Honey Girl(72)

“What are you saying?”

“I had connections, good connections, in the medical school,” he says. “I sat in that auditorium, and I saw those parents shaking hands and schmoozing, and I knew how hard it was going to be for you. I already knew, but that cemented it for me. And I knew I couldn’t help you there.”

Grace feels anger whip through her. “You never said. You made me think it was me. You made me think you were disappointed in me.”

“I’ve been telling you for years,” Colonel counters. “You just weren’t listening.”

“I can’t,” she decides suddenly. It’s too much at once, the way Colonel’s words and behaviors start to click into place. He never said.

“I can’t do this right now. I know you’ve been calling, but I can’t—I can’t have this conversation right now. I should, but it’s too much right now, and I don’t care what Heather has to say about that.” Immediately, she bites her tongue hard. She let down her guard, and she said too much.

Colonel latches onto it immediately. “Who is Heather?” he asks, instead of an explanation. Instead of putting into words why he left Grace to decode his fears about her future and think they were directed at her instead of her field.

She collapses back on the bed. She stares up at her Florida-blue stars. They tell her to be brave, so she is. “Heather is my therapist,” she lets out, bracing for impact. “I got diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety,” she says clinically. “I see her once a week. It’s been great, actually, so.”

“Why do you sound like you’re waiting for me to argue with you about it?”

“Because I tried to tell you something was wrong,” Grace says. “You told me to grit my teeth and smile through it, and I know what you meant. I still do. But now I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom, and I see a therapist once a week, and I have to take these two little pills every day, and I wish I hadn’t pushed myself so hard.”

Colonel is quiet, so quiet. She doesn’t know if that’s better.

“You had a plan,” he says finally, sounding tired and human. “I wanted you to finish it. I wanted you to go further than anyone ever expected you to. That’s all I ever wanted for you, Porter. I wanted you to follow your plan, because you worked so hard for it. I can’t feel bad about that.”

Grace inhales a shaky breath. It feels like someone has laid a stone on her chest. “I wish you did,” she confesses quietly. “I wish you felt bad, and I wish I didn’t understand why you don’t.”

She hears noise downstairs. She hears Kelly’s and Mom’s voices.

“I have to go,” she says. “I have to go now, okay?”

“Porter,” he says suddenly, sounding rushed. She waits. “Call soon. I know Sharone would love to hear how you’re doing down there.”

Grace is tired. Running away from the weight of her problems was tiring, but standing still with two feet planted firmly on the ground takes all her energy. “What about you?” she asks, feeling a surge of bravery. “Is this your way of cutting me off from the Porter name?”

“You’re always a Porter,” he says firmly, brooking no arguments. “Porters, we—”

“No offense,” she says, closing her eyes, “but I need a break from what Porters do. I want to figure out what I’m going to do.”

“Okay,” he says, backing down for what could possibly be the first time ever. “I’ll save it for another time.”

“So, you want me to call you again?” she asks.

Colonel clears his throat. “Call soon, Grace,” he says.

The call ends.

She keeps the phone pressed to her ear long after the screen goes dark. Call soon, Grace.

Hope mingles with frustration. But Colonel has never left her, not once. She holds on to that.

“It’s so hard to let go of wanting to please him,” Grace says, lying sideways in a chair across from Heather. “Being angry at his unattainable expectations is so much easier than accepting that the only ones I have to meet are my own. And I am angry, you know? But then, it feels unfair to hold on so tight to my anger toward him, when I set it aside for Mom in case she decides to up and leave again.”

Heather hums, tapping her pen against her notebook. “I’m just theorizing here,” she starts, “but it sounds like maybe it’s time to think about what you want, as Grace Porter, outside of your parents’ expectations and feelings and desires. Outside of what they want for you or themselves.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Grace says, voice cracking in the middle.

“You don’t?” Heather asks. She gestures between them. “Then what do you call this, what we’re doing right now?”

Grace closes her eyes. In her lap, she rips a piece of notebook paper into small, careful pieces. They’re still trying out alternatives for the moments she wants to pull and pinch at her skin. It’s like she can hear Heather in the back of her head like a self-help version of healthier coping mechanisms. “Holding it up to the light,” Grace recites. “Breaking it down. Making something new out of it, right? Something that’s just me.”

She hears a satisfied noise. “You’re getting it now,” Heather says. “Soon, I’ll be the one on the couch.”