The counselor hadan office in the building adjacent to our hospital. Bless Whit for realizing that driving to an unfamiliar location might be daunting enough to give me an excuse not to follow through.
I sat nervously in the waiting room, picking up and putting down several glossy magazines, glancing at pages but not really seeing the content. On my left I noted two doors that presumably led to offices.
The light above one door went off, and out walked a middle-aged woman with light red hair streaked in gray, cut in a medium length. Her hair had a random waviness to it, like she didn’t try to tame it into any certain style. She had a pair of glasses on one of those beaded chains around her neck. With the smile crinkles around her eyes, she somehow reminded me of a librarian from a fairy tale, gentle but wise.
The man leaving her office had his head down, and we didn’t make eye contact. I’d never been to counseling, but anonymity kind of felt like the name of the game.
“Brooke?” The woman smiled up at me. She had clear gray-green eyes. She was probably around 50—she could’ve easily been a mom of one of my friends growing up. She gave off that middle-age-Mom energy, too. “Come on back.”
I entered the office space, which had low lighting and drew me in like a soothing retreat. She had folders and papers stacked on her desk, cluttered but not overwhelmingly so. The whole space had a very lived-in feeling. It felt more like walking into someone’s living room than an office space.
“Where should I sit?” I asked, noticing several different seating options.
“Wherever you’re comfortable,” she indicated with a hand.
I took a seat in the center of the surprisingly comfortable plush couch. A clock ticked on the wall above us. Along the walls were numerous bookshelves filled to the brim with books.
“So Brooke,” she began, “What brings you in today?”
“Doctor...” I froze. Had I really just forgotten this woman's name?That’s an embarrassing start,I chastised myself.Can you fail therapy? If so, I’m well on my way.
She smiled understandingly. “It’s actually Mrs., or Ms. if you prefer. Moore. But you can call me Cheryl.”
“Cheryl,” I tested the name out, relieved she wasn’t tallying my missteps. “I’m here—well, my roommate suggested it, actually. I’ve been—depressed, I guess? Can’t get out of bed, not interested in socializing, food all tastes the same—all the classic symptoms.” I tried to keep my tone matter-of-fact, like I would as a nurse with a patient.
Again the understanding smile. “We don’t need to do official labels and diagnoses here,” she replied. “We’re just here to talk.”
“Right.” I tried to loosen up, but my posture was still straight as an arrow on the couch. The cushions felt comfy enough beneath me, but I wasn’t quite ready to lean back and relax. It was like my body knew it should be ready to bolt at any point, if things got too serious.
“Let’s start with the basics then,” Cheryl began, taking a chair across from the couch and clicking a ballpoint pen. There was a yellow legal notepad in her lap. “Okay if I take notes?”
“Um, sure. I guess.”
“Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz later.” She met my eyes, smiling warmly. “This is mostly just a way for me to keep track of what we’ve talked about between sessions so we can smoothly move back into the conversation next time. Let’s start with your family...” she trailed off, opening the conversational door for me to step in.
“Okay, well, I’m the youngest of two kids. Owen—that’s my older brother—he’s three years older. I guess you could say we grew up solidly middle class. My mom was an accountant, and my dad was a sales rep.”
“Great. And your parents—did they ever travel for work?”
“My dad, yeah. Business trips, a few times a year.”
She jotted down some notes. “Were they happy parents?” She looked up at me expectantly.
Her question gave me a slight internal jolt. I don’t think I’d ever really thought about whether my parents were “happy parents.” I chewed my lip.
“Mostly, I think... we were kind of just a normal, suburban family. Went to church most Sundays. Went to neighborhood barbecues, that kind of thing. They split up when I was 15.”
She gave a knowing soft smile. “It happens. Tell me about their divorce. Had they been fighting? Did you have to move?”
“That’s the weird thing. I don’t think I ever heard them fight. They probably did, I guess, but they must’ve kept it behind closed doors or after Owen and I had gone to bed, so the divorce was kind of a shock. And um, yeah, not right away, but Mom couldn’t keep the house on just her income. I think the mortgage was probably really high, though she never talked about that. We moved into a smaller house, Mom and Owen and me. It wasn’t far, though, so we got to stay in our same school.”
“And your dad?” she prompted.
“Cliff,” I nodded. “He had an apartment in town for the first couple years. We saw him... once or twice a month, I guess. Owen and I were teenagers, so a lot of weekends we preferred to hang out with friends. Owen had graduated and was waiting tables, and I was busy with school.” I felt a slight pang of guilt.Should I have tried harder to maintain a relationship with him?
“Where is he now?” Cheryl’s question disrupted my spiraling thoughts.
“Austin, last I heard. His company transferred him. I didn’t hear from him much after that. He didn’t make it to my high school graduation—or my college one, for that matter. He still calls on my birthday most years, sends gifts on Christmas sometimes. Actually, it’s probably been a year or so since I’ve heard from him at this point. He’s just... not really a big part of my life.” I took a breath. “It wasn’t some big traumatic event, though. More like he just faded into the background...”
