Chapter 143: Nerves

Tuesday, May 29, 1984

Our appointment with Jane was at noon. She’d juggled her schedule to get us in on a Tuesday, and that was the result.

Angie went first, as often happened. Mom had brought a book, and so had I. When Angie came out, we touched hands briefly, and then I headed back into Jane’s office and gave her a warm hug.

“How’s graduation feel?” she said, as I settled into my favorite chair. “Again, I suppose?”

“Better than the first time. The first was great. This is much better.”

“I was at the ceremony, but I couldn’t find the right exit in time. Your friend Connie’s speech was very good. I’m guessing you helped?”

“A bunch of us did. She had the best speechwriting team of any high school valedictorian in America, I think, and I actually have the receipts on that.”

She chuckled. “I imagine that you do. Anything new?”

I shrugged. “A lot of bittersweet that I think is perspective.”

“Angie mentioned that.”

“Yeah. Most people don’t know what it’s like. There’s always a ‘next time’ in ‘see you next time’ from when we’re in kindergarten to high school. Oh, people move, but you almost always see the same people over and over and over again. Suddenly, it’s a time where ‘see you next time’ might be a reunion in five years. Or ten. Or twenty, or forty. No one knows how to process that, so they ignore it, mostly.”

“Is that bothering you?” she said, shifting a bit.

“Nah. I’ve had four years of knowing it was coming. Everything in high school has an expiration date. We’ve done a lot of managing that already. It’s going to be fine.”

“Good. Obviously, it can go on the list. Maybe it won’t always be fine.”

“It might not. This is new to me. I lost all of my Memorial friends last time. Dave Winton was an acquaintance, no more, until college. Here, he never existed. The only friend I kept was Dave Mayrink. I’ll hopefully keep him again. Not the same way, but close enough. Maybe,” I said.

She nodded. “Very different, I agree. I have to remember that other you, which is a challenge, because he’s so different, but he’s also you, and when I’m talking to you, sometimes I can’t really understand you the way I need to unless I remember that you’re who you are.”

“Yeah, and that won’t really change. I think it’ll fade over time, but when I’m fifty-five again, I’ll still be the guy that had a bad twenty-five-year marriage. I just may also be the guy who’s in a great thirty-plus-year marriage.”

“Which is a math failure, most of the time,” she said, chuckling. “I’m assuming no timetable on that marriage.”

I shook my head. “I wound up unexpectedly talking about it a bit with Camille and Francis. They’d be fine if we got married before graduation if we wanted, as long as we still graduate. Mom and Dad would be fine. Doesn’t mean we will. But, at some point, you’re just waiting so people don’t think you got married too soon. I think Jas needs at least a year or two of college under her belt, maybe more. On the other hand, I want to be married for a bit before we start making babies, and I don’t know how long babies will wait. They’ll definitely wait until after graduation, though.”

She nodded. “Another conversation I could only have with Angie, amongst my teenage patients.”

“Speaking of which...”

She nodded again. “I’m going to speak to Helen after this, but she knows how things will go, and she’s said she’s fine with it. She’s happy that you’ll keep seeing me, but understands that you want to be the adults now.”

“We’ve moved outside of your usual practice, but...”

She chuckled more loudly. “You two are outside of anyone’s usual practice, anywhere, as far as I know!”

“Definitely.”

“That’ll end any reporting on ‘behaving,’ of course.”

I nodded. “And that’s important, but you can guess that we’re not rushing into anything.”

“I can now! If you’d asked me two years ago, I’d have said I was probably going to be having to talk Helen down from the ceiling at some point, and soon, too.”

“I can see that.”

“That’s another one,” she said. “Even totally disregarding your extra age, I doubt many therapists have had to counsel two ostensible siblings who didn’t live together until they were mentally adult, share no DNA, are nearly the same age, and have absolutely no possibility of a power differential, coercion, any of that. All of the usual arguments go completely out of the window!”

“Except how Mom would feel.”

“Well, yes, but that’s usually a terrible argument. I mean, what Helen might have done, maybe, but combine desire and access and ‘Mom wouldn’t like it’ is really low on the usual reasons to say no.”

“I can see that,” I said, chuckling a bit.

“So ... you’re leaving...?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “We’re in College Station until Saturday, I think. We’ll drive down here Saturday, hook Jasmine’s Subaru up to the Winnebago, and drive off into the sunset.”

“Destination?”

“We really don’t know yet. That’s a planning topic for College Station. One school of thought is Texas, Oklahoma, parts of Colorado, and New Mexico. The other is to go ahead and head to Florida, which is a bit more of a commitment. If we do that, we’ll do Disney, Miami, Key West, then perhaps go as far north as Atlanta and maybe loop up through Tennessee. Or maybe just straight back. Not sure.”

“Interesting, either way,” she said.

“The big trip will be complicated. Illinois and Wisconsin first, then either the east coast first, or west to at least Yellowstone. Probably Glacier, too. If that, then maybe Canada, followed by the west coast, including seeing the Bay Area people. Maybe Nancy, if we can get her on the phone. Disney, of course. If we haven’t done the east coast, then back through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and on east, up to New England, down the coast, and then back home. Otherwise back through Arizona and New Mexico — or Utah, Colorado, and Kansas. Or some combination.”

“Seeing family, correct? That first part?”

I nodded. “That’s going to be interesting. Bringing Jas and Paige before Northwestern says one thing. It feels clear, but it could be written off as just friendship. Bringing them again, and traveling in an RV, is totally different.”

“Most of your relatives know?”

“Most. Aunt Helen might go nuts. If she’s heard about Prom, she will go nuts. Maybe at us, maybe just at Mom and Dad. Or just Mom.”

“That’s okay?” she said.

“Angie’s not going to pretend, and I’m happy with that. Aunt Helen may not get an invite to the wedding — depending on how things go — but she’ll know it’s happening.”

Jane chuckled. “That’s the way I heard it, yes.”

“Anyway, you know us. We’re not going to be ‘in your face,’ but no one’s going to lie, either. If no one asks, we’re all just friends. If asked, then we’ll answer.”

She nodded. “Makes sense. Honestly, I would be saying a lot of things here to anyone else. Most eighteen-year-olds who take a stance like that are looking to pick a fight.”

“That’s always the way.”

“Pretty much. Speaking of ... have you and Angie talked about Sharon?”

“Some. She’s expecting to maybe hear something this summer and will want to know what it says, but we’re letting that take its own time,” I said.

“That’s what she said, too. I’m concerned, but I’ll always be concerned.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We had a long talk about biological parents, too. I’m ... curious ... but I’m also apprehensive and not sure what I want to do there.”

“This is new, I think.”

“There’s some stuff there I haven’t mentioned, mostly because ... well, I don’t know. Bigger fish to fry? Anyway ... I know things. It’s very likely that I have first cousins in Beaumont or nearby. There’s no way that I can know that now, but I still do. One problem is that I know they’re probably not much like me. Another problem is the ‘lottery winner’ problem. If we’re rich in a few years...”

“Instant family, instant requests for money,” she said.

“Yeah. I hate to be cynical...”

“But that’s exactly how that goes.”

“It’s way more common later. Or, it was in my ‘later,’ anyway,” I said. “There are a lot more lotteries,” I said. “So, a lot more chances for it to happen.”

“Which complicates things with Sharon.”

“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “If we helped Sharon, and she used the money to go off the rails...”

“Which is quite possible.”

“Exactly. If she did ... it’d be hard.”

“But not helping her, if she really was on the straight and narrow, would be hard, too,” she said.

“Exactly. We have a few years to figure that out, but any actions we take now may complicate it later. No one knows we might be wealthy except people we trust, but our being wealthy is nearly inevitable unless things go wildly wrong.”

“At least you’re all planners,” she said.

“There is that,” I said, nodding.

“We’re short on time. Angie said that Tuesday the 26th is a good day for us to make a new contract and maybe meet, depending on how much you have to cover.”

“It is. That’s the day after her birthday. We’ll all be in town. Nationals will be over. Most likely we’ll leave for Chicago either the 26th or the 27th. That’s a three-day drive in the RV, so we’ll meet Mom and Dad on the 29th or 30th and see family and friends for the next week.”

“And then bouncing around the country for a month or so?” she said.

“That’s what it looks like. The plan keeps changing.”

“Isn’t that how plans always go?”

“Seems like it. Bobby Burns gets it right a lot of the time,” I said.

She chuckled. “Indeed he does!”

We got up and hugged, and then I headed out.

In the car, on the way back, Mom said, quite possibly for the last time, “Good talk, kids?”

“Very good,” we both said.

“Good! You know that I had my doubts, but I can’t argue with the results. That, and I’m glad you’ll keep seeing her as long as it’s working for you. I really like Doctor Stanton. I hope she’ll be a friend for a long time.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Angie said. “I do, too!”