feelings and . . .” She sucked in a lungful of air.
“I’ll be over there in two minutes,” Filly said, and the line went silent.
“Thank you,” Emma said with relief and went to the door to watch for Filly. Sure enough, in a few seconds, she came out of her trailer. Her bare feet peeked out from under her flowing skirt as she hurried across the yard. When she was on the porch, Emma threw the door open.
The first thing Filly did was stop and hug her tightly. Then she took her by the hand and led her to the sofa and pulled her down beside her. “I’m here, honey. Tell me what’s happened.”
“I thought when I remembered what happened in college, it would all be over, and I would be a whole person again, but here I am needing help.”
Filly patted her on the arm. “We all need help. Talk to me.”
“I like Josh, but I’m afraid to like him,” Emma said.
“Why? He’s a good man, independent, solid, upstanding,” Filly said. “I could go on and on, but you know him, Em, so what’s the problem?”
“It’s not Josh, it’s me,” Emma whispered.
Filly slipped an arm around Emma’s shoulders and hugged her. “You are a good woman. You and Josh have a lot in common, and you—”
“I have stuff in my past.” She frowned. The nightmares had brought out the story to Sophie, and Emma had told Josh because she wanted him to understand her issues.
“Talking about it will help you face it, so try to remember,” Nancy had said.
She kept her eyes on her hands, folded in her lap, and said, “I had one guy that I thought was my friend when I was in college. We sat by each other in art classes and talked every day that semester. He betrayed me.” She paused for a moment. “He let another boy drug and rape me. The therapists tell me I have repressed memories, but it goes deeper than that. Mother never wanted me, so it stands to reason she wouldn’t want me to inherit the company. She’s been destroying me so that I wouldn’t be fit to run the precious company that means more to her than I ever did.”
“Oh, honey, that’s what you call gaslighting. Take a breath and sit here with me for just a minute or two before we go on.” She reached over and took Emma’s hands in hers.
That calmed Emma’s racing thoughts and turmoil, but after a few seconds, she blurted out, “What am I going to do?”
“About you? About Josh? Or about both of you?” Filly asked.
“It has to be about me before it can be about anything or anyone else,” Emma said.
“Then you’ve answered your own question,” Filly said. “Straighten you out so that you don’t need anyone to complete your life or heart.”
“Sophie needs Teddy,” Emma said.
“No, Sophie loves Teddy. She is complete in her own self. She can survive without anyone. Think about it like this: If you had to have Josh to live or function, what would happen if he died? You would be right back where you were when you depended on your mother for everything. Work on getting where you need to be within you, and then you can think about what happens with you and Josh,” Filly said.
“Like you, huh?” Emma said.
“I wasn’t always like this.” Filly smiled. “There was a time in my life when I thought I had to have a certain young man in my life to make me whole. I got him, and everything was rainbows and unicorns until he decided to leave the carnival with another woman.”
“What did you do?” Emma asked.
“I went to pieces, of course, and that’s when I realized that it was all right to grieve, but it was not all right to depend on someone to define who I was. It took several months, but I came out on the other side a stronger person,” Filly told her. “You will, too, but you have to hunt for yourself before you do anything else.”
“Hunt? That’s a strange word,” Emma said.
“Honey, we are hunting our whole lives. As women, we hunt for love. As artists, we hunt for inspiration. As people, we hunt for truth. You’ve been on a quest to find out what happened to you to make you so dependent on others, and you’ve found it, but now you have to hunt for your own inner peace. Remember what I told you when I read your