“Everything okay? You sound a little off.”
“I’m fine. I’ve got it all under control, really. Finished my finals and officially survived my freshman year of college. Now I just need to make it to the Olympics.” She repeated the list she ran through daily of all the tasks she still needed to do, as if it had become a mantra propelling her forward.
The phone was quiet for a moment, and she braced herself for the lecture about self-care and the importance of slowing down which her mom was surely about to give her, but to her surprise, it didn’t come.
“I’m proud of you, Lils. Freshman year done. That’s huge. We’ll celebrate when I see you. You’re still alternating weeks with me and Mama this summer?”
“Uh, yeah, I am,” Lily said, still a little taken aback at her mom’s lack of expected response. “That’s the plan at least.”
“Good! I’m excited to have you home for a bit. Let me know if there’s anything fun you want to try and squeeze in together. Can’t wait to get some me and you time in.”
“Yeah, okay. Sounds good,” Lily murmured
Neither said anything for a minute; the silence was anything but comfortable, and Lily felt the overwhelming need to fill it.
“Are you sure everything is okay?”
Lily tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it rose anyway. Her voice came out small, cracking before she could stop it to slip on her mask of strength.
“I miss Jamie,” she whispered. Then the sobs came, spilling out faster than her words could catch up as she sank onto a nearby bench.
TWO
BETH
JUNE
Lenore Briggs’ office was as blandly beige as it had been the first time Beth had set foot in it over a year ago.
Beth leaned back into the couch cushions, folding her arms loosely across her middle as she looked around the room. Her gaze bounced from the muted walls to the natural-fiber woven rug to the tan leather loveseat she currently occupied. All of it was so uninspiring.
“Does it ever bother you that there’s not a single piece of art in here?” Beth asked after several seconds of silence. She deliberately kept her voice light. She’d been seeing Lenore long enough now to know she would read into any change of her usual vocal inflection.
As always, Lenore didn’t even flinch at the question. The woman was impossible to shake. She lifted her eyes from the leather notebook perched on the arm of her chair to meet Beth’s gaze before calmly saying, “No, does it bother you?”
Beth tightened her grip across her abdomen. “If I’m being honest, yes. It’s been slowly driving me crazy.”
“What about it drives you crazy?”
She sighed, drawing her knees up to her chest. “It’s so sterile. I can’t tell if that’s intentional or not.”
“But you keep coming back.”
Lenore’s observation filled the silence between them. It had taken Beth a while to get used to that tactic. When she started seeing Lenore, she’d felt an overwhelming need to fill every minute of their session with an endless loop of thoughts and rationalizations about her feelings. And Lenore would listen as she quickly scribbled notes in her notebook.
“It’s weird,” Beth said finally. “When I started seeing you, you said you had just moved into this office. And I keep expecting you to hang something up—literally anything—but every time I come for an appointment, the walls are still bare, which is starting to make me feel like it’s intentional.”
“I guess I hadn’t really noticed.” Lenore looked around the room, a bemused smile on her lips. “I assure you, it’s not intentional. I have a box labeled ‘office art’ at home. I keep meaning to bring it in, but now that you’ve brought it up, I think I’ve grown to like this blank slate aesthetic I accidentally walked myself into.”
More silence followed Lenore’s words as Beth chewed the inside of her cheek, debating whether it was worth bringing up a topic she and Lenore had already talked circles around in previous sessions, ultimately deciding that if it was still popping into her mind, it was still worth discussing. “I haven’t painted anything since Jamie died.”
“I know.”
More silence.
Beth hated the silence. It was uncomfortable, but she guessed that was the point Lenore had been trying to teach her over the last year.
She stared at the blank space of the wall to the right of Lenore. Seriously, one painting would do wonders for this room. Beth tried to picture one of her pieces hanging there, something to break up the monotony. It would need to be somethingcolorful and intricate, and definitely textured. A familiar tinge pulled in her, that desire to create. But as quickly as it came on, that feeling was replaced with a rapid tightening sensation.
