“You broke into the community center,” he stated again, massaging his forehead.
I tempered my reply. “Well, sort of. Someone left the alley window wide open, and we crawled through. Just . . . you know, for fun. We didn’t hurt anything.”
“Sadie.” Dad’s voice came with a warning.
“Dad, Trent volunteered there all the time,” I said, hoping to calm him down.
Mom was on the same wavelength. “Tony.” She patted the air, a warning to both of us.
He chewed his thumbnail and searched for a response. Mom put her head on the table as if the whole thing were too much to handle. They were in a delicate catch-22. Battling me on the content of the note might push me into an emotional hole, which they didn’t want to do. Not battling me meant I might engage in stupid behavior again, which they didn’t want me to do.
“It was a long time ago,” I said.
“And these other envelopes you’ve gotten, do they have other such . . . frivolity?” Dad asked.
“Tony,” Mom said again.
Frivolity? I exhaled at his use of vocabulary, but his eyes sliced into me.
“Yes, Dad. I believe before Pirates and Paintball you referred to it as spunk.”
“I’m all for spunk, but not so much for the criminal behavior,” he said.
It was Mom’s turn to roll her eyes. “Tony, you’re the one who used to steal street signs at her age.”
I put my head down so I wouldn’t laugh at Mom busting his chops. Dad stood up, wagged his finger at Mom, and said, “This one is all yours.”
In the end, Mom folded the envelope, put it in her pocket, and announced we were going to be late for therapy. “Talk to Dr. Glasson about all this,” she said.
Family meeting over and done . . . with slightly more syrup than Clorox.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ten minutes later, Mom pulled up to the curb at Fletcher’s office and said, “Text when you’re finished.”
There was no need to text; she never left the parking lot. She was like one of those Little League parents who stayed for practice.
Dr. Fletcher Glasson kept an office in the basement of a large law firm. Right after my first surgery, Dad found Fletcher through my plastic surgeon. He said Dr. Glasson specialized in visual life transitions, and I might benefit from a few sessions.
Benefit was an understatement.
Fletcher was infected with genuine happiness—the kind that couldn’t be faked. Which wasn’t all that strange except the man had zero reasons for smiles.
He listened to a shit-storm of stories from people like me for a living.
He’d been severely burned in a fire.
Every session gave me hope that maybe someday I’d come out on the other side of my own shit-storm with a smile too.
I clung to that hope. Mondays clearly weren’t a busy day at the office. I sat alone with a People magazine from a year ago and a Reader’s Digest from the nineties—both of which I’d already scoured—while the receptionist scrolled through Facebook. Fletcher came around the corner in a matter of moments, smoothing his shirt and stroking his bald head. “Sadie girl,” he said, eyes lit with anticipation. “You ready to chat?”
I dropped the magazines and followed.
Seeing the couch opened the portal. His cozy office was as good as an altar and better than a confessional. Fletcher didn’t wear a robe or a cross around his neck. In fact, most of the time, he wore faded jeans, deeply colored polo shirts, and a pair of broken-in boots. I had a crush on the boots. And in a very non-crushy way, for the middle-aged man who wore them. Poor bastard, I didn’t envy him; his clients walked in and spilled their guts. And Fletcher’s job, like a school janitor’s, was to spread that sawdust-like absorbent over the guts and sweep them into a pan. Unlike the janitor, Fletcher examined the guts.
One of Fletcher’s contagious smiles burned into my eyes as he swiveled his chair away from the desk and faced me. “Sit.” He indicated the couch, as he always did. “Tell me about life.”
This was our MO.