A Family Affair(70)

“And how are you doing? Because you look great,” Heather said.

“I have a million things to keep up with. My younger sister has been with us the last couple of weeks while attending some group therapy but she’s planning on going back to her apartment in Berkeley this week. She has a boyfriend and it cramps their style to have the constant crowd of family around. But he’s so nice and so crazy about her, not the least intimidated by her rather unique personality. So I’ve been getting both my mom and my sister to doctors’ appointments, running errands, cooking, shopping, everything necessary to keep my mom from doing too much too soon. She’s still napping so much. I’d say I should do that for a couple more weeks and hope to come back to work. Part-time at first, just so I’m available. I’m going to continue to stay with my mom for a while, until I’m convinced she doesn’t have a health risk.”

“Isn’t the only risk a second stroke?” Heather asked.

“Yes, and with the blood thinners and blood pressure medicine, I want to be sure she doesn’t have any side effects or other issues before I leave her on her own. The TPA worked like a miracle, but if she’d been alone...” She grimaced and shook her head. “It could have been a tragedy.”

“Well, we really miss you around here.”

“That’s nice to hear,” she said. And she thought that, strangely enough, she kind of missed being around.

She said hello to the partners, the other physicians if they were in the office, and repeated nearly all the same conversations. Then she dashed across town to Dr. Norton’s office. She could have taken her session virtually, but was going to be in the city, anyway, and really looked forward to seeing Dr. Norton in person.

She waited in his office and he came in, his glasses on his nose, that warm smile on his lips, a folder of papers in his hand. He beamed when he saw her sitting at the table. “Look at you! Your mother must be doing so well—you look fantastic.”

“A woman never gets tired of hearing that,” she said, grinning at him.

“What’s going on?”

She went through the litany of chores and responsibilities she shouldered every day and mentioned that she had just visited the staff at her office, promising them she’d be back part-time in just a couple of weeks.

“How do you feel about that?”

“I think I’m actually looking forward to it. Maybe part-time is the answer for me. I know I don’t dread it and that surprises me more than you!” And she laughed. “There have been a few developments since I talked to you last. On the most significant side, my mom revealed to us that we have a sibling we’ve never met. She told us the story when we were all together.” And Jessie relayed the details to her counselor.

“How interesting,” he said. “Were you surprised?”

“Oh, shocked, really. We all were. No one had a clue, including my mom. But my mom met the girl, woman now, and her husband and baby, and despite the fact that it must have stunned her, she got to know them and thinks a lot of them. I plan to meet them all as soon as I can. I’ll phone first or something. Make a date. But shame on my dad for having that secret all those years.”

“Would you have changed it in any way?”

“It would have been best if he’d never done it, I suppose. And then he lied about it so he wouldn’t lose his marriage and family, so I understand. I don’t approve, but I understand. I don’t think I realized until now just how many issues my father had.”

“How do those issues impact you?” he asked.

“I have another sister,” she said with a slight shrug. “I think, when you get down to it, my father must have gotten in over his head. He obviously caved in to a flirtation and look what happened. He had a child he couldn’t acknowledge without putting his wife and other children at risk.”

“Not all that uncommon a situation, I think.”

“You hear a lot of that sort of thing?”

“Sure,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Hmm,” she hummed, thinking. “Well, I was going to say patients, but then I remembered a couple of our staff have been in similar situations. Our receptionist is a single mom, never married, but I don’t know the circumstances.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, you look untroubled,” the counselor said.

“First of all, my father is gone. I’m still sad about that. Second, getting mad about it is useless—it’s too late for him to apologize. And I want to hear this woman’s story. This half sister of mine. Because I think it’s pretty obvious I have daddy issues. I think I have for a long time, like since my little brother came home from the hospital, which coincidentally is about the same time my father was having a secret child with another woman.”

“Daddy issues?” he asked.

“To be honest, there were things I knew even if I couldn’t admit them. Like the fact that I wanted to be his favorite when clearly Michael had that honor. But I always knew Michael wasn’t his favorite so much as he was the only son and got more of our dad’s attention. I was jealous. Most older children are when the new baby comes along—they write books on it. And now look what I’ve just learned—that he was in a very delicate situation at the time, had admitted to his wife that he’d been having an affair, their marriage was rocky, they were fighting and unhappy—and for a little three-year-old, that must have been upsetting and confusing. I suppose I must have translated that as disappointment. Or as I got a little older, maybe I felt let down. I do remember thinking I just could never get enough praise from my father.”