing.”

I scramble my brain for a Leo. As far as I recall, I know of no Leos. “I’m sorry, but at the risk of sounding rude, do I know you?”

He chuckles. “You probably don’t remember me, but I was the guy who called nine-one-one after your accident . . . of course, I’m probably not the only one who called. There were a ton of people on that cable car, a ton of people on the street that night. But I happen to be an EMT and . . . Well, I guess it was just fate that I was in San Francisco to meet a friend. In any event, I was behind you when you crossed, saw what happened, and was the first to respond. You were pretty out of it. I was worried that you wouldn’t make it, but it sounds like you pulled through like a champ. I won’t keep you any longer. I just wanted to see how you’re making out and say I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Wow,” I say, stunned almost speechless. I’m sure there were a lot of heroes that night, anonymous heroes. So to speak to one, actually get to show my undying gratitude, is quite amazing. “I’m much better now. Thank you, Leo. Thank you for everything you did that night. I haven’t read the police report yet. Honestly, I’m still getting my bearings and am not ready to relive the accident. But my medical team believes that it was the quick work of strangers that kept me from being crushed under the wheels of the cable car. They thought it was lucky that all I sustained was head trauma, no broken bones. Apparently, someone pushed me out of the way just in the nick of time . . . just before . . .”

“Yeah,” he says. “That was me.”

All the time you hear about acts of bravery that change the course of lives. The pilot who landed his plane on the Hudson River to avoid catastrophe. The father who pulled his child, alive, from the jaws of an alligator’s mouth. Hikers who fought a grizzly with their bare hands to rescue a friend. Never once do you stop to think that this will be you. That because of the quick, brave work of a stranger, you’re still walking this earth.

That’s how I feel about Leo. That because of him, I’m still walking this earth.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him. Seriously, do I offer to buy him lunch, send his kids to college? What can I possibly give him that doesn’t seem trivial compared to what he’s given me?

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says. “I try to check up on all my patients. Look, I’ve got to go. But it sounds like you’re doing great. Hopefully, I’ll see you around soon.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

It’s Sunday morning, and I’m on my way to LA. Dr. Sadie cleared me for flying but not yet driving.

Despite making great strides—yesterday, I walked all the way from my apartment to the Ferry Building without once getting out of breath—I occasionally experience fuzziness. I’m sure there’s a medical term for it, but the bottom line is my brain hasn’t completely healed.

In any event, as long as I’m a passenger and not the captain (God forbid), it’s safe for me to cross the state in an airplane—or even a car, for that matter. I’m going to see Uncle Sylvester and let him fuss over me. It’s not like I’m doing much here anyway. Most days, I sit in my office and stare at a blank screen or search Google in an effort to corroborate my coma dream.

Friday, I once again studied the faculty pages of UC Davis’s website in case I missed something the first three times I did the search. There is no Knox Hart anywhere on its roster. The only Professor Hart I found is a sixty-year-old Karen Hart, who teaches medicine and epidemiology at the university’s school of veterinary medicine.

Just to be sure, I cross-referenced every school and science department in Northern California. I even looked up Old Ranch Road to find Knox’s farmhouse. The house is there. But according to a property records search, it belongs to a Desi and Maureen Coopman and is indeed a working goat farm.

The only logical explanation is that I came across the property pre-coma while driving around Ghost, and its bucolic charm left an indelible mark on my memory. As far as Knox himself, it’s fairly obvious that Michael Hart, my emergency doc and the first one to lay hands on me in the hospital before they induced the coma, was the inspiration for Knox.

There is some evidence that patients can hear what’s going on around them while in a coma, and some can even recover enough to regain a modicum of awareness. Who’s to say whether this happened to me or whether I simply have a robust imagination?

But instead of dwelling on it, it’ll be good to get out of Dodge and immerse myself in a new environment, far from the hospital and Ghost.

It’s a full flight, even in first class, a perk of traveling for a living. I have so many frequent flyer miles that I’ll never use them all.

I’m next to a guy who looks vaguely familiar, like I might’ve seen him on the news. Or for all I know, he’s an actor. It wouldn’t be unusual to share a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles with someone famous. I once sat next to Jane Fonda. It surprised me that she flew commercial, but it’s probably more convenient. Some of the airlines make the trip between SFO and LAX five times a day.

She was extremely nice, by the way. Offered me her airline snack mix and said she liked my scarf.

I’m not getting a nice vibe from the familiar guy, who has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want anyone talking to him. I get it. As a career traveler, plane time is the best time to catch up on work or correspondence. I give him plenty of space.

As we prepare for takeoff, I check my phone one last time, just in case Ronnie or Austin have texted or called. Nothing from Ronnie. But Austin has sent a GIF of a hand waving at an airplane. He’s been up to his ears in alligators these last few days, negotiating the divorce settlement of a high-profile couple. He won’t tell me who it is, only that he’s representing the husband. I am guessing the client is either in tech or venture capital. That’s who our “high-profile” people are. Whoever he is, he has no boundaries, calling Austin after hours and even on weekends. I don’t understand why Austin puts up with it. He has a stellar reputation in the legal community and has no shortage of clients.

The flight is too short for a movie, and I forgot to bring a book. I lift the flight magazine from the netting in front of my seat and flip through it. Familiar guy has his music on too loud. I can hear Leonard Cohen through his earbuds. At least it’s good music.

He also has his window shade open, which I would like to close. Although I’m in an aisle seat, catching even a glimmer of the sky reminds me that we’re 42,000 feet in the air. I tap him on the shoulder and motion for him to shut the shade.

He pops out one earbud. “You want it closed?”

“Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind? I have a thing about heights.”

“Then why do you fly?”

“Because it’s faster than walking.”

“Good answer.” He pushes down the shade and stuffs his bud in his ear again.

I nod off, and before I know it, the flight attendant is asking us to put our seats in an upright position and to fasten our belts for landing. It seems like just five minutes ago we were served drinks. The cups, cans, and bottles are quickly cleaned up, and in no time, I’m pushing my way through the airport terminal with my small carry-on.

It’s a balmy seventy degrees outside, and the sun hurts my eyes. When I left San Francisco, it was drizzly and cold. I grab a taxi at the cab stand, because it’s faster than Uber, and rattle off Uncle Sylvester’s address in Century City. He still lives in the same penthouse, though he’s remodeled it two or three times since Lolly and I left.

It takes us forty-two minutes to go ten miles. Welcome to Hell A, though San Francisco isn’t much better. The businesses on Santa Monica Boulevard are decked out for Christmas, and the trees are all strung with lights. I can barely remember Thanksgiving, which came and went while I was in the hospital. If it wasn’t for the cafeteria turkey, stuffing, and soggy slice of pumpkin pie, I wouldn’t remember it at all.

The neighborhood has changed a lot since I lived here. Many of the restaurants and shops from my time have been replaced with new ones, trendier ones. And Westfield Century City, a mega shopping mall, is like a city onto itself. It even has a gourmet supermarket.

In the 1980s, Uncle Sylvester used to commute from Century City to Culver Studios, one of Los Angeles’s most iconic studios. It is where Gone with the Wind , A Star Is Born, Rebecca, Citizen Kane, and E.T. were filmed. Last I heard, Amazon Studios had taken over a portion of the campus. Uncle Sylvester still makes the ten-mile commute (thirty minutes in traffic), but he’s at Sony Pictures now.

We pull up in front of Uncle Sylvester’s high-rise, and the cab driver helps me to the door with my carry-on. There’s a new doorman, or at least new for me, who ushers me inside the lobby, then sends me up to the penthouse in Uncle Sylvester’s private elevator. Like the neighborhood, the elevator has also gotten a facelift since the last time I was here. Grass cloth covers the walls where there once was chinoiserie wallpaper. The mirrors, though, are still here. Lolly and I used to try to outdo each other, making funny faces in them when we were kids.

The door slides open into a grand foyer, which I no longer recognize. It has the same grass cloth wall coverings as the elevator and new herringbone wood floors. There’s a huge abstract painting on one of the walls.

“Hello, hello, hello.” Wallace sweeps into the entrance and wraps me in a bear hug. “Look at you.” He steps back a foot or two and gives me a full appraisal. “You look wonderful, my girl. Let me take this.” He grabs the handle of my suitcase and wheels it into Lolly’s and my old bedroom off the hallway. “You’ll unpack later.”

He takes my hand and pulls me through the apartment into the kitchen, where a stunning charcuterie board is waiting. It’s much better than the one I made in my dream. Then again, Wallace owned a catering company for twenty-plus years, so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.

“Sly won’t be home for another hour.” Wallace is the only one who calls my uncle “Sly.” He’s the only one who has lasted more than five years. All of Uncle Sylvester’s other boyfriends had an expiration date of around three years, except David, a perpetually out-of-work actor who lasted a little more than four.

I’m pretty sure Wallace is the love of Uncle Sylvester’s life. And I’m pretty sure that if Wallace had been here twenty-four years ago, I never would have run off to boarding school.

“Tell me everything, little one.” He pats one of the barstools and fixes me a plate from his charcuterie board.

“Where do you want me to start? Because I don’t remember a whole lot of the accident.”

“It was awful, I can tell you that. Sly and I caught the first flight out. By the time we got to the hospital, they’d already induced you.”

I didn’t know Wallace had been to the hospital, though I’m not surprised. One of the things I love best about him is how much of a family man he is. He has eight nieces and six nephews he dotes on, and two brothers and a sister, who are his best friends.

“You were so pale, Chelsea. Sly was beside himself. And Lolly . . . what can I say? You know how she is. Doesn’t give anything away, that girl. But she was dying inside. No one could see that better than me. She’s not the mystery she thinks she is.”

I laugh, but I beg to differ. She’s a complete mystery to me. She shows up at my bedside as if she cares, then leaves without ever saying goodbye. And never calls again. Who does that? Especially your own flesh and blood? I want the Lolly in my dream. At least there, she was willing to meet me halfway.

“Well, anyway, thank God you’re here.” He pulls me in for another hug, then points to the plate he’s piled high with cheeses and fruit. “Now eat. You’re wasting away.”

I nibble on a piece of the Manchego, even though my stomach is still recovering from the stop-and-go of the cab ride. “The place looks great.”

I note that the drapes have been drawn, hiding the view, and know instinctively that’s it’s been done for my sake. Because of my fear of heights. This is where it started, where my acrophobia first took root when I was just twelve years old. No mystery why. No psychology degree needed.

Wallace glances around the apartment as if he’s seeing it for the first time. “Doesn’t it, though? It was six months of construction hell but worth it.”

He stops hovering and sits down beside me. “Enough small talk. What’s the deal with you and Austin? Sly says he never left your side at the hospital and has been there every day since.”

“Yeah, he’s been really good.” I let out a long sigh. “Great, even.”

He leans in. “And yet you sound miserable about it. Why is that?”

“I guess I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, when he left, I had no warning. Nothing. One day we were this perfect couple, and the next, he was packing up and leaving. He didn’t even give a good reason. Then he gets engaged to this woman Mary, who apparently he’s no longer engaged to.”

“People make mistakes, Chelsea. Maybe it took a crisis to see what he had in you, what he could’ve lost. Perhaps he’s worth giving a second chance is all I’m saying. But I’m no marriage expert, not like you.”

“I don’t feel like much of an expert anymore. The coma really messed with my head.” I laugh at my unintentional pun. “And now I’m all mixed up.”

“How so, sweetheart?”

“Did Uncle Sylvester tell you about my dreams? While I was in the coma, I had this incredibly lifelike hallucination. I was myself, but at the same time, I was different. I had all these friends and social activities. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it was as if I was living a completely new life. And this is the thing, Wallace. I liked that life better than my real one.”

He rests his hand on top of mine. “Sly told me a little bit about it. This is what’s important to remember. What happened to you is beyond traumatic. You almost died, Chelsea. Hallucination or no hallucination, you don’t just automatically bounce back from that. It’s a process. You give yourself time to heal physically—and mentally.” He looks at me, really looks. “And you know, it might not be a bad idea to talk to someone . . . a professional.”

“I am a professional.”

“Of course you are.” He waves his hand in the air. “But you know what they say. ‘She who represents herself has a fool for a client.’ ”

“That’s for lawyers, not psychologists.” I stifle a laugh.

“You get the gist.” He squeezes my shoulder. “You need someone who specializes in this sort of thing, someone who can be objective. Someone who understands these dreams you had. And let me just suggest this, if you loved the life you hallucinated, why not create it in your real life? A young woman like you shouldn’t work so hard. You should have lots of friends and a calendar full of social events.”

I don’t know why, because I probably sound like a lunatic, but I blurt, “But there wouldn’t be Knox Hart.”

“Who’s Knox Hart?”

“A man in my hallucination.”

“Ah, the plot thickens, as your Uncle Sylvester would say.”

Yes, the plot always thickens. Or as Uncle Sylvester’s favorite screenplay writer Jim Thompson would say, “There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.”

“And could this Knox fellow represent someone real in your life? Because it seems unlikely, at least from what I know about dreams, that you pulled him out of thin air. Austin maybe?”

“Not Austin, definitely not Austin. And I don’t think so. Don’t think I’m nuts, but I’ve done extensive research to track him down, and he simply doesn’t exist.” I tell Wallace about my ER doctor and the power of suggestion.

“Is the ER doc single?” Wallace waggles his brows.

“I don’t think so. Ugh, what am I going to do?”

“You’re going to keep on keeping on, that’s what you’re going to do. In the meantime, no big changes, just focus on you. By this time next year, we’ll re-evaluate. Now come see our tree.”

That evening, Uncle Sylvester and Wallace take me to a posh restaurant in Beverly Hills. We sit in a gorgeous solarium with a twelve-foot Christmas tree that’s been decorated completely in fresh flowers. It’s beyond impressive, though I can’t help wondering how they keep the flowers from dying. Or do they change them out every few days? They’re real, I know, because when no one was looking, I snuck a feel.

We order a bottle of French wine and then another. The food is so good that I’m stuffing myself. Had I known how delicious everything was going to be, I would’ve worn more stretchy pants. I see Uncle Sylvester and Wallace exchange gleeful glances. They’re intent on fattening me up.

“Should we talk about Christmas?” Uncle Sylvester says. “In light of everything that has happened, I want us to make a concerted effort to spend it together. Lolly and the kids, too.”

Since my sister and I flew the coop, Uncle Sylvester almost always spends Christmas abroad. Last year it was a villa in Greece. The year before, he and Wallace got an Airbnb in Portugal. The previous Christmas they spent in the Swiss Alps.

He pins me with his blue eyes, so much like my mother’s that l feel a lump forming in my throat. “You girls need to work your stuff out. Life is too damned short to have all this pent-up animosity between you.”

I’m too buzzed on French wine to get into it about Lolly. As far as Christmas, I can’t imagine anything better than spending it with my uncle and Wallace.

“Where?” I say. “Where do you want to have it?”

“It makes the most sense to have it here. But if you’d prefer, we could all come to San Francisco. Whatever you want, Chelsea, as long as we do it.”

Before we leave the restaurant, they have my firm commitment. At home, or rather Uncle Sylvester’s penthouse, I change into lounge pants with a roomy elastic waist. Uncle and Wallace are night owls. I’ll try to stay up with them but don’t know how long I’ll last. Between flying and all the wine, I can barely keep my eyes open.

The three of us sprawl on the sofas, sleek velvet numbers that are more about form than they are functional. This is to say, they’re not very comfortable but look fantastic. The whole room looks like something out of Architectural Digest ’s Christmas edition. Besides the tree with its delicate blown glass ornaments, there’s an antique menorah (Wallace is half Jewish) on the sofa table that reminds me of a museum piece. Wallace says he got it at a garage sale in Brentwood. That’s no garage sale I’ve ever been to.

“I’m turning in early.” Wallace feigns a yawn, then kisses me sweetly on the cheek. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

I know he’s only leaving to give Uncle Sylvester and me time to talk alone.

The minute he’s out of earshot, I say to Uncle Sylvester, “Don’t you dare let that one get away.”

“Nope. He’s a keeper.” He rises from the couch and pours us each a nightcap of cognac.

Tomorrow I’m going to have one hell of a headache.

“I meant what I said about you and Lolly,” he starts, as I knew he would. “This has gone on long enough between you two.”

“I have no idea what she’s so angry about.”

“Yes, you do, and you have to work it out, because you need each other. You need your sister as much as she needs you, even though neither of you will admit it.”

I can’t argue with that. I miss my sister. “Did she go to Mom and Dad’s grave on the anniversary?” I don’t tell him that she did in my dream, that we talked about it, and she said she’d forgiven them.

He shakes his head.

“Do you still hate him, Uncle Sylvester? Do you still hate my father?”

“I never hated him. I am . . . I was . . . just so angry. Angry as much for him taking his own life as I was for him taking my sister’s.”

“Was?” I ask, because he made a point of using the past tense. “You’re not angry anymore?”

“At some point, you have to let the anger go, because it’ll eat away at you like a cancer. I loved your father, Chelsea. I loved him like he was my own brother. What he did was unthinkable, abominable. But all the anger in the world isn’t going to bring either of them back. The only thing I have left of them is my memories. To honor my sister, to honor all that she meant to me, I owe it to her and I owe it to myself to hold only the good memories dear and banish the bad ones forever.”

“When I was in the coma, when I was having the weird dream, you told me that Mom and Dad loved each other. Even in the very end, they loved each other. And that they would want to be buried together.” I let that hang out there, waiting to see what he’ll say in real life.

“In my heart of hearts, I believe that’s true. I believe we did the right thing.” He reaches out and takes my hand. “Despite everything that happened, they loved each other, but most of all, they loved you and Lolly more than anything else in the world. What I know above all else is that they wouldn’t want you to worry about where they were buried. And I know this, they’d be so proud of you, Chelsea, they’d be so proud of all you’ve accomplished.”

It’s my so-called accomplishments that are my focus as I fly home. A baby cries. Fifty-six minutes of non-stop wailing, and it barely registers. I’m too in my head, wondering about my trajectory, how I went from having patients to having clients. It occurred to me last night, after my talk with Uncle Sylvester, that as I morphed from marriage therapist to inspirational speaker, the nomenclature for the people I supposedly help, changed. How did that happen? It’s odd that it took me this long to notice it and for me to dislike it so.

Tomorrow is a workday, and I’m already dreading it. I tell myself it’s only because I don’t have much to do now that all my speaking engagements have been canceled. The days are spent posting inane inspirational sayings on my socials and deciding what Ronnie and I should eat for lunch. Austin calls four or five times a day, then winds up at my place, where we spend the evening deciding what we should eat for dinner.

It’s a bumpy landing, and my stomach pitches as we speed down the runway. Mercy sakes alive, the baby stops crying. I can hear him cooing in economy as I reach up for my carry-on, only to have a tall gentleman wearing a UC Davis sweatshirt do it for me. I start to ask him if he knows a Professor Knox Hart, only to stop myself.

My phone rings the second I step inside the airport gate. Austin’s timing is impeccable.

“I’m here, parked at the curb in arrivals until they order me to leave.”

“You didn’t have to come, Austin. I was planning to Uber home or take a cab.”

“It was on my way,” he lies.

I rush out into the cold, remembering that I’m no longer in LA, and scramble into the passenger seat before the surly cop walking up and down the sidewalk can tell Austin to move on.

“You have a good time?” he asks.

“I did.”

We’re quiet on the ride home. But I’m secretly delighted that he’s chosen to pick me up at the airport. It feels good to be here with him, not alone in a cab on my way to an empty house.

“Should we pick something up for dinner or go out?”

“Let’s go out,” I say on a whim, the solarium restaurant in Beverly Hills and good French wine fresh on my mind.

Austin chooses a bistro not far from the condo. It’s known for its fried green beans and butterscotch pudding. In all the time I’ve lived here, I’ve never eaten at this particular restaurant. It’s a favorite with the ballpark crowd, and during home games, it’s impossible to get in without a reservation. Tonight, though, it’s nearly empty. There’s only a group of dressed-up women in the corner near a window facing the street. Judging by the wrapped gifts piled on one end of the long table, they’re here for an early Christmas celebration.

The host seats us as far away from them as she possibly can, but it’s a small place. And sound carries. One of the women has an annoying, honking laugh that fills the entire room and echoes off the walls.

“We can go somewhere else if you want,” Austin says.

“Nah, we’re already here, and the food is supposed to be good.”

My appetite is returning but only in fits and starts. I’d wager a guess that it has to do with the quality of the food. I peruse the menu and settle on the pork chops and braised greens. Austin gets the fried green beans to start us off. I’m anxious to see what all the hullabaloo is about.

As soon as our server leaves to put our orders in, Austin says, “I think I should move back in. My lease is up in January.”

He’s been staying nights at the condo but in the guest room. I don’t know if it’s to give me time to recuperate from my head injury or from him. But I think I’m ready to see where we go from here.

“That’s something we can definitely talk about,” I say, using my therapist voice. “I’m not going to lie, Austin, when it comes to you, I have trust issues. It’s going to take a lot of work for me to get over that hurdle.”

“I understand,” he says, and hangs his head like he’s ashamed of the way he walked out on me.

But I can tell it’s an act. In his mind, we’ve already bridged the gap from divorced to reconciliation. In his mind, he’s moving back in January.

In my mind, he may be right.