surprised expression soon swooped into delight and he grinned. “Libby,” he said with stars in his eyes. “That’s amazing!” He pushed to his feet and rounded the table, kneeling by my chair to give me a hug. I returned it, letting myself smile. Letting his delight give me permission to celebrate.
He pulled back, still grinning ear to ear. “When did you find out?”
“A week ago.”
He kept smiling, but his eyes went sad. “I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me before.”
“That’s okay. Thanks for letting me tell you now.”
“You can tell me anything, anytime.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled like that. It made me believe in him.
With that said, he returned to his seat and we continued to eat. He drilled me with questions about baby girl clothes and room decor, and then we slipped into talking about unimportant things. Sports and memes and social media. We talked about old friends, but our reminiscing stayed strictly confined to the time before his career had started.
When the meal was done, he helped me clean up and then he thanked me for dinner and left. His departure was perhaps a bit abrupt, but I was relieved when he left. It seemed neither of us wanted to push our luck and end up fighting again.
♪♫♪
You never truly know how broken something is until you try to put it back together.
In trying to reconstruct my friendship with Sean I discovered just how broken we were. It wasn’t a pretty sight. After several days of tip-toeing around him, fighting down the urge to lash out each time I perceived some judgement in a comment or a look, I admitted to myself that I needed help and made an appointment with a counselor. I’d toyed with the idea on and off ever since Jonas died, but I’d put it off, thinking, It’s grief, it’s normal. Everyone does it. I can figure this thing out. But once Sean came into the equation, it was clear that my issues encompassed more than just grief. The grief was compounded by my unresolved issues with Sean. I needed help if I was going to glue our relationship back together—if I was going to glue myself back together. So I went to therapy.
I never knew there were so many terms for dysfunction.
It would be good to gain a vocabulary for what I’d been doing, though. And my therapist always took care to validate my feelings. Even when they seemed big and irrational in my head, and especially when I described them to her out loud, she took it calmly and assured me that my reactions were only natural. Perhaps not always healthy, but at least understandable. After all, I was a twenty-four week pregnant widow at the age of twenty-seven.
I took a leap of faith and asked Sean to put his number back into my phone, which he did with such humility that it felt right. He became more confident in being welcome in my house, and I became more and more used to having him around. It even became (dare I say it?) comfortable, and I credited my therapist for that.
I started wondering if Sean had ever been smart enough to go to therapy. So one evening after dinner as I was curled up on the couch beside him, listening as he futzed around on his guitar, I got brave and asked, “Have you ever thought of seeing a therapist?”
“I had a call-in session with my therapist two nights ago.” A self-deprecating smile crossed his face. “I can afford as many therapists as I want.”
I blinked, surprised and impressed. “How long have you been seeing one?”
“Since rehab.” He rested his arm on top of his guitar and turned to focus on me. “I needed a lot of help.”
My face fell; it was an ingrained response as the guilt and shame of leaving him pushed into my chest and tried to squeeze my heart.
He noticed and grabbed hold of my hands. “I needed the kind of help that only a professional could give me.”
I latched on to those words and stared at his face, trying to determine if he was telling the truth or only trying to make me feel better. I wanted the clutch on my heart to ease.
“My mom couldn’t help me. She didn’t have the know-how or emotional fortitude. And she loved me too much to be able to give me the direction I needed. She needed the therapy just as much as I did.”