Confidential(38)

I wanted his answer to be yes. I wanted him to say he was about to be free.

I didn’t know why I cared. He was my therapist. He wasn’t even someone I’d normally date.

“Something like that,” he said.

“Could I ask you something else?”

“Seeing as this session has gone off the rails, sure, you can ask. I’ll see if it’s something I can answer.”

“Do you have children?”

He looked right at me. “What would it mean to you if I did? Or if I didn’t?”

“It wouldn’t change anything.”

“Then why should I answer?”

“Then why shouldn’t you answer?”

He dipped his head a little, touché-style. “No, I don’t have children.”

“Have you ever wanted any?”

“I’ve said enough for one day.”

“Given the issues that brought me in here, it would be good for me to know why you never had children. Maybe there are variables I’ve never considered.”

“I guess I should say, I’ve never raised children. I was a sperm donor a long time ago.”

I stared at him in surprise. “And you never said anything, even though you knew I was reading through the profiles?”

“I’m not sure why my being a sperm donor would have any relevance.”

Maybe it didn’t, but still. He’d been holding out on me. “Why did you do it?”

“I was in college. I needed some pocket money, and I knew other guys who were doing it. It was pseudo-altruistic. Perhaps a touch egomaniacal. I liked the idea that women out there would choose me to father their children, no strings attached.”

“You think most sperm donors are egomaniacal?”

“Not necessarily. I can only speak for myself.”

There was something arrogant about his very profession, about the presumption that he had the power to help people. But then, I was sure he’d helped many. I just wasn’t sure I’d be one of them. “Are you egomaniacal now?”

“A lot can happen in twenty years, Greer.”

“Life’s cut you down to size, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’ve got a much clearer sense of what I can offer and what I can’t.”

It seemed Dr. Michael liked his boundaries as much as I did. Well, as much as I used to. The new me obviously felt differently. “Is that why you’re a therapist? It’s safer than having real relationships?”

“We’re having a real relationship.” He met my eyes. “Aren’t we?”

I stared back. Yes, we were.





CHAPTER 30





LUCINDA


Cassie couldn’t stop watching the door. Behind it was her mom and Kevin. Maybe they were talking. Maybe they were having sex. Maybe they were trying not to talk, keeping all their secrets from each other. Maybe Kevin wanted to tell her mom. Maybe someday he would. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

Except it was illegal. It shouldn’t be, because love was love. That’s what Cassie thought, anyway. Kevin said they had to wait. Wait for what? For her to be eighteen? Or twenty-one? Or for her mom to fall out of love with Kevin? No, that would never happen. They’d have to wait for her mom to, like, die.

With how much Mom loved Kevin, it would hurt less that way. But Mom wasn’t very old, only fifty, and she was in good health. And she was sitting on that inheritance from her dad, who died before Cassie was born.

Cassie knew this: the waiting was killing her.

In college, I’d never tried my hand at a novel. It was always short stories about people who were entirely different from me. An oil rigger, a Sudanese refugee, a female firefighter—the list went on. Writing was a chance to inhabit someone else’s body, to see through their eyes. The most painful critique was when another student said, “Your characters all wind up sounding the same. They all have the same voice.” I could never manage to leave myself behind. Wherever I went, whatever I wrote, there I was.

With Dr. Baylor’s encouragement, I’d started writing my first novel. It was semiautobiographical, about a teen girl who became involved with her stepfather, but it was going to have a very different ending. It was way more cathartic than I expected and definitely better than what I proofread at work. Who knew, it might even be good.

I’d never try to publish it where I worked (you don’t shit where you eat). But maybe it could make its way out into the world, where it could help other abuse survivors.

Because that’s what I was. A survivor of abuse. I was stronger than I’d ever been, with Dr. Baylor at my side. He believed I was capable of much more than rearranging commas on other people’s manuscripts, that I could use what I’d been through and turn it into art, and I was beginning to believe that, too.

I’d been indulging in a few fantasies about Dr. Baylor. Michael. I hadn’t had the guts to ask if he and his girlfriend had officially broken up, but even if they hadn’t, it was obviously a matter of time. He was so ambivalent about her. But with me, he was nothing but supportive. Admiring, even. And since he clearly didn’t shy away from women with mental health issues, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe someday . . .

I pictured the two of us sitting in front of a roaring fire, him reading my latest pages, sipping brandy or cognac or something classy, and then—well, you know. It was funny how PG I could be, how it would basically fade out at the moment when Michael leaned toward me. Strange that someone with a past like mine could be such a prude.