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“Wyatt?”
I lift my head and offer him a half-smile. Dr. Allen is an older man, with salt and pepper hair and dark glasses. He wears a sweater vest and a bow-tie and smells like old spice.
“Hi.” I give an awkward wave and he chuckles.
“Come on back, son. Let’s talk.”
I sit down in a chair across from him. He doesn’t use a notebook, he never has. I saw him the first year after my mom died. I told myself that was all the therapy I needed, even when he suggested a few more sessions.
“So”—he settles back against his chair, folding his hands over his stomach—“do you want to tell me why you’re here today when I haven’t seen you for four years? Or do you want to waste time on small talk?”
“You knew, back then, that I wasn’t grieving, didn’t you? That I was just going through the motions.”
“Straight to it, then. Yes, I knew. I just didn’t know why.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees and clasping my hand together between them.
“Because I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t grieve?”
“No one ever gave me the chance. Dad left, and Willa was fifteen. What was I supposed to do, huh? Fall apart? Who would’ve taken care of the farm? Who would’ve made sure Willa had school supplies for her sophomore year of high school? Who would’ve taken her shopping? Because it sure as heck wasn’t going to be Dad. It took him three weeks to come out of the room for anything other than a meal. If I had grieved, I would have fallen apart. And if I had fallen apart so would everything else. Mom held our family together, she was the glue. With her gone, that role went to me. And for almost six years I have done everything in my power to hold it together.”
“And now?”
I shrug. “Now I’m breaking. Now I’m here.”
Dr. Allen nods and leans forward, mimicking my position. His eyes shine and he smiles at me.
“Good. Keep going.”
I hang my head, feeling the tears prick behind my eyes.
“I . . . I didn’t know what to do, with her gone. She took care of everything. I barely even knew how to cook. For six months all we ate was eggs and bacon because that was the only meal I was confident I could make without screwing up. She used to make us breakfast every single morning, music blaring in the kitchen and the house smelling like bacon and pancakes. And the day after she died, I woke up to silence and the smell of the hospital still burned into my nostrils. She always took care of us, until she couldn’t. And I couldn’t let her down. So, I stepped up, and I learned how to make pancakes and French toast and now I can make the best breakfast you’ve ever had.”
“What made you decide to be the one to step up?”
“It wasn’t really a decision. Like I said, Dad didn’t come out of his room for weeks and Willa was too young. It would’ve broken Mom’s heart if we’d gone to pieces without her. I couldn't bear the thought of her being disappointed in us like that.”
“Why do you think she would’ve been disappointed? You were all experiencing a horrific loss. You were allowed a little bit of a grace period, a learning curve, if you will. Time to figure out how to live a life without her.”
“She spent months telling us she was going to die. Months warning us, warning me, that this was it. This was all we had with her. A list of final moments. She tried to show me how to make her lasagna. She tried to teach Willa how to French braid her own hair. And she tried to convince Dad he could parent us on his own. But none of us listened. None of us were ready to listen, until it was too late.”
“That doesn’t mean she was disappointed, Wyatt.”
I clench my jaw. “She wasn’t disappointed because I stepped up. I wasn’t going to let our family, our life, fall apart just because she wasn’t a part of it anymore.”
Dr. Allen is quiet for a few minutes before he leans back again, studying me.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I guess.” I shrug.
“Why did you call me today? You didn’t answer earlier, not really.”
I lift my head and rub the back of my neck, looking into his clear blue eyes.
“I think . . . I think I’ve held onto this pain for so long that I’m worried it’s all I have left. That I’m just this shell of grief and pain and anger. And I’d like to see if there’s anything else buried underneath. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, I’m ready to try to be better. I know I’ll never be the man I was before, but I’d like to try to see if I can be a better one. Or, at the very least, one I can be proud of.”
