CARTER
The clack of that atrocious-looking ancient clock on the wall disperses my thoughts every time I come close to condensing them into coherent sentences.
“You’re pensive today,” Dr. Daivari says in that soft monotone that used to drive me crazy during our first sessions.
Ticktock.
Tick.
Tock.
The ticking is irregular, I can’t even plan my answers around it.
“I think I’m a coward,” I blurt out.
“How so?” he asks, his face betraying nothing about what’s going on behind those round glasses.
I called her a coward for seeking refuge at the cabin. But for her, it was always going to be temporary. Because she’s fucking tough as nails and knows how to pick up the pieces and move forward through the pain.
Me? I’m hiding in plain sight by standing still. Not daring. Letting my father control me even now.
I stay silent for too long, so he follows up with another question. “What would it mean to be brave,for you?”
Eliza is so resilient in the face of obstacles and drama in her life. She rebuilds over and over again, hopeful in a way that comes across as naive.
Meanwhile, I hold tight to my past, not growing, not living.
The next day I stare at the Sudoku grid until my vision blurs. This used to help me focus, shut out any distractions. Now it takes me back to the mornings she’d ask me about it and I’d hop her on my leg so she could see better and I’d have an excuse to hold her a little longer. And her little gasp of wonder, when I completed the puzzle very fast, gave me a stupid sense of pride.
If the doctor hadn’t assured me I was fine after the last checkup, the increasing pressure on my solar plexus would have worried me.
Her absence is a physical ache. It’s followed me around ever since I crossed the town’s borders, driving as fast as I could away from the woman who turned my world upside down. I kept rubbing my fist against it absentmindedly until I gave up trying to soothe the pain. I deserve it. I embrace the discomfort as proof that it was real, and I am to blame for the way I left things.
An iron tang floods my mouth and I’ve never felt more ashamed of something I’ve said.
Every morning when I come into the kitchen I smell the blend. Imagining her fills me with joy and aching nostalgia, but it’s better than nothing.
I took the advice of the doctor and the therapist and stopped organizing my day so strictly. Today it ends up being a bad idea when Jackie and my mother ambush me.
“Is this an intervention?” I wave them in, bracing myself for another lecture.
“Don’t be absurd. Can’t we have a family chat over some tea?” My mother follows me and picks up the jar of blends.
“Not that one!” I say too quickly. “I might run out of it. It’s hard to procure.”
My mother’s eyes follow me around the kitchen. “I’m sure you can get some more.”
“It’s not the same thing,” I grumble. She made this before I hurt her. When she cared about me.
“You remind me so much of your father when he was young.”
I stiffen.
“Not because you’re a carbon copy of him. He too held on tight.”
I narrow my eyes at her, not appreciating the comparison.
“That’s not the worst thing. He was not always as bad as you remember him. He wanted what was best for his family.”
