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“Oh, James. How wonderful that you’re here!”
He swallowed down a lump in his throat. “Hey, Aunt Bex. Good to see you.”
She pulled back and gave him a wide smile. She was ten years younger than his mother and when he and May were young, she had been their cool Aunt Bex, who was almost like a nanny for them, especially after his father left and his mother was working and trying to make it as a single mom.
Rebecca had actually moved in for almost a year around that time. May had been barely a toddler and Sterling had been an angry eight-year-old. A few years later she had gotten married and moved to Arizona, which meant they didn’t see her as much for a few years. Sterling didn’t realize how much he had missed her in his life until this moment. Guilt washed over him as he thought of how many times he had been close to her on tour and hadn’t thought to offer her tickets or even call.
“Let’s not let it go so long next time, okay?”
“Deal,” he said. His mother tugged gently at his arm and he sat down in a chair, while his mother and Bex sat on either side of the couch, leaving the space between for May, he guessed. The only other people were the interventionist, May’s art teacher Mr. Davis, and her best friend, Sara, who had really grown up in the past few years. He wouldn’t have recognized her.
“Hey,” he said, a little nervous.
Though he was used to teenage girls squealing and being reduced to a puddle of emotions around him, Sara just gave him a small smile. At least she wasn’t angry with him about May. “Good to see you again, Sterling,” she said.
For the next twenty minutes, the interventionist, a man who insisted they call him Dr. Bob, talked them through what would happen. He kept bringing up the fact that normally he would do a longer dress rehearsal as he called it the day before. Sterling wanted to punch the man by the time they were ready to wake up May. He just had that kind of an attitude. Hopefully, May wouldn’t feel the same way about him or this would all be off to a bad start.
“Sterling, I understand that the relationship between you is tense or maybe even nonexistent,” Dr. Bob said.
Sterling fought off the urge to say something insulting. “You could say that.”
Dr. Bob nodded. “The order here is important. May isn’t going to like this, but if we start with people who might anger her, then the whole thing could fall apart. I understand you brought something to read, but I’d like for you to hold off. You may not get a chance to read it at all.”
Sterling opened his mouth to protest, but his mother held up a hand. “Even though they aren’t close now and there is some history, I know that May looks up to him a great deal and has missed him. I think that it will mean a lot to her that James is here.”
Dr. Bob tilted his head to the side before answering. “But you said when we talked that she was angry with him. And that his fame was part of the impetus for May’s spiral.”
Sterling felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He tried to sit still other than the pick moving in his fingers. This was about May, not about him, he told himself.
His mother pursed her lips. “That’s right.”
“Then I stand by what I said. We’ll wait on Sterling. I’ll see how it’s going and give you an opening if I get the sense that you should share,” Dr. Bob said.
Sterling hated that he had so much distance from his family. That he hadn’t seen Aunt Bex in something like six years, his own mother and May in three. Being here in this room made him realize that he needed to change this. It was time to make some serious shifts in his life, even if it was painful. Reese crossed his mind again and he tried to fight off despair, thinking of how many relationships he had tanked by being emotionally distant or just by running away.
Dr. Bob finished preparing them. Sterling had watched a few YouTube videos of an intervention show just to get a sense of what he was walking into and this was surprisingly similar. He had thought maybe a TV show about interventions would be mostly hype or over-produced TV. Dr. Bob had a script and an order for people to share. He warned them to keep their emotions controlled, especially negative emotions like anger, no matter how May responded. They should not go off-script and if May attacked them verbally, they shouldn’t respond.
That warning shocked Sterling into realizing just how serious this was. His little sister, verbally attacking anyone? It was so hard to believe.
“Your body language should remain open and relaxed. Try not to cross your arms or to lean forward because that may come across as confrontational. Lean back, keep your arms to the side or in your lap. Don’t cross your legs. Sterling, you look especially tense. See if you can calm yourself.”
Sterling knew Dr. Bob was right, but it still burned him. Everything about this man rubbed him the wrong way.
“Could we pray before we start?” his mother asked.
“I’m not really a person of faith,” Dr. Bob said. “But if that’s something important to you and would help with centering you, that’s fine.”
Sterling felt himself tensing and tried to lean back in his chair, uncrossing his arms with a sigh as his mother began to pray.
“Dear Lord, thank you for this day and this time. We all care so much for May and I know that you care for her. You know her name. You are pursuing her even as she runs from you. Bring her back to you. Let her be open. Soften her heart. Help us to have the right words to say and let her hear your words through them. We can’t change her—only you can do that. Let us simply be tools. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Sterling felt his heart tensing through the prayer. He knew that his mother was sincere and that her words were for May, but they could have been about him too. He had been running. From his family and even maybe from God.
Later. He could examine this later, but for now, he needed to be here for May. Swallowing, he again focused on relaxing his posture, rubbing the pick between his fingertips rather than flipping it over his knuckles.
“Why don’t you get May and I’ll get her a cup of coffee,” his mother said to Aunt Bex and she nodded.
Sterling couldn’t remember the last time he felt so nervous. It had been three years since he had seen May. The distance between fourteen years old and seventeen was wide and as May walked into the room, looking disheveled and sleepy, those three years were the difference between a girl and a young woman. She was taller, thinner—gaunt, almost—and had a severe-looking tattoo peeking out from her T-shirt sleeves. Beautiful still, with her blonde hair and wide blue eyes. It was her eyes that pierced Sterling, especially when they landed on him. They were hard and looked like they had lived through things he didn’t want to imagine.
