My eyes widen from my momentary lapse of weakness. I can’t be weak, my mother needs my strength. I keep my back turned, waiting for the families to pile through the front door. I’m not sure if they heard me, but if they did, I don’t want to know.
I glimpse back at my phone. The words that spilled are those I want to confess to Finn. But admitting as much confirms that I didn’t accomplish all I set out to do. And that all this time away from him has caused me nothing but torment.
Sofia told me he’s hurting, and that sometimes he’ll be at a heavyweight bag, pounding it viciously, his stare absent of anything human. “He seems to check out,” she said.
I know she means well, her calls are a way of looking out for him. But hearing how he’s suffering only reinforces my belief that I’m the cause. I don’t think she realizes how badly I miss him, or how I wake dreaming his arms are around me, and that when I think about all the times he made me laugh, all I want to do is cry.
I did this to him, I want to tell her. But I don’t. Instead I keep quiet at the mention of his name, even though all I want to do is spill my soul.
The heels of my boots clip, clop against the wooden floorboard as I walk to the end of the porch. My hand lowers when I spot the sun porch. It extends out slightly further than the building. My mother’s seat lays empty. Violet or perhaps a few of the staff must have coaxed her inside.
Are they drugging her? I wonder.
Is she safe?
Does any part of her remember she once loved me?
“Sol?”
The voice is so familiar, but in my preoccupation with my mother, I don’t realize it’s Mason speaking until I turn around and see him standing by the entrance. As a renowned psychiatrist, and a well-credentialed one at that, I shouldn’t be surprised to find him all the way out here. But I am.
“Hi, Mason―I mean, Dr. Shavis,” I say. In the private setting of his office, he was always simply “Mason”. But this is a professional setting and I need to address him as such.
He moves forward, his camel wool coat brushing against his legs as he walks. He motions to the phone in my hand. “Am I interrupting your call?”
I quickly pocket my phone. “Um, no, just finished.” Jesus, I’m such a horrible liar.
Like always, Mason smiles kindly. It seems like an innocent and genuine reaction, but this is a brilliant man. He knows there’s more to my response, and has likely already analyzed and made a diagnosis, tracing my nervousness and awkwardness to my toilet training or that time I face-planted on roller skates.
“Are you interning here?” he asks, tilting his head.
“I’m inquiring.”
Okay. Another damn unnecessary lie. Since first meeting Mason, I’ve picked his brain, observed him during sessions, and followed him around like a giddy little puppy simply ecstatic to be around him and hoping for that proverbial pat on the head. But I never told him anything about me. At least not anything that mattered, especially pertaining to my mother. He may be a professional, but I was trying to be one, too.
“If you need a recommendation, I could give you one,” he says, surprising me by taking a seat on the porch swing. He doesn’t seem to be in a rush to leave, not by the way he stares out to the lawn covered with lingering patches of frost.
I sit beside him. “You’d do that?” I ask. “Despite that I left earlier than expected.”
He gives my comment some thought. “You mean following the weeks you worked, putting in double the hours your degree required, assisting the staff with extra projects, connecting with your clients and supporting them through their issues, and reorganizing our library so we can actually use it.” He nods, thoughtfully. “Yes, I believe I have cause to recommend your services.”
My gaze falls to my hands. My right throbs from the way my mother gripped it, and it appears slightly swollen, yet that’s not why I keep my head lowered. I miss my work at the center. It’s where I was learning to be a real therapist and where I was helping instead of hurting. God, all I’ve ever wanted to do is help.
“Loretta misses you,” he says. “As does Zorina, her mother, and the other clients you deeply affected. Loretta especially seems at a loss. She told me no one has ever understood her like you.”
“They miss me?” I ask. “All of them?” I don’t mean to sound so pathetically grateful, but right then, I truly am. “What about Miss Hemsworth? Does she miss me, too?”
Mason presses his lips in a thin line, but I notice the smile lingering behind it. “It’s okay,” I say, grinning. “I know the woman hates me.”
“She hates all of us, Sol,” he admits.
I laugh a little, and he does, too. “So what brings you here?” he asks as our humor fades.
This is my moment to remind him that I’m here inquiring about my make-believe internship even though we both know it’s a bold face lie. Or I can tell him I’m here to support a friend whose relative is being treated. It’s a more probable explanation and less of a mistruth. Yet I don’t.