Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Our gazes lock, and the sadness in her eyes swallows the gold. I used to think the lighter flecks in her dark eyes meant she could shine even in the darkest night. Now there’s no light in the eyes raised to mine. Her bottom lip quivers, and she bites down, fighting back more tears. My arms ache from the tension of holding her, trapping her.
I slowly ease up, step back, giving her room to move. She leaves the circle of my arms immediately, heading for the door. She looks at the wall, and so do I—at the hot pink streaks of obnoxious optimism through the dark gray paint, obscuring the verse. Shame curdles in my belly. Of course, we need to move on, and part of that will be repurposing this room, but the way I did this in a fit of anger, a surge of rage, it feels like I erased him. Paint slides down the wall in clumpy rivulets, weeping along the surface unchecked and staining the carpet. It’s a wailing wall. Even this flat, inanimate thing can weep, but I can’t.
“I meant it, Si,” she says softly, but with enough resolve that the words sink to the very bottom of my heart, chained to an anchor. “I want a divorce.”
The room is as still and airless as a tomb, and I can’t breathe. The impossible truth of what she’s asking me to do, to give up, lands on me with boulder force. I stagger to the rocker, sink into its cushions, aching for the son I never got to meet. I held him once, his little body holding on to the last of its warmth, to the residue of life. My teeth clench against the feral scream caged in my throat, and despite all my efforts—in spite of all the ways I’ve held things together—I feel myself coming apart at the seams. The very fabric of my life, every part that matters, ripping. I set the rocker in motion, hoping for some magic in the back and forth, but there is no soothing this. Not even a false comfort to be found, so I stop, but can’t make myself move from this spot. I sit here, where I’ve come home so many nights and found Yasmen exactly like this. Immobile and staring at a wall of dead wishes.
Chapter Fourteen
Yasmen
It sounds like things are going well,” Dr. Abrams says, her intelligent eyes peering at me from the screen of my laptop.
We usually meet in her office, but she’s out of town this week. Thank God for teletherapy. We only have a few minutes left in our session, and that same sense of peace I usually experience after our time together permeates the brightness of my home office.
“I think so, yeah.” I smile and toy idly with a stack of paper clips on my desk. “I forgot to tell you I’m working with the Skyland Association again. We’ve had two events, and they went well.”
“That’s so good, Yasmen.” She sits back, folds her arms and smiles. “You should be proud of yourself. You’ve come a long way.”
When I first started with Dr. Abrams, I couldn’t envision waking up excited or making it through the day without crying at least once. That kind of depression is blunter than sadness. Sharper than misery. It is the impenetrable dark of midnight deepened with the blackest strokes of blue—a bruise on your spirit that seems like it will never fade. Until one day…it finally does. With the help of the woman on-screen, it did.
It is not an exaggeration to say Dr. Abrams—with her always-on-point silk-pressed hair, fashionable blouses and pencil skirts, and watching, wise eyes—changed my life. I trust her implicitly, and she has taught me more about trusting myself.
“How are things with the kids?” she asks. “How’s Deja?”
I sigh, rolling my eyes, but allowing a tiny smile. “She’s testing my limits and working my nerves.”
“That’s what they do,” Dr. Abrams chuckles.
“I’m trying to be sensitive to all the transition she’s experienced, but sometimes she just makes me so mad, and I snap at her.”
“You’re not a robot. You’re human. Let her see that, and just apologize when you should. Move on, but let her know just because you make mistakes doesn’t mean she should be allowed to do anything she wants. You’re her mother, not a saint. All you can do is love her and try to make things right when you get them wrong.”
“I know, but it gets hard sometimes. She’s defiant and rude and mean to me and…ugh. I guess lots of parents deal with teenagers acting out, but this feels like more.”
“It probably is more,” Dr. Abrams says. “Your family’s been through a lot, and it came during a very formative time of her life.”
“So she has a get-out-of-jail-free card for how long?” I joke. “’Cause I’m coming to the end of my patience.”