Page 88 of Healing Hearts
“Now you sound like Emily.”
“If everyone is saying the same thing, then maybe there’s something to it.”
“I got brought in for questioning last week. Em was brought in for questioning. They asked people who work for me questions about her and her relationship with me. Those things happened to her because of me.”
“So you think the sum contribution that you’ve brought to her life is that negative experience?”
When he puts it like that, it seems stupid. Of course it hasn’tallbeen bad. “No, I’m just saying that something bad happened to her because of me.”
“Wasshearrested?”
“No.”
“I’m just trying to figure out your logic here,” Grady says. “It seems to me like you’re letting the cloud of your past self hang over you. And I’ve been there. Punishing myself for past mistakes at the expense of my future happiness.I have been there.”
“You just had to figure out you were being an idiot,” I say.
Grady stares at me.
“It’s not that simple.”
Grady sighs and runs a hand down his face. “Have you thought about going to therapy?”
“No,” I say, and then I swallow down my pride. “Em mentioned it to me earlier.”
“Maggie and I went to couples therapy when we first got back together. I…” His voice cracks. “I did some serious damage, and we needed to figure out a way through it, beyond it. Going into a marriage, into a life together with any lingering resentment seemed foolish. I’m in this with Maggie for a lifetime.” He takes a deep breath. “Mia went to a lot of therapy before she cameback here to be with Tyler and Victoria. She still meets with her support group online or in person when she can. Pasha went to therapy when his fiancée in Russia died. It’s okay to need other people to help you sort through complex emotions, through complex experiences.”
I rub my face, but I don’t say anything in response. “You and Maggie never told me you were going to therapy.”
“We both knew we loved each other, but we also knew we had a lot to work out together. The way I treated her when we were kids was not okay. And the way I was when I first got back also wasn’t okay. I had to acknowledge that, and we needed to figure out a way to move forward together. You know, I almost lost Maggie because I was trying to protect her from the job offer I had. I didn’t want to put stress on her that she didn’t need if I wasn’t going to take the job. Now, she and I don’t have any secrets. It’s how I knew about Emily—honestly, probably before you—sorry, about that.”
“I told Em that I might move back to Utica.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t see how I can make it work here.”
“With her?”
“With this town.”
“You’re going to need to give me more than that. Wasn’t the shop doing well?”
“It was until I got taken in for questioning. Might as well have been arrested with the way people have responded. Today was a graveyard.”
“It was closed for a few days. It’ll take a bit for word to get out—about everything.”
“How often is the truth louder than a lie?”
“Good question. I think if you consistently show up, even those people who never heard the truth start to understand the truth.They can see it reflected in who you are. That’s what you were doing before, and it was working, right?”
“I just don’t know.”
Grady picks up his pencil and twirls it across his knuckles a few times. “If this past week hadn’t happened, if Dan the snake had never materialized, and I’d asked you what you wanted from your life, what would you have told me?”
Emily. Amir. A baby.
It’s right there without me having to even consider it. What we’d had together in that house for the last few months had been the happiest, most content I’d ever been. I had the girl. A kid who looked up to me, and the potential to be better each day.
