Chapter 27
Chapter 27
JoAnn Sands’s office is in a bright yellow Victorian cottage in Berkeley, not far from campus. She specializes in trauma and is booked out until summer, but as a professional courtesy, she made a slot for me. Seven thirty in the morning.
The street is empty, and I have the added benefit that the meters don’t start running until nine. I’m early because I thought there would be traffic, but it was smooth sailing on the bridge with the reverse commute.
The last time I saw a therapist was after my parents died. Uncle Sylvester booked us appointments with everyone from child psychiatrists to murder-suicide support groups.
The Victorian, which houses three psychologists’ offices, is as cheery on the inside as it is on the outside. The shared waiting room has brightly colored walls and rugs and pictures of nature.
“Come on in.” JoAnn is a tall woman, with steel gray hair with a blunt cut, who reminds me of Diane Keaton. She ushers me into her office, which is slightly more muted than the waiting room—a little less cheery—and motions for me to take a seat. “What brings you in?”
I tell her about the accident and what precipitated it, about my vivid dream and all the people in it, including Knox, and how I’m having trouble adjusting to the real world. I also tell her about my parents and Lolly.
“The accident, but mostly the dream, left me unsatisfied with my life,” I say. “I realize that it’s a phase, the aftermath of trauma, and I’m afraid I’ll make decisions that I’ll regret later on.”
“Like what?”
“Quitting my job.” I pause, then laugh. “Trading all of it, the condo, the ex-husband, the life I’ve built for a cat.”
She smiles, but it’s a quizzical smile. “A cat?”
“It’s a long story, but I was just sort of using it as a symbol for the life I had in my dream. The cat is that life.”
“But your dream wasn’t real.”
I nod and start to cry.
She hands me a box of tissues and tells me our time is up.
On our second appointment, I tell her about what Knox said about how we all have pictures in our heads of what the life we want should look like. But what if my original picture was molded by what happened to my parents and my new picture is based on an alternative reality?
“Neither seem very healthy, so where does that leave me?” I ask.
“What about either picture isn’t healthy?”
“The first one is needy. It’s all about security and safety.”
“What’s wrong with that?” She leans back in her chair. “What’s wrong with wanting security and safety? Even putting aside what happened to your parents, security and safety seems like one of the basic food groups. But you tell me.”
I don’t have a ready answer. I want to scream I’m here, so you can tell me . “Are you saying that the first picture is the one I should choose?”
“I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that the first and second pictures don’t have to be mutually exclusive of each other.”
“But the second picture is born out of a lie. Or not a lie, but a fantasy. A hallucination. There is no Knox, there is no idyllic town where everyone knows me and wants to be my friend. Basically, I want to bury myself back in my dream, which is impossible.”
“Did you ever consider that there may be a third picture?”
“And what would that be?”
“The whole kit and kaboodle. You get what’s behind door number one, door number two, and door number three.”
“Are you saying I keep my security and safety, quit my job, move to Ghost, and make real friends? Is that what’s behind the three doors?”
“It’s whatever you see behind them. It’s your picture.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t see anything clearly. Just confusion. Tell me what you see.”
She fixes me with a long, hard look, then says, “Did you come here for a crystal ball or a therapist?”
I’m in the bathtub when Lolly calls.
“I have a date tonight,” she says. “What should I wear?”
“Really? Who’s the date with?”
“My mechanic, if you can believe it.”
“Don’t be so snobby,” I tell her. “I think it’s great. What’s he like?”
“Well, he’s not old, he’s not in the entertainment business, and he’s divorced with two kids. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”
“Is it possible that all that sarcasm masks deep insecurity?”
“Is it possible that you’re a bitch?”
I laugh. “Where are you going?”
“Dinner and a movie. Very original.”
“I’d go with something understated. A nice pair of jeans and a dressy blouse. But not too dressy.”
“Flats or heels?”
“Boots.”
“Because they’re made for walking?”
“Yeah, something like that. How are the kids?”
“Luna is getting an F in PE, and Taylor has decided that he wants to be a garbage man when he grows up, because he likes the idea of hanging off the side of a truck. Tonight, they’re with Brent and the Ancient One.”
“You mean the woman who is Brent’s age?”
“Who’s being sarcastic now?”
“Does the mechanic stand a chance?” I ask.
There’s a long stretch of silence, then, “I like him. And he’s madly in love with me.”
“I’m not surprised, but how do you know that?” I rise from the tub, letting the water sluice off me before toweling off.
“He told me.”
“So this isn’t your first date.”
“Nope.”
“You’ve been holding out on me.”
“You held out on me for twenty-four years, so we’re not even close to even,” she says. “Gotta go.”
Despite her surliness, I know she’s close to forgiving me, or else she wouldn’t have called in the first place.
I’m dressing when I hear Austin come through the door. For the last few weeks, all he’s been talking about is Bonaire. I think he needs this vacation more than I do.
I should be more excited about it than I am and find myself going through the motions just to make him happy. I bought a new bathing suit, even though my old one is perfectly good. And I called the hotel to get activity recommendations, so we don’t while away our time lying on the beach, getting skin cancer.
“Here you are.” Austin throws his tie on the bed and starts taking off his shoes.
The move has been a slow process. He’s been hammered at work, a lot of people getting divorced in this town. But most of his clothes are here, making me miss the extra space I had in the closet. He has a couple more weeks left on his lease, plenty of time, I keep telling him. Which in and of itself should be an ominous warning sign.
“Did you get that restaurant list I sent you?” he says.
“Uh, I’ll check my email.” I saw the list about an hour ago but want to talk about something else other than Bonaire. Anything else, actually.
“Want to go for a walk?”
I wave my hand over the pajamas I have on. “It’s kind of late for a walk, don’t you think?”
“It’s only seven thirty. And it’s a nice night.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” It is my night for dinner, and I have big plans to zap us frozen lasagna in the microwave.
“They sent out for pizza at the office. But if you’re hungry, we can grab something on our walk. Come on, throw some clothes on. A little exercise will do us both good.”
I don’t want to, but I do it anyway, because it’s better than talking about our trip to Bonaire.
On the street, Austin takes my hand, and we stroll in the direction of the ballpark. Austin was right, it’s a perfect San Francisco night. Breezy but not too cold. And no fog in sight.
There’s a man rolled up in a blanket, sleeping in a doorway. Across the street is the woman from our building, walking her cat. As strange as it is, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the fluffy feline on a leash. I wave, but she’s too busy scooping up cat poop with a plastic bag to see me.
The bars are doing a brisk business from the after-work crowd, reminding me of happy hour at the Ghost Inn. Half-priced drinks and five-dollar bites that don’t exist.
The smell of greasy burgers fills the sidewalk, and my stomach growls.
“You want to get something here?” Austin says.
It’s one of the few eateries left that we haven’t tried.
“I don’t want to eat alone.”
“I’ll get a milkshake or something.”
We go inside, but the line is too long. “Let’s find something else,” I say.
We go back outside and head toward the bay.
Austin pulls me down onto a bench facing the shoreline, where we watch a flock of seagulls dip in and out of the water. There’s just enough light from the restaurants and bars to make out the birds plunge-diving for prey.
“I want to talk to you about something.”
The first thing that goes through my mind is that he’s leaving again. The last time he did it, he sprung it on me just like this. One minute, we were this happy couple, and the next, he was feeling restless and unfulfilled. A wave of panic passes through me, making my stomach clench, then a strange calm.
He starts, “What do you say we renew our vows in Bonaire? Okay, renew isn’t exactly the right word given our status, but you get the gist. I guess you’d call it a recommitment ceremony. Just the two of us. And later, when we come home, we could invite everyone and make it official.”
I turn towards him on the bench, our knees now touching. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
His lips tip up in a huge grin, the same grin that used to turn me inside out. “Yeah, I was going to ask you tomorrow during our dinner date, do the whole down-on-one-knee thing, except we’re beyond proposals, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know, Austin. A few months ago, you were engaged to someone else.”
He’s quiet at first, chewing on the revelation that I might not make this easy for him. I suspect he expected me to jump into his arms with joy, even gratitude.
“It was a mistake, Chelsea. I got caught up in the thrill of the new, I suppose. It’s nothing I can explain with any kind of clarity; it’s just something that happened. And when you almost died, when I almost lost you for good, it put everything in perspective for me. It made me see what I had given up. Because we were good together, Chels. We were a team, working toward a common goal. I guess I just got scared of that.”
“Why?” I ask him. “Why were you scared?” Because it’s the first time he’s mentioned fear, and it seems significant.
He chuckles. “Okay, we’re going to do this”—he waves his hands between us—“the therapist-client thing.”
“Or how about the-woman-you-left-out-of-the-blue thing, who you’re now asking to spend the rest of her life with you?”
“Fair enough,” he says, contrite. “I suppose I was afraid that there was more out there.”
“In other words, that you could do better.”
“Don’t say it like that, Chelsea. That’s not what I meant.”
Except it’s exactly what he meant.
I return to that day at the gold mine museum, just before the bridge broke, and I died right before Knox saved me. Right before I returned to Planet Earth. He was saying something.
“ You asked me the other day what I’m looking for after Sienna, whether I still want the picture of the life I’d imagined with her . I told you I still did. What I didn’t tell you, what I didn’t know until today, is that I want this . Magic . Nothing less than magic .”
At the time, his words were cryptic. But now they make sense.
I take Austin’s hand and squeeze it. “You were looking for magic.”
He chuckles again. “But there’s no such thing. No one knows that better than a divorce attorney.” He lifts his brows. “Or for that matter, a marriage counselor. But what we had, Chelsea, was good.”
“You mean good enough.”
“Why are you twisting my words?” he says. “I love you. I always have. And I always will. I merely got caught up in a moment of self-doubt. It’s over now.”
I start to respond, but he holds up his hand that he isn’t finished.
“I know I hurt you. I know I have a lot of making up to do. But I also believe I’ve proven that I’m up to the task.”
It’s true that he’s been by my side every day since the accident. Without him, I would’ve been even more lost than I am now. And I love him. I never stopped.
“Lolly says I was never near death after the accident,” I say, and I can see that he’s confused by the turn in the conversation. Even perturbed. He did just ask me to marry him, after all. But I’m getting to it. “Even so,” I continue, “I feel like a part of me died. I feel like a part of me was reborn, too. And what I learned is good isn’t enough. I want magic. Maybe you’re right, and magic is setting my expectations too high. But I’m willing to take that chance.”
His eyes are soft in the moonlight, and the way he’s looking at me makes my heart fold in half.
“Then magic will be our motto.” He holds me against him, and I can feel his heart beating in his chest. How easy it would be to stay this way forever.
“I’m sorry, Austin, I can’t accept your proposal.”
He pulls away and gently clasps my shoulders. “Come on, Chelsea, don’t punish me for one mistake. If you need more time for me to prove myself, then we’ll wait. But this is everything we always wanted.”
“That’s the thing; it’s not. At least not for me. There was a time when I thought it was, but now everything is different.” Which isn’t strictly the truth. I still want some of the same things I once thought he gave me. Security, safety, love, and happiness.
But I want magic, too.
“Don’t do this.” His voice breaks.
I reach out and trace his face with my finger, feeling like I know what I’m doing for the first time since I took that long elevator ride to the Top of the Mark. “You’re a good man, Austin. You, too, deserve nothing less than magic. And I hope with all my heart that you get it.”
The next day, I stop at the coffee place in the lobby of my office building, buy two coffees—one for me and one for Ronnie—bring them up to the second floor, and promptly quit.
“I’m going back to private practice,” I tell Ronnie. “Cancel whatever lectures we have scheduled.”
“Thank God.” She collapses on the sofa and splays her arms wide. “I’m taking a job in Seattle and didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Really? Because I planned to keep you on. That is, if you still wanted to be my assistant.”
“I don’t think you can afford me anymore.” Her entire face lights up. “McKenzie Scott hired me to help her give away her billions. Okay, a bit of an exaggeration. But she needs an assistant, and Barbara from TED Talks put in a good word for me. She knows her through mutual associates.” She waves her hand in the air. “Six degrees of separation and all that.”
Excitement radiates off her in waves. And for a few seconds, I remember what it was like to be her, to be filled with the promise of new possibilities, like a whole new life is waiting around the corner.
“Wow, it sounds like quite a job. Are you okay with leaving San Francisco?”
“God, yes. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need a change in the worst way. I feel like nothing is happening for me here, like I’m standing still.”
“No one understands that better than I do.” I wrap my arms around her. “I’m so happy for you, Ronnie. I’m going to miss you like crazy, but I’m thrilled for you.”
“And you,” Ronnie says. “Private practice? When did this all come about?”
“When I realized I wasn’t happy anymore. When I realized this”—I gaze around the office at the small empire I built—“isn’t who I am anymore. I started out with the simple goal of helping people, and I believe I can do that better one on one.”
She nods, a world of understanding in her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve been that into it for a while. Even before the accident. Are you going to keep this office?” She takes a visual lap around the room. “You’ve got me for two more weeks. If you want, I can help you turn this into the waiting room, and we can tweak your office to better accommodate patients. Get some comfy sofas, that kind of thing.”
“Thank you, Ronnie. But I’ve decided to start from scratch.” I think about JoAnn Sands’s cheery Victorian cottage, about the muted colors and nature pictures on her walls, how it felt more like a home than a therapist’s office. “I’ll start looking next week.”
For now, I need a minute to breathe.