The Good Father by Diane Chamberlain

Author:Diane Chamberlain
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-05-03T05:00:00+00:00

23

Erin

I sat across from Judith in her office, anxiously checking my watch. I’d almost canceled my appointment with her this morning because I was afraid that by the time I got to JumpStart, Travis and Bella would be gone. If I hadn’t already known I’d become way too attached to Bella, I knew it then. I’d stopped in a store the evening before and bought her a couple of Winnie the Pooh books, since I’d been unable to walk across the floor of my daughter’s room to take them from her bookshelf.

“You keep looking at your watch,” Judith said to me. She was dressed in one of her usual outfits—a brightly colored, flowy top and long skirt. She always looked like a rainbow.

“I do?” I said, as though I didn’t know I was repeatedly checking the time. “I have a dentist appointment.”

I liked Judith. Actually, I thought I loved her. I knew that was called transference. She’d become my mother and my sister and my best friend, all rolled into one. Judith let me talk and talk and talk. When Michael and my friends were sick of hearing me describe what happened that night, sick of hearing me say Why? Why? Why?, Judith listened. She would listen forever if she needed to, and that’s what I loved about her. She loved adages and always ended our session with one. Sometimes the best way to hold on to something is to let it go, she’d say. I hated that one, because I didn’t agree with it. I would never, never let Carolyn go. To know the road ahead, ask those who are coming back, she’d say. That one, I liked. It made me think of the Harley’s Dad group, how the parents who’d been grieving years longer than me were helping me survive the journey.

Judith had suggested I bring in pictures of Carolyn, something I still wasn’t ready to do, and she thought it was fine that I didn’t want to change Carolyn’s room. She made me feel not crazy, while Michael and my friends made me feel as though I was grieving the wrong way. Ruminating, as Michael would say.

But there was one thing I didn’t feel ready to talk to Judith about in any depth and that was how I was feeling about Bella and Travis. I wasn’t sure why. I’d known Bella and Travis for ten days now and I was so afraid she’d say it was unhealthy that I was growing attached to a child who was essentially a stranger to me. I just didn’t feel like examining my feelings about Bella with Judith. Not yet. Which is why I lied about my reason for checking my watch. Judith believed me about the dentist appointment; I could tell she did. But I’d never been a comfortable liar and the guilt finally did me in.

“I just lied to you,” I said.

“What about?”

“I don’t have a dentist appointment. I’m just…I’m afraid to tell you why I’m in a rush today.

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