“I’ll think about it,” I whispered.
“Good.” He stood, staring down at me. “I have no desire to be visiting you next year in an institution, because you were too selfless to do the right thing.”
“That’s an oxymoron. Selflessness is the same as doing the right thing.”
Eugene shook his head, studying me intently, and answering with a cryptic, “Not always.”
I never did make Uncle Eugene his tea.
He left almost immediately after delivering his impassioned message about the postnuptial agreement. Then he emailed me a new draft of the document the next morning. I didn’t have time to read it, nor did I particularly want to.
Skipping lunch, I opted for an impromptu touch-base meeting with my therapist Friday afternoon. Dr. Kasai’s building wasn’t too far from my work and, once I gave her a brief overview of the situation via phone, she fit me in for a session.
Sometimes I just needed her to tell me I was behaving within normal parameters, that my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors weren’t too far off ordinary. These days, we usually met once a month—down from once a week—unless something major happened. Early on, I’d had difficulty trying to determine what was considered major. Now I was much better at making the distinction.
However, I left her office feeling both better and worse. Better because Dr. Kasai said my inner turmoil over present circumstances was completely normal and at the end of our session she’d assured me that she would happily testify—if the time came—that I was of sound mind, and seemed genuinely horrified that anyone would seek to prove the opposite.
I felt worse because . . . so many other reasons.
Whenever I found myself in the position of feeling dissonance with Dr. Kasai’s advice, which wasn’t often, I would call my friend Sandra, bribe her with yarn, and attempt to stealthily pick her brain.
Which is why I found myself in a yarn store on Friday night, perusing the aisle of chunky-weights, and reminding myself that I owned seven skeins of emerald green yarn in various fibers and weights. I definitely did not need another four hundred yards in a bulky weight cashmere blend.
“That’s a pretty color.” Sandra picked up the color I’d been eyeing. “Oh, silk and merino and cashmere!” She held it up to her face and stroked it over a cheek. “I love it. Are you going to buy it?”
Yes!
“No. You should get it.” I forced a smile.
“Are you sure?” She held it out to me.
Mine!
“I’m sure.” I pushed it back toward her, swallowing the childish urge to snatch it from her hand. I had a yarn addiction. It was a problem. I will overcome.
She gave me a quick once-over, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “How about this? I’ll put it in my basket, and if you tell me what has you looking like an antelope in the middle of an enema, I’ll buy it for you. For the record, if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with your family.”
I breathed a short laugh; Sandra had an uncanny ability to read minds.
When I first met her and discovered she was a psychiatrist, I’d been resistant to her overtures of friendship. In the end, resistance had been futile.
“You don’t need to buy it for me.” I waved her offer away. “I don’t need it, I already have a half dozen in this color.”
“You’re such an adult.” She said this like being an adult was a bad thing.
Sandra was by far one of the funniest people I’d ever met. The things she said sometimes had us laughing the entire time at a knitting meetup. She once told me a story about a date of hers that had gone horribly wrong, and I laughed so hard I cried, my jaw hurt, and my stomach felt like I’d done a hundred crunches. Everyone needs a friend who can bring them tears and abdominal pain with funny stories.
She also happened to be the one who’d convinced me to give therapy another shot. Rather, she convinced me, but the ultimate catalyst had been my disastrous evening and morning with Dan in Vegas. I hated that I’d jumped to the absolute worst conclusion about myself with him, and I didn’t want to do that to myself anymore.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I do want your opinion on something. And yes, it has to do with my family. More specifically, it has to do with my session today at Dr. Kasai’s and her advice about my family.”
“You need a second opinion?” Her voice adopted the calm, soothing quality she used when she became therapist-Sandra instead of friend-Sandra.
“More like, I need a friend opinion.”
Sandra already knew my real identity, who my parents were, their current health afflictions, and how evil my cousin had been to me in the past. She also knew about my time as a runaway, and that I’d been unable to reach the end of the ‘O’ rainbow without alcohol for several years. The reason she knew these things—ironically—was because she’d gotten me drunk one night and I’d spilled everything.