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Toward the end of session, Carolyn asked if she could make a suggestion. Erin braced herself. Carolyn’s suggestions tended to, as Rachel would say, drag her for filth.
“Maybe it’s time to have that conversation with Parker.”
“What?”
“About the divorce. About the whys. About what you want for her.”
It was a conversation Erin had been wanting to have. Or—that wasn’t exactly true, either. She didn’t want to have the conversation, but she wanted Parker to know.
Parker hadn’t forgiven her for the divorce. They’d moved on, but that didn’t mean Erin was forgiven. She wanted Parker to understand. The divorce? It was for Erin, yes, but for Parker, too. Erin learned to put herself first because she wanted to model that for her daughter.
“Can’t I just write her a letter or something?”
“Sometimes we have to do things that make us uncomfortable for people we love.”
Erin knew that, obviously. And she had to have the conversation with Parker eventually. She’d tried, once, during the divorce, but she and Parker were both too close to it then. Erin hadn’t been able to talk about it without blaming Adam—to be fair, a lot of the blame lay at his feet. But he was a good dad, and Parker loved him, and she hadn’t yet seemed to realize he wasn’t perfect. She’d figured that out about Erin long ago.
With some distance from the divorce, Erin refused to be the one to show Parker her father wasn’t perfect. The conversation had to be abouther,not about the divorce.
Erin tried when she got home. Parker asked how therapy was and Erin didn’t just saygoodand move on. She tried being more honest.
“Okay,” she said, tilting her head back and forth as she tried to find words for the session. “Sometimes I feel like I’m doing it wrong.”
Erin’s mother would’ve died at the thought of going to therapy, and she would roll over in her grave knowing Erin actually spoke to her daughter about it.
“It’s like that sometimes,” Parker said. “Did I tell you I’m going at the student center now?”
“You are?”
“Yeah. Sasha had offered to do virtual visits when I went to school, but I like it better in person.”
Parker had been in therapy since the divorce, because Erin had wanted her to have someone objective to talk to. Someone not on Erin’s or Adam’s side, but on Parker’s.
“How’s it going?”
“Okay,” Parker mimicked her earlier answer. “It’s weird having to catch my new therapist up on all my childhood trauma.”
“Oh, yes, that sounds horrible. How have you had time to fill her in on all the ways your mother is wretched?”
Parker giggled. Erin flicked water on her before drying her hands.
They could be more honest, more vulnerable, without having to fully bare themselves. Baby steps.
They would have the conversation, eventually.
Toward the end of January, Rachel took Erin to lunch and a pedicure for her birthday, as she’d done for years. Erin always picked some place fancy, both because Rachel was paying and because nowthat she was single, Erin never really got the chance to go to nice restaurants.
In her head, she could practically hear Carolyn’s voice asking why she didn’t think she was worth nice restaurants on her own.
In between the appetizer and the entrée, Rachel asked the question she asked every birthday:
“What did you learn about yourself in the past year?”
Every birthday Erin was unprepared. She usually forgot the question was coming, but this year she’d thought about it in advance. And she still wasn’t sure.
“I’m still learning it, I think, but…” It felt ridiculous to say, but it was all she’d come up with. “Fuck should. It doesn’t matter what I’ve been trained to think I’m ‘supposed’ to do. What do I want? What makes me feel good? What will make my relationships stronger? Those are the questions that matter. Not whatshouldI do.”
“Yes, fuck, I love this.”
