“Well, you know what? Good for you. I mean, really.” She had that proud mom look in her eyes when she smiled. Standing to her feet, Dr. Gill put her arms out and I stood.
“Thank you so much for everything,” I said as we embraced. “I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”
She patted my back. “Sweetheart, I hear you, but I don’t think I’m the one who you should be thanking. I mean, you did most of the work to get well all on your own, but…you and this AJ I keep hearing so much about – you two really have something special. I hope you hold onto it,” she urged, reminding me of a time not too long ago when I’d considered giving up. When we separated, I looked her in her eye and assured her that I was going to take her advice.
At the end of my half-hour session, Dr. Gill followed me out to the lobby of her office, and embraced me once again. I took a deep, cleansing breath as I rode the elevator down to the first floor and exited the building for the last time as her patient. The cool breeze hit my face and I felt freer than I ever had in my life. The only thing that pulled me away from the moment was the familiarly comforting voice that called out from up ahead.
“How’d it go?” AJ asked, unhinging his hands from his pockets as he pushed off from the side of his car where he’d been waiting. When he opened the passenger-side door, my grin widened and I climbed in.
“Good,” was the short version of a lengthier response that I saved for when he was sitting beside me with the engine running. “Bittersweet may be a more accurate description,” I clarified. “I mean…it’s nice not to need to come here anymore, but I’ll miss Dr. Gill.”
AJ leaned over to kiss me after pulling out into traffic, entangling his fingers with mine while I reflected on how far I’d come. As a true testament of where that journey had taken me, we were now headed to our hometown of Fairfax for the holiday – a place I hadn’t had the nerve to visit in years.
“Need anything before we get on the freeway?” he asked.
Squeezing his hand tighter in mine, I smiled up at him. “Nope…I’ve already got everything I could ever ask for.”
*****
Despite the fact that I’d slept most of the way, I managed to wake up as soon as we crossed the border into Virginia as if I could sense how close we were. Once back within the Fairfax city limits, I started to get excited about seeing my parents soon, not nervous about being back in town like I’d anticipated. Aunt Lisa and Uncle Todd were coming in sometime that night, too, with Angel and Lamar. They’d all be staying in a hotel this time, so AJ and I were my parents’ only houseguests. Surprisingly, even with Lamar being Jason’s brother, he and AJ had somehow managed to get along. They weren’t friends by any stretch of the word, but they got along well enough to keep Angel and me from feeling awkward about it.
AJ was ending a conference call with work when we pulled into my parents’ driveway. When he was finished, he grabbed our bags from the trunk and followed me to the door. As expected, my mother totally overdid it with her greeting.
“My babyyy!!”
I laughed and let her make a fuss over me like she always does. As soon as she let me go, AJ was her next victim.
“My other babyyyy,” she crooned, kissing him on the cheek.
I stepped out of my boots and looked around while the two of them chatted about our drive down from New York. A new chandelier, new carpet going up the steps, and my father had stripped the wallpaper from the foyer and replaced it with a coat of cocoa-brown paint. Things were quite a bit different than the last time I came home, but still, there was a sense of comfort being within these four walls. I hadn’t yet finished studying all the changes when I slipped my scarf from around my neck and heard my father’s voice.
“Baby Girl,” he said with a warm smile as I finished hanging my coat on the rack beside the door.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said back. He pulled me into a warm hug and I closed my eyes. It really did feel good to be back.