“Because he hurt you too! It wasn’t just me, Jasper. He hurt all of us.”
“Okay,” Carol said, “let’s cool down for a minute.”
I didn’t want to ‘cool down’ I wanted to leave. I scratched my jaw and took a deep breath.
“Jasper, how do you feel about your father?”
“How the fuck do you think?”
Oakley scowled at me, telling me to stop, but I carried on regardless.
“I hate him. He could drop down dead right now, and I’d throw a party.”
Carol said nothing. Oakley lowered her head. She couldn’t tell me she didn’t feel the same.
“Have you grieved for the loss of your father? You’re allowed to miss that part of him; it’s only natural.”
I stared at her. Had she lost it? “He stopped being my father the day he let his sick pervert friend touch my little sister.” I heard Oakley’s gulp, and I took her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I want you to talk about how you feel, remember. I just want you to be okay, Jas.”
I’d not heard her call me Jas in a fucking long time, not since we were really little kids and she used to say it to annoy me. “Well I’m fine so stop worrying.” I looked back to Carol. “She thinks I want kids to recreate a family I lost. Crazy.”
“That doesn’t sound crazy at all. In fact, it’s natural to want a family, Jasper, especially if it’s something you feel you’ve missed out on,” Carol said.
“I have a family.” Beside me, I felt my sister tense, growing frustrated with my lack of cooperation. I had to keep reminding myself that she worried about me and was only trying to help. “Look, I want a family because I want one. Not because I’m trying to fill some hole.”
I should have told her that as excited as I was to have children I was also terrified. I would never hurt my kids the way my father hurt Oakley but what if I hurt them indirectly? If I didn’t protect them from something else? The way I didn’t protect Oakley.
I was haunted by a vision of Oakley as a child, scared, alone and crying every single day. Then when Everleigh was born she was standing right beside her, scared, alone and crying. And when me and Abby were all set to start trying before she changed her mind, a girl that looked half like me and half like Abby joined them.
I didn’t want to admit that out loud and have Carol analyse it, and I didn’t want my sister to know it at all.
Carol nodded. “Good. Oakley mentioned you and your wife have put those plans on hold.”
“Did she now,” I muttered.
Oakley winced. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have said anything, but Carol asked if you were trying now so…”
Apparently I featured in Oakley’s sessions a lot. I had no idea how much she worried.
I shook my head. “It’s fine. That’s the point of therapy, right, to talk?”
“Was that a mutual decision, Jasper?” Carol asked.
I looked at my sister and knew she’d not discussed why me and Abby had stopped trying.
“No. Abby was being shady about it until I asked her outright. She wants a career first, and that’s fine.”
“Is it fine?”
Oakley sank back in the sofa, into the background as Carol fired her questions.
“Yes. What’s not fine is her making the decision before discussing it with me. We were all set for Operation Knock Up, then she avoids the conversation and then she tells me it’s on hold.”
“Your anger is understandable but have you considered that it may have been difficult for her to tell you how she was feeling?”
“Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. We’ve always been able to talk about anything though.”
“What is it?” Carol said, prompting me to explain what my deep frown was about.
“Recently I’ve not been feeling like I can talk to her either.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I’m not sure. She’s been working a lot more. Sometimes I feel like she’s moving on and changing and I’m still the same guy I was when we got back together.”
“Back together?”
“Yeah, we went out when we were teenagers.”
“How did it end?”
Oakley looked up at me, and I could tell what she was thinking. Maybe Abby was distant because she was cheating again.
“She slept with my friend.”
“But you’re past that now.”
“I am.”
“Am or was? Is that why you don’t feel like you can talk to her any longer? The distance you feel as a result of her focusing on something else is creating doubt in your mind.”
I hated her for being able to talk me round and make me look at something in a new light. Or for just getting the truth out of me from what I didn’t say.
“I guess,” I replied, half sulking. “But it’s not because she’s concentrating on something else and not giving me enough attention. I’m not that self-absorbed.”
“That’s not what I was suggesting.”