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Dr. Green nods. “I’m glad to hear that. Why don’t you tell me a bit about why you’ve decided to start therapy?”
“I filled out a questionnaire with that, I thought.”
“You did, and I read it. But I always like to hear it in my patient’s words.”
I take a deep breath and let it out long and slow. “Right.”
My eyes flit around the room, taking in the minimal décor and—I laugh—the gray walls.
“What’s funny?” she asks, her lips tilting up at the sides and her eyes scanning the room as well.
“Just…the wall color,” I tell her. “My girlfriend said you’d probably have gray walls. She calls it millennial gray.”
Dr. Green laughs. “I’ve heard that before, about the color, not my walls specifically.” She makes a quick note on her notebook. “So your girlfriend knows you’re doing therapy?”
“She does. It was her idea, actually.”
“And why is that?”
“Probably because it was so helpful for her. She went when she found out she was pregnant a few years ago, said she wanted to work through some things to be a better mom.”
The doctor smiles. “That was brave of her. There are many things parents think to do to get ready for a child, but it takes a really smart person to realize they have some inside work they need to do as well.”
“She’s a smart woman.”
Smart enough that I listened when she said I needed to consider talking to someone.
“So, then, tell me why you’re here.”
I sigh, looking down at my hands, roughened from the work I’ve been doing for most of my adult life.
“I have a disease that’s going to eventually make it really hard for me to take care of myself, and my doctor recommended seeing someone to talk about things as my body begins to decline.” I pause. “Said it might help to process it all, instead of just carrying it alone.”
Dr. Green bobs her head, makes another note or two on her pad.
“And has something happened that makes you think your body is beginning to decline?”
A tilt my head from side to side. “Yes and no. I dropped a sander I was using a few weeks ago. I work with wood and do a lot of work with my hands. It was an easy mistake, a simple slip…”
When I trail off, she smiles gently. “But it didn’t feel that way to you.”
I shake my head, my chest tight as I admit something I don’t want to. “No. It didn’t feel that way to me.”
We talk for the full hour, a miracle considering I only promised Busy I’d come to introduce myself. Thankfully, we don’t talkjustabout the incident with the sander. We touch on my grandfather and what it was like to watch him go through this disease, on my dad passing away and some of the struggles I’ve had with my mom.
And we talk about Busy. A lot. About how incredible she is. Her and Junie. How much I love her. How thankful I am that she came into my life and fought for the us I didn’t realize we could be, fought for us when I didn’t even know how to.
When our hour is up, I don’t necessarily feel like bouncing out of here the way some people talk about feeling after a therapy session, but the pressure in my chest feels like it’s been released some. A surprise, to be sure, enough that I book a second appointment for two weeks from today without even dreading it.
“I’m proud of you,” Busy says as we walk down Main Street holding hands, her fingers twisted with mine.
I shrug. “I didn’t really do anything. I just…talked.”
“Exactly,” she says, pulling me to a stop in front of Happily Ever After. “Talking is a hard thing to do. Especially for someone who is so used to keeping all his feelings tucked away inside this sexy chest.”
She pokes me with one finger, and I laugh.
“Besides, you said you’d do something hard for you if I did something hard for me, and I did,” she tells me, tilting her head to the side, in the direction of the gallery next door.
