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“But it was?”

“I was floored.”

“Was there someone else?”

He nodded. “It took me a long time to understand.”

“That’s terrible.” For the first time in ages it didn’t feel like I was just going through the steps of pretending to empathize, I actually meant it.

“She’s much happier now. She wanted a family, a home, a husband who comes home at a reasonable hour every night from a boring job—all things I couldn’t give her. I’m honestly happy she found what she is looking for.”

“Do you ever regret not transferring here sooner? It could have saved your marriage.”

“No.  If I had, what about the things that happened between then and now? Would they have happened? Sometimes there’s a reason for things, good and bad. As much as that job drained me and losing Rebecca hurt, I helped people. I made a difference in people's lives.”

“If things happen for a reason, where’s our choice in the matter? Maybe bad things happen that are really, really shitty for no reason at all. We accept them because we have to, because they’re our reality, whether we like it or not.” I cracked my knuckles and sipped my coffee. “We learn from the mistakes that brought us to this point so we are less likely to make them again. And then other times life just sucks and there is nothing to learn. You just get used to it sucking until something else happens to make it worse. Maybe nothing ever gets better, you just grow accustomed to constantly increasing levels of bad.”

“Life does suck.” He smiled making me smile in return. “I'm amazed you've been able to maintain such a sunny disposition through this past year.”

“Well, I try.” It felt so foreign to smile so many times in a row. “Damn, I should be allowed to skip therapy. I don’t think I’ve spoken this much or this honestly in the last year.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I have to go. Dr. Livingston could cut off my meds.”

“Are they helping?”

“The therapy or the drugs?”

“Both.”

“I can’t tell anymore.  The numbness makes it hard to write, but I'm working through it.”

“About your husband's family?”

“Yeah. Dr. Livingston has been trying to get me to return to my normal routine for a while. So he will feel like this is his breakthrough, maybe he will let me go earlier than usual. Writing is about as normal as I get.”

“It can’t hurt, right?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

The server brought our food over, and for the rest of the meal we spoke about books and Gabriel questioned me about my career with genuine interest. Unknowingly he accomplished something that no one else had been able to do since Danny’s death. He allowed me to feel like a normal girl.

After breakfast I headed over to my weekly meeting with Dr. Livingston, though part of me wished I could do what Gabriel suggested and just not go to therapy. It seemed to validate everyone’s impression of me. It did not help matters that my doctor treated my account of the house as a figment of my imagination. I even had doubts about my medication—it was supposed to keep me from becoming a basket case, but really it just kept me coming back to him.  And how could he possibly know I needed them?  We’d never tried me without them.

It was clear I needed to reevaluate my therapy and perhaps find a doctor I liked better.  I would speak with Dr. Livingston about weaning me off the prescriptions.

Chapter Eight

Meandering my way to Dr. Livingston's office I arrived late,
but I still had to wait
. I brushed passed the receptionist with nary a glance as the okay was given. Nodding to him as I walked through the door, I sat on the edge of the couch, tapping my foot impatiently. Immediately he began to scrutinize me with his beady little eyes.

“Well, you seem to have a lot more energy today, Ella”

“I’ve been writing again.”

“That’s wonderful. I told you, you could work past the medication barrier.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I want to though. I would like to stop taking them. I need to get back to normal.”

“What is normal? What about Danny?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is that over? Have you let go?”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course, it isn’t over. Has the killer been caught? Look, I can’t write like I want and find his killer in a drug induced haze.”

“This wasn’t a personal attack. Just a question. Haven’t you already been doing both? Perhaps the medication is helping.”

“I've been trying, but not accomplishing much. I don’t know, I feel like I'm fighting against it more than it's helping. I struggle constantly with apathy. I
had been
feeling a bit more normal today . . . before I came in here,” I muttered.

“You sound like you feel guilty.”

“Why would I feel guilty?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t.”

“Are you sure? Are you not feeling guilty about moving on with your life and leaving Danny behind? Perhaps you realize the medicine is doing its job and you're getting better so you want to stop that progress so you don't leave him. It would be natural.”

“No. I'm fine. I don't worry about forgetting Danny or leaving him behind. I just want to find him justice.  He will
always
be with me. How about this scenario? You can’t have too many clients in such a small town. I bet you can hardly afford to lose one. Maybe
you
don’t want me to get better. Maybe you want to keep me coming back here and talking to you, never accomplishing anything except throwing more money into the pit that is supposedly my therapy.”

“There is no need to attack me, Ella. This isn’t personal.”

“What about it isn’t personal? You’re talking about me and my life. Everything is personal.”

“I'm glad you're doing better. I just want to make sure it's not only on the surface, that you haven’t tricked yourself into believing something that isn’t there.”

“Well, I suppose, only time will tell. But thank you, I'm in a much worse mood now.”

“Other than writing what have you done this week?”

“Nothing. I was focused.”

“Focused or obsessed?”

I rolled my eyes. “I went to the library and the grocery store.”

“Two public places in a week, that’s a lot for you. How did it go?”

“Not great.”

“Why?”

“They judged me.”

“Who did?”

“The people in the stores.”

“Are you sure they were judging you and you were not judging yourself?”

“I don’t know. Apparently, I'm nuts. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I think you're hard on yourself and you reflect your self-loathing onto other people.”

“Well doc, you have everything figured out. Session over.” I stormed out of his office early, flipping off the receptionist on the on the way. I knew my actions did little to support my case for my own sanity, but Dr. Livingston got under my skin better than anyone I had ever met.

I rode down the elevator feeling generally pissed off—at myself, Dr. Livingston, the universe. . . . I didn’t see Grant as I marched through the lobby of the hospital, but I wasn’t looking for him either.

“Hey!” I heard him shout from behind me. “Did you forget our date? I'm hurt.” Grant jogged up beside me.

“Date? I don’t think so.” I watched his face fall.  He looked like a sad puppy. “But I did forget, sorry. I don’t feel much like having coffee.”

“You can’t get out of a promise that easily. You made a commitment. People shouldn’t just abandon their commitments, or they’ll come back to haunt you,” he said with an easy smile.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. It was only coffee, it wasn’t like I was marrying the guy. “You’re preaching to the choir. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

“Bad visit?”

“One of many.”

“Well, my afternoon is pretty clear. We can go anywhere you want.”

“Fine.”

“There's a diner not far from here.”

“Molly’s?”

“Yes. It's a nice day. We should walk.”

“Whatever.”

Molly’s was the central hub of this little town. Clean, with teal linoleum floors and hardwood counters, it was retro in the best way. Molly, herself, was almost always behind the counter, wearing bejeweled cat glasses perched on the tip of her nose, with her artificially red hair pulled back into a tight bun. We took a seat on the patio and a middle-aged waitress came over to take our order.

“Hey, darlin'! Haven’t seen you in a while. Thought you left this small town for good.”

I knew the waitress was under no such impression. If I'd left town she would have known about it. They probably would have thrown a parade. Just my having lunch here with Grant would set off a whole slew of rumors and innuendo.

“I'll have coffee and a slice of cherry pie.”

As she was writing down my order, Grant said he wasn’t having anything. After she walked away I said to him indignantly, “It was your idea to come here and you aren’t even going to order?”

He just smiled and shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Pie was for suckers and I fell for it. At that moment it occurred to me that in certain ways he reminded me of Danny. He had the same easy smile and relaxed attitude, but there was something else I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around—something unsettling, though not necessarily bad.