They Don’t Know About Us (Take Me Back to the Start #3)

1. Kendall

CHAPTER ONE

Kendall

NOW

“How are you today, Kendall?”

I shrug, brushing off the question as if it’ll simply roll off my shoulder. “I’m fine.”

A pause. It’s an opening. A moment for me to elaborate. Explain in detail the turkey sandwich I picked at for lunch instead of actually eating. Or the time I spent sitting in traffic, stuck at a red light on the way to the store in a haze that washed over me, trapping me in frozen panic.

“Okay,” my therapist continues when I remain quiet.

Her solemn face on the computer screen appears a little more pixelated today for some reason.

Something I focus on instead of her probing questions that seem to get me nowhere.

“How about you tell me something that happened today? It could be good, or it could be bad. Something you can share with me.”

I adjust my wedding ring, letting it align in symmetry with my engagement ring.

The row of diamonds glints off the lamp sitting on the side table next to me.

It’s glass-blown with five flowers angled toward the ground.

They’re meant to look like lilies of the valley with metal stems and curled leaves.

I got it at a yard sale ages ago against my husband’s wishes.

His playfully teasing complaints of it looking tacky and outdated only made me want it more.

“James made me lunch,” I finally tell her. A small glimpse into my marriage and the ways my husband tries so hard to be there for me. A fruitless effort at times. “Turkey sandwich.”

“That was nice of him.”

“I didn’t eat it,” I confess bluntly. “I…threw it away.”

I’m met with more impassive silence.

“He made me lunch,” I say again. “And then he got Sophia and took her to his mom’s, and…I couldn’t eat it. So, I threw it away.” Another twirl around my knuckle.

A rough throat clearing, like she isn’t sure how to use her therapist brain and process what I just told her, rattles through the speaker. “Okay, why do you think you did that?”

“I don’t know.” Silence rings through the house. I hear a dog bark in the distance, probably our neighbor’s. The world around me still spins, still turns on its axis, while I’m stuck here, in this vortex with someone my insurance company refers to as an “in-network provider.”

She sighs, and I don’t think she meant for it to filter through her flared nostrils the way it does, bypassing her pursed lips with an air of defeat.

“Okay,” she says. “Why don’t we start over.” A reboot. A fresh start to take back to the first few minutes of our session into something more productive. “Can you tell me about your depression?”

It throws me off guard. Her no-nonsense approach. She’s flitting past all the pleasantries and is getting straight to the point. “What about it?”

“Tell me what you know about it.”

Facts. That’s doable. What I know and am aware of.

No afterthought or opinions. Just straight facts.

“I know I’ve been depressed…for a while.

It was easier to hide when I was younger mainly because it was just small bouts of sadness that would eventually go away.

I didn’t really know what it was then. And it got worse after I had Sophia. ”

She leans forward, linking her fingers together. “How do you think it got worse after Sophia?”

“I-I don’t know,” I stutter. “I don’t really want to talk about that yet.”

“That’s okay,” she says. She leans back in her seat.

I can see the decline in the momentum we’ve barely established.

“Can you describe it?” she asks. A swift change in direction.

That’s good. She’s not forcing the answers out of me.

I can work with that. I can meet her in the middle. Or, at least, I can try.

“What do you mean?”

“What does it feel like?” she clarifies. “For example, if you were to imagine what it looks like, how would you describe it?” Her hands mime an imaginary shape, outlining a makeshift mold of my depression.

I close my eyes, envisioning an answer. Behind the dark curtain I’ve pulled closed in front of me, I see a bassinet.

It’s a grayish-blue color, and it isn’t sitting on solid legs.

Instead, they’re connected by an attachment.

It’s rounded at the bottom, allowing it to rock back and forth, which is what it’s doing right now.

Swaying with nothing to push it. Swinging on its own.

Of course, I don’t say any of this. I can’t talk about what that bassinet means to me. Instead, I answer, “It feels heavy but not bulky. Like I can hold it between my hands, but I can’t lift it off the ground.”

“Do you want to pick it up?”

I nod. “But only because I don’t know how to leave it behind. Not because I think it’ll benefit me in any way.”

“And if you were to leave it behind, how would that make you feel?”

“I think…nervous? Maybe a little anxious too.”

“Why?”

“Because…” I have trouble saying the words, ones I don’t know how to admit and say out loud. Because if I do, I can’t take them back. The ugliest, most shameful parts of me will be out in the world, no longer hidden in the lower pit of my stomach where I will always remember they’re there.

“I’m listening,” she coaxes.

My lips purse, letting out a shaky sigh. “Sometimes, it’s the only thing that feels familiar.”