Page 67 of Save the Date

Maria, the more jealous of the two, rolled her eyes.

“I even sent it to one of my friends who just got dumped and she said it ‘reignited her faith in humanity.’”

“Taylor said that?” Maria asked skeptically.

“Yep. Our very own Emma is inspiring people to not give up. I love it.”

Emma smiled while keeping her eyes on Maria. She knew that if Maria lost respect for Emma as an individual, she wasn’t going to trust Emma as her therapist.

“I’m sorry to have popped up on your feed like that. I know it can be unsettling to see me outside of my professional setting.”

“It is a little weird,” Maria offered.

“Absolutely. I once saw my college therapist throwing up in a bar. Took a bit of time to repair that relationship.”

Both Maria and Claire laughed, which was a relief. Emma hadn’t lost them completely.

“If you want to ask me any questions to address concerns you might have, I’m happy to answer them,” Emma said with more confidence than she felt.

Self-disclosure was always a tricky thing to navigate with clients. The mental health field had moved away from the idea that therapists should be entirely blank slates who reveal nothing about their personal lives or experiences. The days of silent analysts sitting behind clients on fainting couches were mostly gone. Many clinicians, including Emma, even believed there was a benefit to occasionally sharing parts of themselves with clients. It helped strengthen the therapeutic alliance and shift the power dynamic away from an imbalanced expert/patient to something more equal. The tricky part was knowing how much to share and when.

Emma had misjudged this ratio before and even lost a client after revealing how many times she’d been ghosted while using dating apps. Emma had hoped to make the client feel better about her turbulent dating history, but it just made her think Emma was a loser—and apparently no one wants professional advice from a loser. After that learning experience, Emma had stayed on the conservative side of self-disclosure, but she worried that if she didn’t address the elephant in the room Maria wouldn’t get over it and it would prevent progress.

“I don’t really know if I have any questions necessarily. But it does make you seem kind of unhinged.”

“Maria!” Claire exclaimed as she swatted her wife’s leg.

“No, it’s okay. I want you to be honest with me. What aboutone else had thought ofit seems unhinged?” Emma got the dreaded word out of her mouth without betraying how much it triggered her. She had spent her entire anxious existence worried that she was one bad day away from blowing her life up and losing control of herself. But, so far, she hadn’t done anything she couldn’t recover from. She hoped Operation: Save My Date wasn’t about to be the exception.

“Like what kind of person doesn’t just cancel their wedding and move on?” Maria asked. “It makes you seem desperate or something.”

“Desperate? Have you seen the guy she’s marrying? Have you seen the huge rock on her finger? If that’s desperate, sign me up,” Claire said with a smirk. “Now can we get back to figuring out what to do with my mother because she is driving me bonkers?”

“That we can do,” Emma said, knowing she was likely never going to see them again. She could tell she was no longer a trusted resource for Maria and would maybe even become a point of contention in their marriage. Emma would send an email with referrals after the session so they wouldn’t feel guilty about switching therapists. It was more important that they got the help they wanted than staying with Emma out of politeness or guilt. Plus, Emma had a huge waitlist of potential clients to pluck from. Apparently, some peoplewanteda super-public therapist who took big swings in her personal life—at least in Los Angeles.

***

Emma trudged up the stairs of her family home in search of her mom. Matt’s second cousin was having a baby and he had tasked her with buying a present to bring to the baby shower in San Diego that weekend. There wasn’t a registry because the mom-to-be liked to be surprised. This seemed like a terrible idea, but Matt had found it charming—probably because he wasn’t the one who had to find a useful gift that somehow no one else had thought of.

“Mom!” Emma called for the third time. Debbie was an excellent gift-giver, and Emma needed her advice. If she could find her.

Emma was about to fling open her parents’ bedroom door when she heard what sounded like whisper fighting. She took a few steps closer and realized her parents must be inside their walk-in closet. Emma knew that if they had purposely gone into hiding to yell at each other, she should give them privacy. But she was too curious to behave. She slowly opened the bedroom door and tiptoed over to the closet.

“I just need some space,” Debbie hissed. “You’re everywhere all of the time.”

“It’s my house,” Alan hissed back. “Where do you want me to go?”

“Why is that my problem to figure out? I’m not your mother.”

“No. My mother actually wants me around.”

“Come on. Don’t take it so personally.”

“What? That my wife can’t stand being around me? You’re right, why would I care about that?”

“Alan—”

Before Emma could react, the closet door flew open and Alan stormed out. He looked horrified to see her there.

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