KAI MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON who would get me in a room face to face with my parents. I’ve only seen them a handful of times outside of a courtroom since I emancipated. One of those times, last year, I fondly refer to as Bloody Christmas. Another was necessitated by threat of death when my father had a heart attack. Even after his apology, my visits to him as he rehabilitated were infrequent. A whispered half-apology when he was wired up like Frankenstein and mere heartbeats from death doesn’t bridge the chasm the years have created between us. As for my mother, I’ve met dentures less fake.
“I first want to commend you all for coming today,” Dr. Ramirez, our counselor, adjusts her glasses and leans back in the leather armchair like the ones my parents and I occupy. “Taking the time to repair these relational breeches is a positive step that many never take.”
I fix my eyes on her instead of looking at my mother and father. She has kind eyes behind her glasses. Well-meaning eyes, I’m sure, but I’m not convinced she can perform a miracle we haven’t been able to achieve in almost fifteen years of enmity.
My father and mother seem as determined to not look at me as I am to not look at them. Tension clogs the air, that hand gripping my throat the way it always does after more than five minutes with them. I reach to loosen my collar, but there isn’t one on my Ramones t-shirt. I’m choking from the inside.
“This is our first session.” Dr. Ramirez tucks a dark strand of hair behind one ear. “So we won’t go too deep today, but I would like to hear from each of you. Tell me what you hope to get out of this. Why you’re here. Rhyson, why don’t we start with you? Why are you here today?”
“My girlfriend made me come.”
Shit. I should at least try to sound less coerced. Well, cards on the table, I guess.
“What girlfriend?” My mother finally turns her eyes my way. “I thought you and Kai broke up.”
Like it’s your business.
I just stare back at her for a few seconds, not sure how to respect Kai’s wish for secrecy and still be honest. Before I can figure that out, my mother goes on.
“I saw her at Grady’s wedding.” She shrugs. “We talked briefly.”
Remembering how snooty my mother was to Kai at the hospital when my father had his heart attack, I immediately want to figure out how she may have insulted her. Dr. Ramirez doesn’t leave time for that, though.
“Why did your girlfriend . . .” She nods to my mother. “Ex-girlfriend want you to come, if you don’t mind sharing?”
I could brush this whole process off, just be a body in a comfy seat once a week, but Kai is trusting me to actually try. Her trust isn’t something I’ll ever take for granted again, so I’ll actually try.
“We had a big blow out.” I cross an ankle over my knee, shrugging though talking about my fight with Kai feels anything but casual. “I did something stupid that she felt . . . feels . . . might be connected to unresolved issues with my parents.”
Interest deepens in Dr. Ramirez’s eyes, raises both brows.
“May I ask what that was?” At my sharp glance up she back-pedals a little. “If you don’t mind sharing. If you don’t want to . . .”
What the hell.
“She’s in the business, like me.” I give my parents a cursory glance before going on, realizing just how exposed my confession will leave me. How bad it could make me look. “She had an opportunity I didn’t feel good about, and I went behind her back to convince them to pass her over.”
“To pass Kai over?” my mother asks, a small frown between her neatly arched brows.
“Yeah.”
“Why did you do that, Rhyson?” Dr. Ramirez leans forward until her elbows rest on her knees, eyes intent.
“Because I love her.” I swallow hard, wishing I hadn’t started this. Already wishing I’d held more back.
“You love her so you went behind her back to deny her an opportunity?”
Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous.
“Maybe not my brightest moment,” I admit. “But at the time, it seemed like the best thing.”
“The best thing?” Dr. Ramirez presses.
“For her. She’s new to all of this and doesn’t know the pitfalls like I do.” I hold Dr. Ramirez’s eyes, hoping she’ll see past my asshole actions to my intentions. “I just wanted what was best for her. Honestly. That’s the only reason I did that.”
“And she didn’t agree?” Dr. Ramirez asks.
“No, she thought it was controlling and manipulative.” A hoarse laugh barges past my lips. “She might have a point. She thinks control and love get mixed up for me because of everything that happened with my parents.”
I don’t bother looking at them. My mother, whose hackles I feel rising from across the room, or my father, who’s been pretty much on mute the whole time. I look at the counselor. I need her to tell me Kai is wrong. I need her to tell me what I feel isn’t some tainted thing I inherited from my parents because it’s the purest thing I’ve ever felt. And if this isn’t even clean, isn’t good, I hold very little hope for myself to ever be any different from the two people sitting across from me.
And that scares the hell out of me.
“Mrs. Gray,” Dr. Ramirez says. “Let’s hear from you. What are you hoping to get out of these sessions? Why are you here?”
My mother clears her throat and studies her hands before glancing at Dr. Ramirez and letting her eyes drift to me.
“Well, I have wanted this kind of opportunity for years to make Rhyson understand why we handled things the way we did.” The eyes I see every morning when I face myself in the mirror look back at me. “That we only wanted what was best for him.”
“So giving me your Xanax when I was twelve,” I say, old anger snipping my words. “And once I was obviously addicted, telling me we’d consider rehab after I met my tour obligations, that was best for me, Mother?”
A weighty silence overpowers the room, and Dr. Ramirez’s wide eyes skitter between my mother and me. That isn’t public knowledge. That never came out in court when I emancipated. It was only Grady’s threat to expose it that convinced my parents to drop the fight and let me go.
If only my mother would flush with shame. Or maybe betray some guilt with a flurry of blinks. Hell, I’d settle for anger narrowing her eyes at me. But her face remains smooth, implacable and unaffected. Her posture stays straight, and she doesn’t squirm or shift when she meets my outrage.
“We’ve been through this before, Rhyson.” She sounds like she did when I was a child. Like I was something she had to tolerate, a means to her profitable ends. “Maybe here with Dr. Ramirez I can finally make you see it my way.”
I’m not even a therapist and I know that can’t be right. The word “make” smacks of control, and is already hitting too close to home. Is that how I sound to Kai? Like selfishness veneered with platitudes? If so, I make myself sick.
“Well, we’ll get into those deeper issues later, I’m sure. We’re just getting started today.” Dr. Ramirez focuses that kind stare on my father for a moment. “Mr. Gray, what about you? You’ve been very quiet. What did you want today? Why are you here?”
My father clears his throat. He’s lost weight since the heart attack. I grew up with him a giant in my mind, but every time I see him, he seems a little smaller.
“What I want,” he says, looking me straight in the eyes for the first time, “the only thing I’m here for is to convince Rhys that I’m sorry. That I realize now how badly I mishandled things when we were managing his career. I treated him like a meal ticket instead of a son. It wasn’t until I almost died that I realized the damage I’d done. I’m asking him for a second chance. I’m asking him to forgive me.”
Emotions wrestle in my chest. I don’t want this. I don’t want his words to whiz like a dart past my hurt and disillusionment and find a bullseye on my heart, but they do. At the same time, it’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve wanted him to see it, to mean it. And there’s no way I can look at the sincerity in his eyes, more like Grady’s today than I’ve ever seen them, and not know that he does mean it.
I don’t say a word, and neither does he. We just stare at one another, blinking and swallowing, holding everything back. Keeping it locked up tight.
“Thank you, Mr. Gray,” Dr. Ramirez says softly. “I think we often underestimate the power of a sincere sorry. We think our reasons and excuses somehow make the hurt we’ve caused make sense, but the damage is done, and the only thing that makes it any better is admitting how wrong we were.
The kindness in Dr. Ramirez’s eyes makes its way into her smile.
“Sometimes our best intentions come with our worst decisions,” she says. “We’re lucky to have people forgive us in situations like that.”
I’m grateful for her words, which give me something to focus on besides my father and the awkward, confusing softening his apology imposed on me. I don’t know what I feel, but I know I’ve never felt it before today, before he apologized.
Dr. Ramirez pushes her glasses up her nose with one finger and spreads a considering look between the three of us.
“It may be beneficial to schedule some one-on-one sessions with each of you to supplement our group time.” She closes a little pad I hadn’t really paid much attention until now. “If you decide that’s the direction you should take, the receptionist out front can set that up.”
As we’re standing at the front desk setting up the next sessions, my father touches my shoulder. I look from his hand to his face carefully.
“I hope things work out with Kai,” he says. “I can tell you really care about her.”
I nod, allowing the touch to linger for a moment before stepping back.
“I need to go. I’ve got a session,” I lie. “See you next week.”
I’m on my way to the elevator, turning everything over in my head when it strikes me how hard it probably was for my father to apologize. I glance back to see him standing off to the side, studying his shoes while my mother consults her calendar with the receptionist.
“Hey, Dad.”
He looks up, his expression surprised that I’m still here.
“What you said in there.” I falter, unsure of how to finish what I started. “It was . . . well, thanks. It meant a lot.”
He doesn’t respond, just looks kind of thrown before nodding and giving me a smile that, for the first time in a long time, I find easy to return.