Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,148

crushes on girls, eventually shaving. He also imagines the possibility that Gabe would have gone through a phase of butting up against John, and when John hears other parents complain about their high-schoolers, he thinks about what a luxury it would be to have the chance to nag Gabe about his homework or find weed in his room or catch him doing any of the pain-in-the-ass things that teens tend to do. He’ll never get to meet his son the way other parents meet their kids at different stages along the way, when they’re the same people they’ve always been but both thrillingly and sadly different.

“What did you and Margo talk about?” I ask.

“When Margo was interrogating me about therapy,” he says, “she wanted to know why. Why I was here. Was it about Gabe? Did I talk about Gabe? And I told her that I didn’t come to therapy to talk about Gabe. I was just stressed out. But she wouldn’t let it go. She was incredulous. ‘So you haven’t talked about Gabe at all?’ I told her that what I talked about was private. I mean, can’t I talk about what I want in my own therapy? What is she, the therapy police?”

“Why do you suppose it’s important to her that you talk about Gabe?”

He considers this. “I remember after Gabe died, Margo wanted me to talk about Gabe and I just couldn’t. She didn’t understand how I could go to barbecues and Lakers games and seem like a normal person, but that first year I was in shock. Numb. I told myself, Keep moving, don’t stop. But the next year, when I woke up I’d want to die. I kept my game face on but I was bleeding internally, you know? I wanted to be strong for Margo and Gracie, and I had to keep a roof over our heads, so I couldn’t let anyone see the bleeding.

“Then Margo wanted another baby, and I said, fuck it, okay. I mean, Jesus, I was in no shape to be a new father, but Margo was adamant that she didn’t want Gracie to grow up alone. It wasn’t just that we had lost a child. Gracie had lost her only sibling. And the house did seem different than it had when we had two kids running around. It didn’t feel like a kid house anymore. The stillness was a reminder of what was missing.”

John sits forward, puts the cover on his salad, tosses it across the room into the trash bin. Swish. It always goes right in. “Anyway,” he says, “the pregnancy seemed to be good for Margo. It brought her back to life. But not me. I kept thinking that nobody could replace Gabe. Besides, what if I killed this one too?”

John told me that when he first heard that his mother had died, he was sure he had killed her. Before she’d left to go to rehearsal that night, he’d begged her to rush home so she’d be there in time to tuck him in. She must have died rushing home in her car, he thought. Of course, his father told him that she died while trying to push one of her students out of harm’s way, but John was certain this was a cover story to protect his feelings. It wasn’t until he saw the headline in the local paper—he had just learned to read—that he knew it was true, he hadn’t killed his mother. But he also knew that she would have died for him in a heartbeat, just like he would have done for Gabe or Gracie and just as he would now for Ruby. But would he do it for Margo? He’s not so sure. Would she do it for him? He’s not sure either.

John pauses, then quips to break the tension. “Wow, this is getting heavy. I think I’ll lie down.” He stretches out on the couch, tries to fluff a pillow behind his head, and makes a disgruntled sound. (“What’s this filled with, cardboard?” he once complained.)

“In a weird way,” he continues, “I was worried I might love the new baby too much. Like I’d be betraying Gabe. I was so glad it wasn’t another boy. I didn’t think I could handle a baby boy without him reminding me of Gabe—what if he liked the same fire trucks that Gabe did? Everything would be an agonizing memory, and that would be unfair to the kid. I was so worried about this