The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, because she and Dr. Quinley had taken a field trip for today’s session—from the psychologist’s office to the atrium outside—and she found that she liked field trips still.
They sat at a little round table drinking the tea the doctor had brewed and enjoying the perfection of the sunny sixty-eight-degree day. The dark trunks and branches of the maple trees around them played hide-and-seek behind foliage that blazed a deep, bright red. The trees were so eerily vivid, they were otherworldly. They made Genevieve feel as though she and the doctor had been transported into the center of a fantasy novel.
“I still catch myself thinking about Oxy fondly,” Genevieve told her. “Almost with this sense of ... loss and nostalgia.”
“There were things about the pills you enjoyed.”
“Very much,” Genevieve confirmed.
The doctor settled a flap of her knee-length sweater over the other flap. In her aging face, her dark eyes were as kind and bright as those of a girl. “When we long for something that isn’t good for us, it can be instructive to think about the things we want more.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“What do you want for yourself, Genevieve?”
She took a sip of tea. “What blend is this?”
“Nettle leaf.”
“It tastes like hay.”
The older woman laughed richly. “‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees,’” she sang. “‘People say we monkey around.’”
“It tastes like hay, and I find that I like it, even so. What does that say about me, doctor?”
“That you can appreciate unconventional flavors.”
Sam was a bit of an unconventional flavor. In the past, she’d always gone for Southern men who dressed hip, had been raised by their mommas to have impeccable manners, and were ambitiously scaling the corporate ladder. Remembering them, especially Thad, she found that she could appreciate Sam very, very much.
The doctor tilted her head back to admire the leaves and waited for Genevieve’s honest answer to her difficult question.
“What do you want for yourself, Genevieve?”
“I want more for myself than a life in which I have to depend on painkillers.” Painkillers would never be able to love or comfort her. Like every other human on the planet, she’d been wired to be loved and comforted by God. And Oxy was no substitute.
Recently, she’d begun to feel as if she was drawing nearer to God as she worked to break free of her shame and put an end to her lies. Yet, she still couldn’t feel His presence.
“I want to have a clear head,” Genevieve continued. “I want peace. I want deep relationships and satisfying work. I don’t ever again want to break promises to myself.”
“When you start to think fondly of Oxy, experiment. See if you can’t reroute your thoughts to those very excellent goals.”
“Will do.” Genevieve wrapped her hands around her mug.
“Last week you told me that you’d started dating Sam. How’s that going?”
“What’s an adjective that’s better than fabulous? That’s how it’s going.”
“Marvelous?” the doctor offered.
“Tremendous?”
“Extraordinary?”
“Magnificent,” Genevieve declared. “It’s going magnificently.”
“Personally, I’ve always been a sucker for a foreign accent. I once dated a man named Arturo from Argentina. He wore a gold necklace with a saint on it and he couldtap dance.” She rested one ringed hand on her chest. “He was magnificent.”
“But?” Genevieve hadn’t started therapy yesterday. She knew that undertaking a romance during the first ninety days was often a Very Bad Idea. She’d known it when she’d kissed Sam after their steak dinner. She’d known it when he’d kissed her in the grocery store.
