“There's a man, and my gut tells me he's wonderful. But my head doesn't want to let me believe.”
She smiles. “To believe what? You're falling in love?”
“I think I could,” I whisper.
She makes some gestures, a chair dance? Whatever it is, it's in celebration of what I just shared.
When she settles back down, clears her throat, smiles at the screen, “I'm sorry about that, but what girl does not love,” she pauses and giggles, “love.”
I point to myself, “This girl.”
“I call bullshit. I know you love your daughter; you love the two women you met during your graduate studies, you love your friends, you love people, Claudia, people whom you allow yourself to love when you listen to that gut feeling. I highly suggest you allow yourself to listen to it in this instance.”
How does she know so much about me? “I?—”
She holds her hands up, stopping me, “Before we move on, I need to tell you that I have a client whom I have been seeing twice a week since mid-October, before that it was every two weeks in that very office. I ask him permission to be open about it if this moment ever happened, I am allowed to answer questions for you, and he?—"
“Deacon,” I whisper.
She smiles so big, “No person is perfect, we know this, but I am telling you, Dr. Holloway, he just may be.”
I sit speechless for a few moments, looking at my broken pencil sitting on a pad of scribbles, and in the corner, I see something I doodled, DM #1, and a heart around it.
“This can go so many ways, you can give me permission as he has. I can refer you to someone I trust, or we can all agree to do couples counseling.”
“Couples counseling?” I say, and then look back up at the screen. “I’m going to need to think about that when my head isn’t spinning at the fact —”
She squeals with glee like Savannah does when… she sees Deacon and Paul.
“Did he tell you I was given a house? That Paul Bronski signed the deed over to me and?—”
“Paul fucking Bronski?” She gasps and then laughs. “He did not. But holy shit!”
“It’s a lot. All of this.” I rub my temple. “Good stuff, but the bad too.”
“And I can tell you that I received a call from Deacon yesterday. He did not give me details or names, but there’s a custody concern with a man whom you gave notice to when you found out you were pregnant, and he wanted nothing to do with the child. You had decided to raise her on your own, and we’re very happy, and in a good place to do so, then he just stepped back into the picture.”
“And is the reason Deacon missed all those games and?—”
“Your ex assaulted him?”
“My ex is a stretch, we had a fling while I was here doing an internship, it was purely sex, and until recently, I thought it was decent sex.” When she laughs, I realize what I had just said and laugh out loud. “Savannah’s biological father, and I hate the word father because he is not one, nor does he want to be any more than I want him to be, but it's Kyle Dingy.”
“Kyle Dingy is the player that Dean got rid of,” she smiles proudly. “I may have had something to do with the restructure of the team. I thought I did well, I did well. Except for with Andy Johnson, but in my defense, he rarely spoke to me.” She takes a sip of coffee.
“Yes, that Kyle Dingy, well, he's now engaged to Emma Shaw. She?—”
Coffee spews out of her mouth, and she begins choking. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
“She is a sister,” her jaw drops. “Ratburn, too.”
“KET?”
“Sadly, no.”
My wheels begin to turn, “This may be absolutely nothing but —"
“I love a good conspiracy theory, let me hear it.”
