by Cathy Zane
Maggie squeezed her back. “Sure thing. That’s what friends are for.”
“I think I’m starting to figure that out,” Sarah said. She smiled as she turned to leave. She did feel better. She was still reeling from Robert’s disclosure, and it would take her a while to process it all. But she also felt something else stirring just under the surface. A strange calmness? Relief, maybe? As if a weight had been lifted. A nascent awareness that she wasn’t to blame for Robert not loving her. It wasn’t some defect in her or something she’d done wrong. It wasn’t about her after all. It was about Robert.
Chapter 20
Sarah crawled into bed with her new journal. She thought about what Monica had said: Just keep the pen moving. Don’t worry about the content or whether it’s good or bad. Just write. She smiled. That would be easy tonight. So many thoughts had been running through her mind since her conversation with Robert. She set the timer on her phone for thirty minutes and put her pen to the paper before her.
I actually had fun today. I’m glad I let myself play with Lizzy. We haven’t done that for a while. I feel like I have been suffocating in some dark cloud and somehow today a little sun came through . . .
Sarah jumped slightly when her alarm rang. She’d been so absorbed in the writing that she’d lost track of time. She turned it off and finished her last thought, aware that she was feeling better than she had in a long time. She’d actually enjoyed the journaling. She’d tapped into the flow she remembered from years ago, when she was still writing. And she’d had several insights, mostly about her relationship with Robert, that she was excited to talk to Monica about at their next session. Something had definitely shifted. Fleeting images of her old self were endeavoring to creep back in. She realized she no longer felt hopeless.
She carefully closed the journal and rolled over to put it in the drawer of her bedside stand. When she opened the drawer, she saw Matt’s unopened letter. She had completely forgotten it was in there. She laid her journal on top of the stand and took the letter out of the drawer. The first thing she noticed was the Tanzania postmark. What had his experience been like there? Had it changed him and how he saw the world? She had so many questions that she’d love to be able to ask him.
She felt nervous. What would the letter say? It felt strange to be opening it now—to be bringing the past into the present. She continued to sit, holding it with both hands, unsure of whether she could go through with it. Maybe not yet. Maybe she wasn’t ready. But she was curious. And besides, what was the big deal? Did she think she couldn’t handle it? What was the worst that could happen? That he was angry—that he had told her to never write him again? To stay away? She’d done that for years. It was time to move forward. Time to just open it.
She turned the envelope over, carefully peeled back the flap, and removed the single sheet of paper inside. She gently opened the page and was caught off guard by a strong upwelling of emotion at the sight of Matt’s familiar handwriting. She brushed away a tear and began reading.
Dear Sarah,
I felt very sad after reading your letter. I hope that you don’t really believe that I never loved you and was just using you, because that’s not at all true. I cherish the time we had together, and you will always hold a special place in my heart. But our lives are in such different places, and we need to honor that. Being true to ourselves is the most loving thing we can do right now—for ourselves and for each other. Don’t ever lose your faith in love, Sarah. It really is the strongest thing. It’s what makes everything so very worthwhile.
Much love, Matt
Sarah finished the letter and sank back into her pillow, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she’d never opened this. For all those years. She’d been so stubborn. Holding on to her anger and not even giving him a chance. What had he thought when she didn’t respond? How could she have been so childish and immature? Sarah’s mind churned until she was thoroughly drained and finally drifted off to sleep.
She woke the next morning still feeling exhausted but also serene. She lay in bed thinking for several minutes before an idea struck that catapulted her out of bed. She grabbed her laptop, crawled back into bed, and googled “Matt Herringer” and “Boston.” Several listings popped up, including LinkedIn and Intelius. Should she try messaging him on LinkedIn? That felt too impersonal. And paying for Intelius seemed a little extreme. Crazy, even. Like, stalker crazy. But she did want to talk to him. To explain. She felt horrible that he’d written such a wonderful and caring letter and she had completely snubbed him. She thought back to seeing him at the restaurant. He hadn’t seemed upset or angry with her. Actually, he’d seemed genuinely happy to see her. Maybe it hadn’t been a big deal to him.
Sarah knew she shouldn’t do anything impulsive. She should just take a breath and think this through. And it would probably be a good idea to wait and talk to Monica first. But she didn’t want to wait. Her impulsive urges tugged at her rational thoughts. Each “no” quickly turned into a “yes.” She convinced herself that there really wasn’t a good reason not to contact him. She reached for her phone on the bedside stand and saw her journal. That’s what she should do. That’s what Monica would tell her to do. Write.
Sarah picked up the journal and opened to the first empty page as her inner dialogue rushed forward. Why did she want to contact him? What would she want to say to him? She started second-guessing herself. Maybe this was stupid. He might not want to talk to her. But in the restaurant, he’d said he wanted to catch up. She felt conflicted. What should she do? She thought back to Monica again. Monica would definitely tell her to journal. To just get it all out on paper.
Another idea popped into her head. She could write to Matt in her journal, like she was writing him a letter. She grabbed her pen and began:
Dear Matt . . .
By the time she’d finished writing five pages, Sarah felt calm and centered. She was clear that she wanted to reach out to him. It might be awkward, but she owed him an apology. And an explanation. She picked up her phone and called information.
“Boston, Massachusetts,” she said in response to the automated voice. “For Matthew Herringer.” She wrote down the number and hung up the phone. She sat pensively for a moment, then took a deep breath and dialed.
“Hello?” a man’s voice answered.
“Matt?”
“Yes.”
“This is a voice from your past,” Sarah said—and almost smacked herself on the forehead. What the fuck! What a lame thing to say. You are such an idiot.
“Sarah?” Matt asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yes! I wasn’t sure you’d recognize my voice. I hope it’s okay that I’m calling.”
“Of course. It’s good to hear from you. I was sorry we didn’t have more time to catch up when I ran into you at Maxwell’s. How are you?”
“I’m okay.” Sarah smiled. “Getting better . . .”
Sarah felt almost giddy driving to her next session with Monica. She had so much to tell her. She wasn’t sure where to start. Robert’s news. The many insights she’d had about their relationship. The connections she’d drawn between their dynamics and her parents’. The letter from Matt. Her new understanding about why she’d reacted the way she did when he left.
She parked the car and took the stairs two at a time. Her excitement bordered on anxiety, and she coached herself to take some deep breaths as she settled into a chair in the waiting room. She picked up a magazine but put it back down after thumbing through a couple of pages. She had too much running through her mind to focus even on the pictures.
When Monica opened the door, Sarah popped up, smiling, and quickly followed her into her office.
“You seem different this week,” Monica said when they had settled into their usual seats.
“I feel different. And I have so much to tell you, I don’t know where to start.”
Monica laughed. “You sound like you’re sort of bursting at the seams.”
“Wow,” Monica said when Sarah finished. “That’s a lot to be processing.”
“It has been. But it’s helped me feel better. Like a weight has been lifted. Like maybe I’m not so defective after all.”
“So, you were feeling defective?”
Sarah nodded. “Like you talked about last time. I had a lot of negative thoughts running through my mind all the time. It really helped to know other people have that too.”
“So, you’d been feeling like there was something wrong with you. That you were different from other people.”
“I was. But then I realized I was blaming myself for things that really weren’t about me. That I wasn’t to blame for my father’s abusiveness. Or my mother’s suicide.” The tears came without warning; she reached for a Kleenex.
“That’s a big insight,” Monica said.
“Yes. And that’s not all. It also helped me understand my reaction to Matt when he left.”
“That was your college boyfriend?”
Sarah nodded. “Yeah. Remember how I told you that I went a little psycho bitch in a letter to him? I was so hurt and angry.”
“I remember. You said you’d gotten a letter back from him but never opened it.”
“Right. I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. But then, the same day Robert told me about Sam, I came across it again. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Reading what he’d written helped me put everything together.”
“So, you read it.”
“Yes.” Sarah reached into her purse and pulled out the letter. “I brought it to read it to you.” She carefully unfolded the note. She felt the lump rise up in her throat again as she started to read. She swallowed against it and managed to finish without crying. When she was done, she laid the letter down in her lap and looked up at Monica.
“His words sound very genuine,” Monica said. “How did you feel hearing them?”
“Overwhelmed by his caring. And ashamed of how I acted.”
“When he broke up with you?”
Sarah nodded, her eyes getting slightly watery. “My feelings were so out of proportion,” she said. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “It was as if all my hurt and anger at my parents came boiling up and I dumped all of that out onto him. I’d convinced myself that he’d never really loved me.” She paused and wiped her eyes. “And then to read this . . . To have him respond this way when I was so awful to him . . .”
“It was hard to take in.”
Sarah nodded. “The last couple lines really got to me.”
“About love making everything worthwhile?”
“Yeah. I was thinking back to last week here, when I was feeling like love had let me down. And then to read this.” Sarah lifted up Matt’s letter. “It felt overwhelming.”
“That love was there after all,” Monica said.
Sarah nodded and then smiled broadly.
“What’s the smile about?” Monica asked.
“It’s silly. And a bit lame. But I was channeling my friend Maggie. She’s always quoting lines from movies. And I thought of the movie Love Actually. The idea that love is all around us. We just have to be open to it.”
“That doesn’t seem lame. It seems like something has shifted for you this past week.”
Sarah nodded and weighed whether to tell Monica more, afraid she would judge her for acting impulsively. She pushed away the fear and continued. “I called him.”
Monica’s eyes opened wide. “Matt?”
Sarah nodded. “I told him about finally reading the letter and apologized for my behavior back then. And I told him about the things I’ve been going through and how the letter helped me. He said he was glad. And then he said something I won’t ever forget. He said that he hadn’t loved many people in his life, but he had loved me.”
“How did that feel?”
“Good,” Sarah said. “But I didn’t know what to say back. I got all tongue-tied. I managed to say that it helped me to hear that, but then I changed the subject and asked about him. And he told me about his work and his family. He has a two-year-old boy and he was quite the proud papa as he talked about him.”
“How was it to hear all that?”
Sarah shifted in her seat. “It was actually okay. Satisfying, even.”
“Satisfying?”
“Yeah.” Sarah paused. “In a strange way, reconnecting with him has helped me remember me.”
Monica leaned forward in her chair. “Can you say more about that? This seems like an important insight and I really want you to be able to clearly articulate it for yourself.”
Sarah thought for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was slow but steady. “It’s as if I’ve been lost or adrift for a while. And now I’m finding my way back by remembering who I was back then. Before Robert. Remembering my zest for life, my dreams of writing, and how encouraging Matt was. He believed in me and that helped me believe in myself.”
“That makes sense . . .”
“I guess. I know it feels good.”
“I can see that in your face.”
Sarah grinned.
“Anything else?” Monica asked.
Sarah’s smile widened. She was pretty sure she knew what Monica was thinking. “Like ‘what if’? Or ‘if only’?”
Monica smiled and raised her eyebrows.
“Nothing gets by you, does it? Yeah. I went there. I actually journaled quite a bit about it. What if things had been different? If I had opened the letter. If I hadn’t met Robert. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant. I even have to admit that a Cinderella story line was running through my head. The idea that he might be single and still in love with me and rescue me from my messed-up life.”
“It’s understandable that you’d feel that,” Monica said. “Yeah, I guess.” Sarah stared out the window for a moment before continuing. “But maybe it’s time to stop waiting to be rescued,” she said, more to herself than to Monica, as she turned back from the window. “Maybe it’s time for me to create my own happy ending.”
Chapter 21
Sarah finished emptying the dishwasher and grabbed the towel to wipe down the counter as she thought back over the past several weeks. Her sessions with Monica were going well; she felt grateful for the many insights she’d gained and changes she’d gone through. She was starting to feel like herself again. She’d been able to meet with Robert and could tell that he was making changes too. He’d actually started his own therapy. She would never have believed it, but it was true. She wasn’t quite ready to meet Sam yet, but she knew they would get there.
Lizzy came in dressed in her pajamas, interrupting Sarah’s thoughts.
“All ready for bed?” Sarah asked.
“Yep.”
“Brush your teeth?”
“Yep.”
“Good girl. Okay, go hop into bed and I’ll come tuck you in as soon as I’m done here.”
“Okay.” Lizzy started to leave, but then she turned back to Sarah. “Mommy?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did Daddy leave?”
Sarah froze for half a second, then knelt down in front of Lizzy. “It’s kind of a complicated adult thing,” she said. “But you miss him, don’t you?”
Lizzy nodded, her eyes reddening slightly.
“I know.” Sarah swept her up in a hug. “Tell you what. I’ll call him tomorrow and find out when he’s coming to see you, okay?”
Lizzy nodded again. “Okay.”
Sarah tousled Lizzy’s hair. “Now, into bed with you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Lizzy left and Sarah leaned against the counter, her heart aching. She hated to see Lizzy suffer. She wished there was something she could do to
make it easier.
Lizzy was already curled up in bed, hugging a stuffed animal, when Sarah walked in. Sarah saw immediately that she was crying, though she wasn’t making a sound, and she lay down behind Lizzy and wrapped her arms around her.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Lizzy rolled over to look at her. “He left because of me, didn’t he?”
Sarah shook her head. “No. It wasn’t because of you.”
Lizzy frowned. “Yeah it was. I did something wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It isn’t about you. It’s about Mommy and Daddy together being wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain.” How could she explain this in a way Lizzy would understand? Was that even possible? She considered what Lizzy might be needing right now. Sarah knew the important thing was for her to not blame herself, to not think she was the reason Robert left. What would help her get that?
An idea came to her. “Let me tell you a story.” She pulled Lizzy in and hugged her close as she began.
“Long ago in a faraway land there was a princess who loved animals. She had two cats who would curl up in her lap and purr, and a dog who would sleep with her at night, and a horse who would take her on long rides through the kingdom. One day she was riding through the kingdom and she heard a blue bird singing. His song was so beautiful that the princess took him home and put him next to her window in a beautiful golden cage. And she was very happy. But then the bird stopped singing, and there wasn’t anything the princess could say or do to get him to sing again. Then one night there was a terrible storm. The wind was howling and it blew open the windows and started blowing all over her room. The princess was so scared that she hid under the covers and snuggled up with her dog until she fell asleep. When she woke up the storm had stopped, but her room was a mess. There was stuff everywhere. And then she saw that the golden cage was tipped over and the blue bird was gone. The princess was really sad. She thought he’d left because he didn’t love her. But then one morning when she was waking up she heard a bird singing outside her window. She jumped up and ran to the window and guess what?”
