friends.
He was about to
call out, but stopped and just looked at her, at the young woman she was
becoming, at his thirteen-year-old daughter sitting there at a restaurant table
by herself. It seemed like just yesterday he and Sheila were there with her in
the baby stroller as she slept through the entire meal. He remembered how he
felt she was getting so big just when she was able to sit at the table without
a highchair. Then the conversations started to become less one-sided, less of
him asking questions and more questions from her. Real questions. Tough questions.
And she had his demeanor, his pensive, reflective process of analyzing answers
internally before just accepting them as fact. Each year he enjoyed spending
time with her more and more. He knew that was one of the reasons he and Sheila
had drifted. Bree had become the center of his life, and raising her became his
top priority. He was concerned about the curse of being a therapist’s child,
about the neuroses and problems they developed. Psychologists and psychiatrists
too often seemed to treat their children either too clinically, coldly handling
them as if they were another patient, or went the other way and completely
failed to recognize the signs that they treated each and every day themselves.
He didn’t want to make that mistake. And he hadn’t. Not with Bree.
But he did with
Sheila.
She became Bree’s
mother, not his wife. Their conversations centered around two things, and only
two things: work and Bree. And he admittedly tuned her out when it was work.
Not that Sheila was completely innocent in the whole thing. Not at all. But he
hadn’t helped. He hadn’t recognized what was happening. Not until it did happen. Not until it was too late
and Sheila was gone. Maybe if he had done something about it earlier,
recognized it or acknowledged it, they’d still be together. They’d at least
have had a shot. Or maybe not, he thought. Maybe it was what she wanted more
than he realized. Maybe it wasn’t just their drifting apart. Maybe she truly
just didn’t want to be with him anymore, and no amount of attention on his end
could have altered that.
He didn’t know.
That question was never answered. She never gave them a chance to reach that
stage.
He looked at
Bree’s grin as she read something on her phone.
Their only child.
They had discussed
having another one. Money wasn’t a problem; they could afford another one on
Sheila’s nearly seven-figure annual bonus alone. But the discussions never
resulted in any final resolution. They were just discussions, neither wanting
to shoot down the idea completely, but neither fully embracing it either. There
was the argument that it was selfish to not give Bree a sibling, a companion.
But that argument went by the wayside by the time she hit four. Then there was
the argument that Sheila worked too much and barely had time to spend with
Bree, let alone a new baby, and she wasn’t ready to slow down and didn’t want
another child just because they could afford it. That half-hearted excuse
continued to linger, never resolved. And then there was the guilty confession
by both that they just didn’t know if they could ever love another child as
much as they did Bree.
That one, he
thought, might still be true.
Whatever the case,
by the time Bree hit eight all of the discussions became muted as the
underlying reason behind their failure to commit to another child started to
become clear, even if it was never discussed or acknowledged. At least by him.
They had their own
issues to deal with.
He now knew that
Sheila had known it. And, on some level, he must have known it as well.
As he kept watching
Bree look at her phone, seeing her long straight brunette hair hang over her
eyes, he felt his BlackBerry vibrate. He slipped it out, wondering if it was
Eddie again asking him about going down to the shore, or his attorney calling
about the mediation. But it wasn’t. It was a text: R u gonna just keep staring
He was about to
call out, but stopped and just looked at her, at the young woman she was
becoming, at his thirteen-year-old daughter sitting there at a restaurant table
by herself. It seemed like just yesterday he and Sheila were there with her in
the baby stroller as she slept through the entire meal. He remembered how he
felt she was getting so big just when she was able to sit at the table without
a highchair. Then the conversations started to become less one-sided, less of
him asking questions and more questions from her. Real questions. Tough questions.
And she had his demeanor, his pensive, reflective process of analyzing answers
internally before just accepting them as fact. Each year he enjoyed spending
time with her more and more. He knew that was one of the reasons he and Sheila
had drifted. Bree had become the center of his life, and raising her became his
top priority. He was concerned about the curse of being a therapist’s child,
about the neuroses and problems they developed. Psychologists and psychiatrists
too often seemed to treat their children either too clinically, coldly handling
them as if they were another patient, or went the other way and completely
failed to recognize the signs that they treated each and every day themselves.
He didn’t want to make that mistake. And he hadn’t. Not with Bree.
But he did with
Sheila.
She became Bree’s
mother, not his wife. Their conversations centered around two things, and only
two things: work and Bree. And he admittedly tuned her out when it was work.
Not that Sheila was completely innocent in the whole thing. Not at all. But he
hadn’t helped. He hadn’t recognized what was happening. Not until it did happen. Not until it was too late
and Sheila was gone. Maybe if he had done something about it earlier,
recognized it or acknowledged it, they’d still be together. They’d at least
have had a shot. Or maybe not, he thought. Maybe it was what she wanted more
than he realized. Maybe it wasn’t just their drifting apart. Maybe she truly
just didn’t want to be with him anymore, and no amount of attention on his end
could have altered that.
He didn’t know.
That question was never answered. She never gave them a chance to reach that
stage.
He looked at
Bree’s grin as she read something on her phone.
Their only child.
They had discussed
having another one. Money wasn’t a problem; they could afford another one on
Sheila’s nearly seven-figure annual bonus alone. But the discussions never
resulted in any final resolution. They were just discussions, neither wanting
to shoot down the idea completely, but neither fully embracing it either. There
was the argument that it was selfish to not give Bree a sibling, a companion.
But that argument went by the wayside by the time she hit four. Then there was
the argument that Sheila worked too much and barely had time to spend with
Bree, let alone a new baby, and she wasn’t ready to slow down and didn’t want
another child just because they could afford it. That half-hearted excuse
continued to linger, never resolved. And then there was the guilty confession
by both that they just didn’t know if they could ever love another child as
much as they did Bree.
That one, he
thought, might still be true.
Whatever the case,
by the time Bree hit eight all of the discussions became muted as the
underlying reason behind their failure to commit to another child started to
become clear, even if it was never discussed or acknowledged. At least by him.
They had their own
issues to deal with.
He now knew that
Sheila had known it. And, on some level, he must have known it as well.
As he kept watching
Bree look at her phone, seeing her long straight brunette hair hang over her
eyes, he felt his BlackBerry vibrate. He slipped it out, wondering if it was
Eddie again asking him about going down to the shore, or his attorney calling
about the mediation. But it wasn’t. It was a text: R u gonna just keep staring
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