“I’m athisnow?”
I playfully patted his chest. “But you’remythis.” After I said it, my cheeks went hot because he actually wasn’tmyanything, but the words had come out as easily as if they were true. We hadn’t really talked about what we were to each other. I was leaving, he knew that. And he was probably just having fun with me in the meantime,Iknew that.Hewas fun.
I clasped my hands in my lap and took a breath.
“What happened there in your head?” Dr. Franklin asked.
“What? Nothing,” I said.
“You pulled back after that statement.”
“I did?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“What did saying that Elijah is yours make you feel?”
“I just… he’s not. He’s his and we are two separate people who have our own identities.”
I could feel Elijah’s gaze on me and I didn’t look over.
Dr. Franklin wrote something in her notebook, then said, “You wanted advice about something?”
“Right… um… my dad.”
“Okay,” she said, waiting.
“Well, let me backtrack. My mom got in a serious accident about six weeks ago, and mentally, she’s not recovering well. Actually, let me backtrack even further. My dad left her about fifteen years ago and never came back. She still acts like they’re married. I mean, they are still married. But they’re not. She obviously still wants to be and it’s sad…”
“Sad?” Dr. Franklin asked, like she knew that wasn’t the word I wanted to use.
“Pathetic,” I said.
“You think your mom is weak?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have a great relationship. We were average before my dad left and terrible after. She’s hypercritical and distant and… mean.” It was hard to talk bad about my mom out loud. I’d just barely started doing it with Elijah, whom I felt safe with. I was so used to protecting her.
“Have you ever told her how she acts?”
“Not when I was a teen. I was young and didn’t understand. And now, it seems pointless. I moved away and we aren’t in each other’s day-to-day lives and it works.”
“Does it? You don’t think you should tell her how she makes you feel?”
I shrugged. “I guess I feel sorry for her. I understand why she might feel like that. She is the product of being left by someone she thought loved her.”
“So are you,” Dr. Franklin said.
My eyes pricked with tears, surprising me. “No, well, I mean, yeah. But he’s her husband.”
“He is yourdad.”
I looked to the right, trying to keep my tears at bay. Elijah’s hand went to my back, just resting there, warm and firm.
“Do you want to leave?” she asked. “Is that why you’re looking at the door?”
“What? No.” I hadn’t realized Iwaslooking at the door, but I was. I gave a breathy laugh. “Yes.”
She smiled at me in an understanding way, then turned her attention to Elijah. “How do you feel about all this?”
“This isn’t about me,” he said.
