Chapter 12
Hannah
Hello, Hannah,” Dr. Xavier says from my computer screen. In her office across the country, sitting ramrod-straight in a high-backed chair, she lowers her glasses and pins me with X-ray eyes. “It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with you.”
“Yeah, well.” I cross my legs in my San Francisco hotel room, attempting to sit as primly as her. “I ate it onstage. And the next thing I knew, seeing you was mandatory.”
“Mm.” She has a moleskin notebook open on her lap. “I can’t imagine why Manifest would feel connecting you to their on-call therapist was a wise idea.”
“More like a punishment,” I say under my breath.
This isn’t my first round with Dr. X. Ten months ago, the condolence email from Roger Braverman (more accurately, his assistant) had offered me grief counseling.
I took them up on it—once. One conversation was all it took to realize Dr. X’s aims and mine were diametrically opposed.
“The client notes her displeasure.” Dr. Xavier jots something down. “But, seeing as how talking to me is necessary if you’d like to continue performing, where should we start? Your substance abuse, your erratic decision-making, or your apathy?”
“Oof.” Ginny sits beside me on the hotel couch, looking appreciatively at the screen. “Dr. X did not come to play.”
Maybe it’s because the majority of Dr. Xavier’s clientele is composed of musicians with giant egos that require leveling, but she’s always been like . . . this.
“Or should we skip the symptoms and cut straight to the problem?” she asks. “How have you been dealing with your grief since the last time we spoke? Did you take my advice to have a heart-to-heart with your parents?”
I clear my throat.
Her pale gray eyes are like magnifying lenses behind her glasses. “How often are you speaking with them?”
“Not . . . often.”
“Not ever,” Ginny corrects.
My clipped answers can’t be doing much for Dr. X’s patience. “And why is that?”
I lace my fingers together. “They want to talk about Ginny like she’s gone, or not at all.”
Dr. Xavier leans forward. “What’s wrong with talking about Ginny like she’s gone?”
I turn to Ginny. In her eyes I see an echo of the small, shy little girl who used to follow me on the playground, the little sister I needed to protect. “She’s not gone.”
“She’ll always live in your heart, certainly.” Dr. X watches me, as if the cliché is a test.
I don’t meet her eyes. I’m not stupid, so I know the last thing I should confess is that Ginny’s in the room with us.
That I take her everywhere, that what started as me talking to her because I couldn’t bear her absence turned into imagining her responses, and then it was full conversations, whole days spent together, and now it’s gotten to the point where I’m half convinced she is listening and talking back to me from wherever she is.
And that’s the only reason I still get out of bed. “Next subject, please.”
There’s a beat of silence as Dr. X studies me. Finally, she says, “Let’s start over. You’re currently in San Francisco?”
“Yep. We’re playing the Bellmore this weekend. Another venue way out of our league.” At least it had been until our recent internet fame. It feels safer not to think too hard about what’s happening, lest it vanish in a puff of smoke.
“You know, I never got the chance to ask,” Dr. X says. “How did you start playing?”
This feels like safer territory. “My dad teaches guitar at a shop back home called Fuller’s. When we were young and my mom had to work overnight shifts, Ginny and I would hang out there.”
“Must’ve been nice to spend time with your dad.”
“Not for him. We were terrors. He was always yelling at us about touching stuff. But it was fun to run around and pretend to be rock stars. One day he caught me staring at this guitar they got in second-hand. It was beautiful. Baby blue. And instead of telling me to leave it alone, he took it off the wall and let me hold it.”
“You got his blessing.”
I tap a thumb against my knee. “I surprised him by playing a song he taught beginners—‘Stormy Monday’ by the Allman Brothers. I must’ve heard it a million times.” I smiled to myself. “He said I had a good ear.”
Dr. X’s voice is gentle. “What did that mean to you?”
“Well, I’d never been good at anything before. So . . . ”
“How did Ginny react?”
I look at Ginny. “She stopped asking for her own guitar once I started taking lessons. It was like she understood I needed something of my own.”
“How old was she then?”
“If I was ten, she was nine.”
“Emotionally perceptive for a child.”
“I really was,” Ginny agrees.
“Was that how it was between you? You each had your own lanes, gave each other space? That’s pretty common with sib—”
Ginny and I laugh at exactly the same time. “Not at all,” I say. “Ginny gave me no space. She followed me everywhere except to music lessons. She was like this overeager puppy. No matter how much I wanted to ditch her sometimes, I couldn’t.”
“I’m not sure you’re painting me in the most flattering light,” Ginny says with a sniff.
“In sixth grade there was this girl named Yully Gonzalez who was a total bully. One day at recess, she started calling Ginny a baby for following me everywhere.”
“No, it was the lisp,” Ginny reminds me.
“Oh, right. Ginny also had this lisp when she was young. Yully kept mocking her and made Ginny cry. Obviously, I couldn’t have that, so I took my gum and smashed it in Yully’s hair, which was her shining glory.
It was a dumb move, considering she had about two feet and fifty pounds on me. You should’ve seen me run.”
“I can’t imagine that was well received by your teachers.”
“Oh, I got in huge trouble. Yully had to cut a chunk out of her hair, which was cool, but my parents met with the principal, I was threatened with suspensions, blah blah blah. It was fine in the end. Only a three-day suspension.”
The doctor steeples her fingers. “Did you often play Ginny’s hero?”
“Isn’t sarcasm against the Hippocratic oath?”
She smiles. “Psychologists don’t take the Hippocratic oath.”
Damn, cold as ice. “If you ask my mom, I ruined Ginny.”
“How so?”
“Corrupted her with my music and my friends—”
“Stoners and delinquents,” Ginny adds, parroting our mom.
“Got her to follow me to Cal State instead of one of the fancy schools she got into. Then convinced her to become my band manager instead of going to med school. There were a million reasons. She said Ginny’s loyalty to me sank her like a lead weight.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is Ginny chose me, which meant it was my job to take care of her, and I failed. In the worst way a person can.” I cut my eyes away. “Ah.” I clear my throat. “Kudos, Doc. You got me to talk.”
Dr. Xavier’s penetrating gaze remains on me until I look at her again. I don’t like the way she tilts her head. “May I ask you something?”
I shift on the couch. “I have a feeling you’ll do it either way.”
“Right now, at this moment, what’s the thing you want most in the world?”
What an easy question. “I want my sister back.”
Still, that impenetrable stare. “And are you coming to terms with the fact that what you want is impossible?”
I stay quiet. Ginny only cuddles closer.