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I head into Shira’s office the next day with a newfound confidence. This is the first time I’ve walked in here when I haven’t felt like a shaken bottle of soda, ready to spill.
I do plan to spill.
But I feel steadier.
Less out of control.
“How’s it going today, Jules?” she asks as she takes a seat.
I flop down onto the sofa across from her then dive right into things. “Remember that time I slept with my father’s best friend?”
“I sure do. I’m guessing you’re going to tell me something else about that?”
I draw a deep breath. “Yes. Like…everything.”
I take her through the restaurant encounter, then the bookstore run-in, dinner at the diner, then Paris, from the café to the Luxembourg Gardens, to all our meals, and to the moment on the streets of Montmartre. “And I told him about my OCD. And about my sister.”
Shira looks impressed but cautious. “And how did that go?”
I flash back to that morning in Paris. To the way I felt during, then after, then days later. For years, I’ve felt hidden. But I chose to be that way. “I love masks,” I say, beginning in a roundabout way. “I love dressing up. Putting on a costume. But I think I loved it because I didn’t want to be…me. Or maybe I wanted to deny parts of me.”
She nods, absorbing that, and her expression sayskeep going.
“And then I didn’t feel such a need to deny it anymore.”
“Why do you think that is? Did you feel accepted?”
I take a deep breath, letting the air fill me completely. “I felt understood. It was better than a mask.”
“That’s progress. Sometimes we need to be open about our challenges. It helps us face them,” she says with a proud smile. But it morphs quickly into a questioning look. “Is there something happening with him?”
I shake my head, wishing I could give a different answer. “No. Because I have to do something else first.”
“What’s that?”
I swallow what feels like a stone, but I say it anyway. “I have to deal with something my father said to me years ago.”
Then, I tell Shira, and immediately she hands me a box of tissues.
When I’ve gone through them, she says, “And what do you think you’re supposed to do now?”
The answer is finally easy.
Face it.
32
DO YOU REMEMBER
Jules
A fleet of hummingbirds flaps in my chest as I walk past the brownstones lining the narrow street in my father’s Brooklyn neighborhood.
My stomach dips as I reach the stoop, with its iron railing and stairs lined with potted plants, thanks to Liz. The imposing stone facade and immaculate white-shuttered windows are thanks to my father’s career shift, which has afforded him a place like this in Brooklyn, much bigger than our childhood house.
This brownstone is not home to me. But it’s where I need to be right now.
I walk up the steps, hesitantly raising my hand to lift the brass knocker. A few seconds after it falls, Liz swings open the door. She’s perfectly put together in pastel blue leggings and a workout top, a swingy ponytail complementing her toned look.
