Page 106 of The Gathered Fragments of Us
"You're not wrong, but it's also completely age-appropriate. Children often need time and psychological safety before they're ready to engage with a parent who's caused them trauma. The fact that Macy is setting her own boundaries is actually a very healthy sign."
Dr. Chen turned to address both of us directly. "I'd recommend supporting her decision completely and I'll be writing a letter for her to that effect. The best thing you can do is support her decision. Let her know the door is always open when she’s ready—that if she changes her mind – whether that's next week or next year – you'll help her figure out what that looks like safely."
That evening, after I'd updated David on Macy's decision and he'd agreed to file for no direct contact during the custody proceedings, Felicity and I finally had a chance to decompress.
"You know what I realized today?" she said, curled up next to me on the couch.
"What's that?"
"Six months ago, if Jessica had been calling like this, you would have answered. You would have tried to manage her emotions, tried to fix whatever crisis she was having."
I thought about that. She was right. The old me would have felt responsible for Jessica's desperation, would have taken those calls out of some misguided sense of obligation or guilt.
"And now?" I asked.
"Now you put Macy first. You asked her what she wanted before making any decisions about her own mother. That's huge growth."
She was right about that too. The calls still bothered me, but not because I felt compelled to answer them. They bothered me because they represented a threat to the peace we'd built, the healing that was happening.
"Speaking of putting our family first," I said, "are you ready for tomorrow?"
Tomorrow was our first therapy session together. We'd talked about it, scheduled it, rescheduled it once because of work conflicts, but somehow it had felt abstract until now.
"I think so," Felicity said. "Are you nervous?"
"A little. But also... eager? Does that make sense?"
"It does. I feel the same way."
We'd been doing so well, communicating better than we had in years, working as a team through all the crisis and chaos. But we both knew that real change required ongoing work, not just good intentions during emergency situations.
"What do you want to get out of it?" she asked.
I considered the question seriously. "I want to make sure I have tools to keep myself from slipping back into old patterns when things get less crisis-mode. I want to learn how to be a betterpartner during normal, boring Tuesday kind of life, not just during emergencies. What about you?"
"I want to learn how to ask for what I need instead of hoping you'll figure it out," she said. "And I want to make sure we keep talking to each other, really talking, not just managing logistics."
Later that night, lying in bed with Felicity's head on my shoulder, I thought about how much had changed. A month ago, our marriage had been hanging by a thread. Macy had been living with an unstable mother who was slowly destroying her sense of security.
Now Jessica was in prison and could only reach us if we let her. Macy was safe, healing, and making her own thoughtful decisions about her relationship with her mother. We were in a good place as a family—Macy felt safe with us.
Felicity and I were not just surviving but actually growing stronger.
Tomorrow we'd start couples therapy, another step in making sure we kept choosing each other, kept doing the work, kept building something stronger than what we'd had before.
My phone rang again. Same facility, same response—decline. And I was at peace with it.
Chapter 42: Our Turn Now
~Felicity~
The waiting room for Dr. Sarah Mitchell's office had a calming atmosphere to it. It was decorated in soft blues and grays, with comfortable chairs and calming music in the background. There was a wall between the front desk and the waiting room seats. It was made of glass and had water in it, with bubbles that floated to the top on a cyclical basis—almost hypnotic in a sense.
Even with all that, I was a wreck. I was anything but calm while we waited, hands clasped together on the armrest between us.
"You okay?" he whispered.
"Yeah. Just nervous for some reason."
