Chapter 31
Back in the quaint office with coastal-blue walls and nautical décor, I felt no more comfortable than the first visit.
“This is a nice surprise, having you both back in my office.”
I’d been just as surprised as Shari when we both received the email from Cy three days ago, asking for this in-person session. Frankly, it scared me.
Cy sat up a little straighter. “I’m about to move to Tennessee, so I thought we should do one more in person before then.”
His statement punched me hard in the gut and took the breath right out of me for a painful moment.
Finding my voice, I spoke up. “He’s trying to take my daughter to Tennessee with him even though I’ve asked him not to.”
Shari jotted something down in her notebook, probably something on the lines of Junie wants what she can’t have.
Three weeks of Zoom sessions, she knew about the custody battle and what I did to lose custody in the first place.
“Cy, why do you feel it’s necessary to continue to keep custody of Fern? ”
“I don’t think Junie is ready to take a child on full-time by herself.”
Now I sat up straighter. Turning on the couch, I faced my brother head-on. “But I am, Cy. If you’d just come by the house and stay longer than a hot minute, you’d see. I have her room ready. I even finished the quilt Olla was making her.”
Cy scoffed. “It takes more than a bedroom remodel to be a parent.”
“I know that!”
“You haven’t had to be a parent. It’s taking care of your child on your good days and the hard ones.
Making sure they’re fed, bathed, educated, loved.
It’s not putting them in danger.” He combed his fingers through his hair.
“Parenting is twenty-four seven. You don’t get weekends off. You have no idea.”
“What makes you the authority on parenting?”
“I’ve had to be one ever since I was eleven years old. That’s roughly twenty-six years of experience.”
I flinched at his sharp tone and the brutal truth. Sitting back, I started drawing circles in the velvet material on the armrest. A drink would calm me better, but the textured sofa would have to do.
He turned to Shari. “Junie has no experience in parenting.”
“What about before her incarceration? Didn’t Junie have custody of Fern then?”
“She came straight to my house from the hospital. She and the baby both had babysitters practically around the clock. Me and my wife. A few ladies from our community came over to help her while we were at work.”
“Junie, why did you need so much help?”
Biting the inside of my lip, I tried to come up with a response that didn’t make me sound like the victim.
My brother and I had that in common. We hated me being viewed in that role.
“I was diagnosed with postpartum depression at my six-week check-up. The doctor didn’t know about my struggle with substance abuse and gave me meds I had no business taking.
I should have spoken up, but I didn’t. I just wanted to feel normal again.
That’s on me. Most days I couldn’t get out of bed. ”
“That’s understandable. You’d just lost your husband and your grandmother,” Shari offered, but I was tired of accepting this reasoning.
“It’s not understandable at all. I started taking double doses of my meds until the doctor caught on and wouldn’t refill my prescription. So I started drinking again. I realize now how selfish I was.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My brother had just lost Olla too. He had to take care of her estate, take care of me, take care of Fern, take care of his family, and work full-time.” I looked at my brother. “I’ve never fully apologized for all that. I’m sorry, Cy. I really am.”
He met my eyes briefly, then returned to studying his hands.
Shari shifted in her chair. “Cy, you said you’ve been parenting for over twenty years. Would you elaborate on that?”
He looked up at her. “My parents . . .” He sighed.
“They’ve always been career-driven and that’s taken them all over the place.
We didn’t have much of a stable homelife with them gone so much.
My grandmother stayed with us when she could and we spent summers with her, but it has always been left up to me to take care of Junie. ”
Shari began writing again, but I wanted her to realize the extent of Cy raising me more than his blanketed answer.
“Cy isn’t just saying that. It’s the truth.
” I thought back over the years for examples.
“I remember him cooking our meals in the kitchen, not one of my parents. I had a bad habit of scraping my knees. Cy was the one to always patch me back up. And when I started my period, I went to him, not my mom. That’s how natural it felt, him being in the parenting role for me.
He didn’t tease me. Instead, he did a few Internet searches, then he went to the store and brought home the supplies I needed.
” I quickly swiped away a wayward tear and glanced at my brother, his shoulders hunched and his chest rising a little faster now.
“He’s always been my person. I can’t even imagine how much of a burden it’s been on you, Cy. ”
“Junie, what led up to you living with Cy?” Shari didn’t even look up from her notepad, writing a novel it seemed.
Cy spoke before I could. “Junie and our grandmother were thick as thieves. Olla had been taking care of Junie after her husband died and the plan was for Junie and the baby to live with her. Then Olla died suddenly and Junie’s blood pressure went through the roof.
It sent Junie into labor two and a half weeks early.
” Cy did something that shocked me so severely that tears splashed down my cheeks.
He reached for my hand. “It scared me. I thought we were going to lose you and the baby too.”
We shared a rare sibling moment that only needed significant eye contact and a slight head nod. It made me want to wrap my arms around him, to cling to the one steady rock I’d ever known, but his body language told me to tread lightly, so I stayed on my side of the couch.
He refocused on Shari as I sat there and quietly wept. “Olla would have wanted me to take care of Junie and Fern . . . I wanted that too, so we brought them home.”
“And where were your parents when all this happened?”
“Overseas. It took them a few days to get here, in time for the funeral. They stayed long enough to help me get Junie and the baby moved in, then they took off again, only coming back for Junie’s court hearing.”
“So . . . you haven’t seen them in almost a year?”
“Yes, but that’s what we’re used to.” Cy let go of my hand and grabbed me a tissue, ever the caretaker.
“Have either of you expressed to your parents how you feel about them being away so much of your lives?”
I cleared the lump from my throat. “It’s hard to when they’re so happy with what they do. How do you talk against their dreams?”
“You’re the children, not the parents. Shouldn’t they be the ones encouraging you to chase your dreams?”
Now I felt defensive on my parents’ behalf. “How could they encourage us to chase our dreams if they didn’t do the same?” I lifted my shoulders, releasing them on a stuttered breath. “Yes, I’ve resented them at times, a lot of times, but I can’t hold it against them.”
“Cy?” Shari motioned toward him. “Is this how you feel too?”
“More or less. Like, what’s the point in bringing it up to them now? What’s done is done. And honestly, I’m used to them not being around. When they are, it’s like trying to get to know strangers.”
“Maybe if you write them a letter? They need to know how their choices have affected you. It may go a long way in patching up your relationship with each other.”
“Why worry with our relationship? He’s leaving me too.” My throat closed and another stupid sob tried squeaking through.
“You’ve had a lot of that in your life. People leaving.”
I dried my face with another tissue. “Doesn’t everybody?”
Cy didn’t say anything and I was tired of talking too. I checked the time on the ship wheel clock. Only ten minutes to go.
Shari seemed to catch on that we were done, so she closed her notepad and tapped her pen on the cover.
“It’s your choice, but I want to encourage you to give some thought to writing those letters to your parents.
You don’t have to ever mail them, just do it as a venting exercise.
” She stood. “If either of you want to talk one-on-one, I’d be happy to make that happen. ”
We both stood too, and after saying our goodbyes, we left in a more somber state than we had arrived. This therapy was like going to the doctor to get stitches for a cut, but instead, the doctor takes out a knife and deepens the wound.