I squint past her at the clock. Fifteen minutes left. I can get through this. I let out a sigh. This is what Becky meant, when she told me she was proud of me for doing the work. Confronting these emotions. Actually talking everything through.
It’s called work for a reason, Becky told me this morning on the phone, when I called her on my drive over here, anxious about yet another session of getting my head poked around in.
“For one thing, she never had a job. Or at least, not one that lasted more than a month or two. She tended to live off of the guys she was dating. First my dad, and then when he split, there was a whole string of them… Most only lasted a couple years at a time, until Rick. They were actually married for five years. He was pretty well-off, so the divorce gave her a chunk of change to support herself for a bit until she met the next guy. She was always pushing me to date guys with money, telling me that working for yourself was a sucker’s game.”
“I see.” My therapist finally stops writing in her notebook to look at me. “So the relationship pattern you saw the most when you were growing up wasn’t perhaps the healthiest, would you say that’s accurate?”
I laugh. “That’s putting it lightly.” I chew on my lower lip for a moment. “I never wanted to be like her. As soon as I graduated, I started working on my business ideas, so I could support myself. It’s why, when I first met Norman, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I was convinced if I dated some rich guy, then… well, I’d wind up like Mom. She never seemed like she was dating these guys. It was more like she was… taking care of them. Doing everything for them, in exchange for access to their bank accounts. You know?”
“And you didn’t want that for yourself.”
“No.” I shake my head hard. “I wanted something real. But Norman…” I shrug. “He met Mom a couple times, and I think after that was when he got convinced that I was doing the same thing. Trying to use him. I tried to show him I wasn’t. I tried to show him how much I really cared, but we always wound up fighting about money anyway, about how my business wasn’t doing well, and without him I’d be out on the street, and shouldn’t I be more grateful and just give up that work and take care of him instead…” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“So, in trying to avoid the patterns you saw your mother falling into, you actually recreated them?” My therapist keeps her voice neutral, but I hear judgment in it anyway.
Or maybe that’s just me judging myself and projecting. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Does your mother ever act this way with you, or is it only with the men in her life?”
I press my lips together to stifle another laugh. “Oh, yeah. As soon as she realized Norman and I were together, suddenly she started calling me all the time, talking about how broke she was, how she couldn’t pay her rent, she was going to be evicted. I fell for that once or twice when I was fresh out of school, begged Norman to help me help her out. Until I visited and found out she wasn’t behind on rent at all; she’d just wanted extra cash to splurge on some designer shoes. And of course, when he found out, he blamed me for being soft and an easy target…”
“How long has it been since you last spoke to your mother?” My therapist peers at me over her glasses.
I shrug. “A couple of months.” My stomach tightens. “Actually, she tried to call me last week.” Right after my TV interview segment went life. It might be a coincidence, of course. Or it might mean she’s realized I’m finally starting to get successful in my own right, and she’s looking for an easy influx of cash again.
“And you avoided her call?”
“Is that bad?” I meet my therapist’s gaze, feeling guilty.
But she just smiles, reassuring. “It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, Cassidy. You have every right to set boundaries with other people, even—and perhaps especially—with relatives. If talking to your mother isn’t something you want to do right now, you don’t have to.”
“But…” My stomach knots even worse. “I mean, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that something you’re supposed to tell me to do as my therapist, to like face my fears and stand up for myself or something?”
She chuckles under her breath. “Is that what you want me to tell you to do, Cassidy? Is there something you’ve been wanting to say to your mother that you’ve held back?”