Hold on My Heart (6 page)

Rachel relaxed more in the chair, flipping her thick hair over one shoulder.

“And Rachel, I hope that when your father shares his thoughts, you’ll keep an open mind as well. Can you do that?”

A lifetime passed in a breath before Rachel finally said, “Sure.” Her half-shrug, quasi-nod was not encouraging to Tom, but Dr. Brandt’s smile brightened.

“Excellent. Now keep in mind, if you expect to gain nothing from these appointments, that’s likely what you’ll get. But since we’re here, I’d hate to waste your time, so if you had to come up with something you’d like to work on, what might that be?”

Rachel’s glance flicked over him, light as a mosquito and just as hard to capture. She wouldn’t even make eye contact. She looked at the counselor instead.

“Fine. I guess we’re here because even though I’m perfectly okay living with my grandparents, my dad thinks I should move in with him. I don’t want to, so I think you’re supposed to referee that argument.” Her chin jutted forward, her posture tense once more.

Tom swallowed hard, realizing how sour an unspoken scolding tasted. Rachel was being deliberately abrasive, and as usual, he felt the blame directed toward him. There was a lot more to this situation than just getting Rachel to move back home.

Dr. Brandt nodded, though her hair remained motionless. “Referee? That’s a good way to put it. Sometimes I feel like one. The difference is, in a game, there are specific rules to follow. There is a winner and a loser.
But in relationships, all those lines are blurred. The real challenge is to move from feeling like you’re on opposite sides, competing with each other, to feeling like you are on the same team. Because when you’re on the same team, you can both win.”

Rachel shifted in her chair, the leather squeaking around her. “I don’t see how that’s possible when we want totally opposite things.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about. Let’s say your father didn’t want you to move home. How would that make you feel?”

Rachel picked at the black polish. “That house isn’t my home. We lived there for, like, six days before my mom died. It’s just a beat-up old farmhouse out in the boonies. It probably doesn’t even have Internet.”

Her words were hornets inside his lungs. Rachel had been excited about the farmhouse when he’d bought it, thrilled at the prospect of getting her own horse and planting a garden with Connie. None of that had happened, of course. But some of it still could—if she’d just move there and give him a chance.

“Have you asked him?” Dr. Brandt said.

Rachel blinked. “Asked him what?”

“If the house has Internet.”

Rachel squinted. Tom sensed this was a trick question, but as long as it wasn’t his turn to answer, he’d just observe. He watched his daughter process her options carefully.

“No. I never asked him.”

“Then why don’t you ask him right now?” Dr. Brandt’s voice was light and conversational. The light in the room cooled as a cloud passed in front of the sun. Rachel paused.

“Well… it’s not just the Internet. It’s all kinds of things.”

“Yes, I understand that. But since you mentioned Internet, let’s at least get that one question out of the way.”

The walls in this office were painted a shade of terra-cotta red, and there was no artwork hanging anywhere. No pictures on the desk sitting over in the corner, either. Tom had time to notice all this while his daughter prolonged the silence.

Finally, she relented and turned her gaze his way. “Do you have Internet?” Her voice was as bland and impersonal as a traffic officer asking for license and registration.

“Yes, the house has Internet.” Tom glanced at the doctor and wondered if he should add more. Like the fact that he’d fixed the broken step on
the front porch, the one Rachel had stubbed her toe on just days before her mother died. Or that the barn was still empty, waiting for her to fill it with a horse. Or that he missed her.

“Is the kitchen finished?” Rachel blurted out, suddenly becoming animated. “Or the bathroom?” She turned to face Dr. Brandt, her cheeks flushing pink. “The last time I was there, he hadn’t even unpacked yet. It’s been more than a year. How am I supposed to live there with boxes all over the place?”

The doctor looked at Tom. “Have you unpacked?”

Her voice was mellow, the question innocent enough, but it felt like an accusation. He brought his ankle up over his other knee and tried to stop his foot from tapping. He’d meant to unpack. But the boxes were full of memories better left in storage. He and Connie and Rachel had moved into the old farmhouse barely a week before the accident. And once Connie was gone, and then Rachel was, too, he just never got to it.

“The house is completely functional, Rachel. I’m sorry it’s not as nice as your grandparents’ place, but we could fix it up and decorate it. I thought we might go through those boxes together.”

“You want me to move home so I can do work and unpack for you?” More accusations.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. See, Dr. Brandt? This is what happens. I say one thing, and she hears something completely different.” He’d meant to stay calm, but frustration sharpened his tone.

The counselor’s expression remained enigmatic as she gazed at him and then his daughter.

“Rachel, I think what your father means is that he’d like to have a shared experience with you of going through the boxes. Is it the labor of unpacking that bothers you, or the fact that the boxes are full of things that will remind you of your mother?”

Rachel sat up straighter. “I see reminders of her all over the place. I live with her parents, remember? They have pictures everywhere, and some of her old clothes and stuffed animals. I can even sleep in her bed if I want to. I don’t need to go through boxes with him to help remember my mom.”

Tom felt a hot flush of comprehension. That was something he hadn’t thought of before. Of course Rachel would feel closer to Connie surrounded by her things. At the farmhouse, they hadn’t built any memories
together as a family. His wife’s presence wasn’t there. There hadn’t been enough time.

Dr. Brandt seemed to reach the same conclusion. “It’s important to keep those memories close to your heart, Rachel. You can cherish them, but you can’t hide in them. Do you think your mother would want you sleeping in her old bed, or would she want you to go live with your dad?”

Rachel’s jaw lifted again. “Well, it would be nice to ask her, wouldn’t it? Except we can’t—because she’s dead.”

The caustic words, flung so carelessly, were a gut punch to Tom. She wanted to wound him. She wanted to remind him that everything they were going through was entirely his fault. He’d been driving the car. If not for his mistake, Connie would still be alive.

It was the only thing he and his daughter agreed on.

“O
f course I miss you. What kind of a question is that?” Seth’s voice was mildly reassuring over the phone, but Libby couldn’t shake the sense he was drifting away. Her job loss had hit hard, and maybe she hadn’t been that easy to live with because of it, but she was making an effort to be a kinder, gentler version of herself.

She shut the door to her bedroom and sat down on the twin-sized mattress that had been hers since she’d grown out of her crib. Being back at home still felt like a visit, but she’d been there for almost six weeks. It didn’t look like she’d be heading back to Chicago any time soon. Or that she’d be seeing Seth in the immediate future, either. Her stomach felt queasy, as if it were full of polliwogs, swishing around and bumping into one another.

“It’s a logical question. I haven’t talked to you in days.” She meant to sound sad, but it came out cranky.

“Baby, I’m working my ass off in San Diego, and there’s the time zone thing.”

“It’s a two-hour difference, Seth. It’s not like you’re in Australia.” Now she
did
mean to sound cranky.

“I don’t usually get back to my hotel room until midnight. You want me to call you at two a.m. your time?” A sharp spike of irritation stabbed into his tone, too.

She stared at the tape marks on her walls from spots where ’N Sync and Goo Goo Dolls posters had once hung, back when life was simple and easy. “I guess not. I’m just really frustrated. I miss you, and I miss my job.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Any luck on the job front?”

Libby drew in a breath, about to tell him all the details of her last interview, hoping he might cheer her up and nudge away the boulder of doubt pressing down against her shoulders, but the soft clickety-click of keystrokes on a keyboard stopped her.

Seth was typing. He wasn’t even listening to her. This was the first phone call they’d had in nearly a week, and he wasn’t even paying attention. “Nope. Nothing to report,” she said.

“Hmm. That’s too bad. Listen, though. There’s something we need to talk about.”

The clicking in the background stopped, and Libby felt an urgent need to brace for impact. Those polliwogs in her belly morphed into full-sized frogs.

The last time someone had said, “There’s something we need to talk about,” she’d gotten fired.

“Okay,” she said slowly, carefully, the way a bomb diffuser might say, “Now… cut the yellow wire.”

Seth blew out a breath. “I’m pretty sure I’m being transferred to San Diego permanently.”

She should have cut the red wire. “Permanently? As in
permanently
permanently?”

“Yeah. Permanently.” He sounded more certain that time.

She fell back against the pillows on her bed, clutching the phone more tightly.

There were earthquakes in San Diego, weren’t there?

Libby had never been in an earthquake. But she imagined there was a millisecond—just as the tectonic plates began to shift underground—when most people thought to themselves,
Holy shit. This is an earthquake!
She felt that way just now. Like everything around her was starting to wobble and there was no safe place to stand. “Wow. I was not expecting that.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to say anything until I was more certain. It’s pretty much a done deal now.”

“What? How long have you known about this?”

“Awhile, but my boss told me right about the time you were getting ready to move back in with your parents. And you’ve been having so much trouble finding a new job I didn’t want to make you feel worse by telling you I’m getting a huge promotion.”

Plates shifting. Ground splitting. Libby falling in.

“You’ve known about this for two months and you’re just telling me now? Seth, I’ve been trying like crazy to get a job in Chicago. Why didn’t you tell me to look in San Diego?”

There was a long pause.

And that’s when it hit her. Dinosaur, meet meteor.

“Oh.” The word kind of wheezed from her lungs. “You don’t want me to be in San Diego, do you.”

It wasn’t a question. A question needed an answer, and she already had hers.

“Now, Libby, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m working all the time. You wouldn’t have anything to do out here. You wouldn’t know anybody. And I really need to focus on my career right now. This promotion is a big leap forward, and I can’t screw it up because I’m worried about my unemployed girlfriend. Wait. That came out badly.”

It had come out badly. But it had also come out honestly. The land
had
shifted under her feet, and suddenly everything in Libby’s line of vision looked different than it had sixty seconds earlier.

“Seth, are you dumping me?” How calmly she said that. Inside her head it sounded much louder and more screechy.

“No, no, I’m not. I just… I think maybe we should try seeing other people for a while.”

Libby smacked her palm against her forehead and cursed Marti silently for seeing this before she’d seen it for herself.

“You mean see them naked?” Her voice roughened. She felt like a sea urchin had just burst inside her gut, with the pointy parts hitting every vital organ.

“Uh, God, Libby, that’s not what I meant. I just… look, I should have talked to you about this sooner, and I should have done it in person. I get that. There was just no good time. The point is, I’m moving to San Diego. I don’t want to break up with you, but I can’t promise you more of a commitment right now, either. I don’t think you should wait for me.”

Breathing hurt. Not because she was shocked, but because she wasn’t. She should have figured this out sooner, but she’d thought their emotional disconnect was because she was depressed about not having a job. But the truth was, even if she’d never been fired, Seth would’ve left for San Diego without her.