Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Love is a feeling that you feel and it says that you like someone or something.
From the sticky note correspondence of Gilbert Dalton and Ellie Sterns:
Eleanor—
I’ll be leaving this Friday afternoon and returning Sunday afternoon. Please refrain from holding a rave in my tent.
—Gilbert
Gil—
Just so I’m clear. No parties at your place?
—Ellie
P.S. Where are you going?
Eleanor—
No parties. PLEASE.
—Gilbert
P.S. Austin. I’ll be going every weekend.
Gil, Gil, Gil?—
Are you sure? I was going to make people pay a cover charge. I promise to follow a strict no-glitter policy.
—Ellie
P.S. What’s in Austin?
Eleanor—
Hilarious.
—Gilbert
P.S. The state capitol building.
Gil had returned from his weekend trip with a free-standing hammock he set up in his compound.
And he got very busy while Oliver and I were away during the day.
On Monday, the kitchen faucet stopped drip-drip-dripping.
On Tuesday, the door to the clothes dryer no longer required duct tape to keep it closed.
On Wednesday, the overgrown bushes in the front yard had been neatly trimmed.
On Thursday, I went to see Sunny.
Sunny’s office was twenty minutes down I-10 east in a little unassuming house that had been converted into an office building she shared with four other counselors.
The waiting room was small but cozy. I checked in at the front desk.
Only two minutes late today—that’s what we called progress—and took a seat in the middle of a long row of chairs lined up against one wall.
Generic prints dotted the beige walls. Four of them in total.
The second to last picture was just a tiny bit crooked.
Four other people sat scattered down the row.
A guy in a beanie with a jiggling leg stuck to his phone screen.
A middle-aged couple who sat ramrod straight without touching.
And a woman who looked in her forties and was in a sweater that would win an ugly Valentine’s sweater contest. She also had on matching earrings. And a headband.
It was deathly quiet. People did not make small talk in the waiting room at a therapist’s office. It wasn’t like a dentist’s office:
“What are you here for?”
“Just a cleaning.”
No, the small talk at a therapist’s office would go something like:
“What brings you in?”
“Oh, you know. Daddy issues with a strong side of social anxiety, negative self-talk, and an inability to hold meaningful relationships. You?”
I snorted and the couple’s eyes swung my way.
With a little wave, I settled back in my seat and clutched my purse to my chest. Before a therapy appointment, I was always nervous.
Patience had never especially been a strong trait with me.
But in this waiting room, it was worse for some reason.
A million questions raced through my head.
What if I didn’t have anything to talk about?
What if Sunny didn’t care about what I did have to talk about?
What if Sunny didn’t really like me and was only counting down the minutes until she could kick me out?
What if I was so messed up, Sunny couldn’t help me?
What if this was all a waste of time? What if Sunny went home every night after my appointment and over two huge glasses of wine, she told Mr. Sunny all about her most messed-up patient?
It’s weird I’m in therapy, right?
Intrusive thoughts aside, I’d been seeing Sunny for over two years. I’d learned a lot about myself—some things I liked, other things not so much.
“A huge part of therapy is gaining self-awareness,” Sunny often pointed out. Sometimes self-awareness sucked.
One of the other therapists stuck her head into the waiting room. “Dolores?”
The woman in the ugly Valentine’s sweater pushed to her feet and hurried across the room but she paused at the crooked picture. Quickly, she straightened it, sighing happily with her work, and continued to her session.
Sunny called me back a couple of minutes later. I plopped onto the oversized love seat and grabbed one of about a dozen throw pillows to hold on my lap. The office was small and cozy with soft colors and lighting. “A cocoon for feelings” Sunny had once described it.
Sunny settled into a matching chair across from me and picked up the notebook she scribbled in when we talked.
“How are you?” she said, arranging her skirt as she settled back into her chair. She liked broomstick skirts in bright colors and layers. Loose, linen shirts, and she especially loved a good crochet vest. She always smelled faintly of patchouli and sandalwood. My therapist was kind of a hippie.
“Okay.” I played with the fringe on the pillow.
She waited me out. I had never been able to pinpoint her age, but it was somewhere between thirty-five and fifty-five. She had one of those smooth, unlined faces with big dark eyes and long flowing dark hair.
“There’s a man living in a tent in my backyard.”
She froze and slowly set her notebook on the coffee table. “Why?”
“You remember the appointment with the lawyer?” It was wild that appointment had been only two weeks ago.
“Ollie had a grandson. No one knew about him. Ollie never said a word to anyone. But he knew about him. He left the café, the house, the property, everything to him and me. Fifty-fifty if we live on the property for six months.”
Sunny leaned back in her chair. “And now Ollie’s grandson is living in a tent in your backyard.”
“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “He’s a total stranger. I didn’t want a stranger living in the house with Oliver.”
“What’s his name?”
“Gil.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s quiet, kind of stern, keeps to himself. Doesn’t smile much. But he’s not awful, or anything. I don’t think I like him.”
Sunny hummed. “Really? That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
“You tend to like everyone. Why not him?”
I leaned my head on the back of the love seat and stared up at the ceiling. “He has no interest in keeping the house or the café. At the end of the six months, he wants to sell. It’s been in his family for years and he doesn’t seem to care at all.”
“Has he told you why?”
“He said Ollie abandoned his grandmother and mother and he doesn’t want anything to do with him.
” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I can’t see Ollie being like that though.
Wouldn’t a normal person be at least curious to learn more about his family history, about this town and the café and Ollie? But nope, he’s set on selling.”
Sunny frowned. “But why would he want to keep it?”
“Because…” My mouth snapped shut. She had a point. I hated it when she had a point. He didn’t have any emotional attachment to Ollie or the house or Two Harts. I sighed and hugged the pillow closer. “I guess when I say it out loud, it doesn’t make much sense.”
“How does that make you feel?”
The dreaded feelings question. “Horrible. Angry. Sad. Frustrated. That’s the only home Oliver knows.
We’ve been so happy there the last three years.
Gil doesn’t get that. He missed out on knowing Ollie.
” But there’s another feeling, too. I was almost embarrassed to say it out loud. “A little selfish, too.”
Sunny hummed. “Why’s that?”
“I guess all I’ve been thinking about is how my life is changed by all this.
” But Gil had to be feeling some kind of way about gaining a grandfather and a chunk of property in the middle of Texas.
He’d picked up his whole life and plunked it down in small-town Texas.
In a tent. “I haven’t thought about how this is all new to him. ”
Sunny arched one elegant, dark eyebrow. “That’s good work, Ellie.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“What does Gil think about living in the backyard?”
“He…actually, he hasn’t really complained at all.” Thinking back, he’d agreed without much of an argument. “Why do you think that is?”
Sunny picked up her notebook. “Why do you think that is?”
“I hate it when you make me answer my own questions.”
She grinned.
“I don’t know. Maybe because of Oliver?”
“How so?”
“When he found out I had a kid, he agreed to the arrangement without even an argument.”
Sunny wrote something else on her notepad. I liked to think it was a grocery shopping list and not one more thing wrong with me. “That’s rather respectful of him, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. He fixed the bathtub faucet, too.”
“That’s good, right?” Sunny asked.
“Sure, yes, of course. It needed to be fixed.” I’d discovered it last night when Oliver was about to take a bath. That shiny new handle turned so easily. I hadn’t realized how not-fun it was to wrestle with the pliers every day.
Sunny’s gaze moved from her notepad to my face. Another moment of waiting me out. Ugh.
“The thing is…I think he hates me,” I blurted out.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because.” I shrugged. “He does. I can tell.”
Sunny leaned forward, her dark shiny hair falling around her shoulders like a curtain. How does hair move like that? Mine took a hot iron and a lot of patience to wrangle into something mostly smooth and straight.
“I’ve known you for two years now, Ellie, and you are a hard person to not like.”
“Stop. I’m blushing.”
She smiled. “He does not hate you. You’re getting to know each other and you both have a lot of big decisions to make. Together.” Tapping her pen against her mouth, she sat back. “You know, maybe he’s scared.”
I snorted. “Of me?”
“Maybe not you exactly but that you are a big part of what his future is going to look like.”
“But it’s the same for me. I don’t know what I’m going to do if he sticks to this plan to sell.”
“I think you need to get to know each other. It’s the only way this is going to work.”
I frowned. “So how do I do that?”
“Ellie, my dear, it’s easy. You rely on your strengths.”