family that he thought he should have-the beautiful wife and the cookbook accomplishment-and when Hank didn’t invite his own son to this prestigious dinner, it set him off. His fire-setting was more about his anger and his fear of his father than anything else.”
I immediately thought of Danny, my client, and realized how deep his rage must be at his own awful father. I would have to insist that Danny make some changes; I didn’t know whether it would be possible to get his father to come to a session. If not, my client would still have to disengage from his father and deal with the damage that had been done. I had only a month left with Danny until my six- week winter break, so I made a mental note to meet with my supervisor and come up with a solid plan for continued treatment with one of the senior therapists. And then there was Alison and her fantasies about leaving her boyfriend for an idealized man who was never going to love her.
As the parallels between my clients and Kyle became obvious, it dawned on me that I’d left my client notes on the coffee table when Kyle had been at my place. What’s more, when I’d moved my notes out of the way, he’d joked about my not wanting him to read my diary. He’d read about Alison, client A, who was desperately in love with an older man and wanted to leave her current partner for this new, suave, charming man. Kyle must have thought that my notes about A were about Adrianna and about her infatuation with him! God, this should teach me to keep my notes hidden!
The first thing that I’d done after coming home from the hospital was to pack up all of the cookbook materials and mail them to Hank Boucher. I wanted nothing to do with that man ever again. I’d turned off the ringer on the phone, and I’d refused to turn on the television or the computer or to look at a newspaper, since I knew that the headlines would be riddled with the story of famous chef Hank Boucher’s murderous son. Today, I wanted to focus solely on my friends.
“Look, Ade, you can all stay here for as long as you like. I can go crash at my parents’ house in Newton for a while. It’s not a problem.”
“Absolutely not. We’re not about to kick you out of your own home, Chloe,” she protested.
“You’re not kicking me out. I’m volunteering. In fact, I’m insisting. I’ll be perfectly fine at my parents’ place.”
Ade brightened. “Really? I hate to put you out of your own apartment, Chloe, but I don’t know what other options we have. And we lost so much of what little we had. Even the stuff that wasn’t actually burned reeks of smoke. Hopefully we can salvage most of our clothes and linens with a few good runs in the washing machine, but… so much is gone. The only thing that really matters, though, is that Owen, Patrick, and I are still together.” She leaned down and kissed Patrick’s forehead and rubbed her nose against his. “When I think about what could have happened, what we could have lost, I just… it’s just unbearable to even consider. Thank God we’re all okay.” Ade repositioned herself on the couch so that Patrick lay across her knees, gazing adoringly at his mother. “You sure about letting us crash here?”
“Of course you’re staying here. My mother will be thrilled to have me home for a while, too. And speaking of Owen, he and Josh should be back from your apartment soon with some of your things.”
“And speaking of Josh,” Ade said raising her eyebrows, “what were you two doing together the other night, huh? Gimme the scoop.”
“We were just, ah, well… See, we met up to talk about Kyle, and then…”
Adrianna stared at me while I stuttered helplessly.
“Okay, fine!” I tossed my hands up. “Here’s what happened.” I relayed all the juicy details from my pre-fire evening with Josh.
“You slept together? Yahoo! So what’s going to happen now?” she asked excitedly, jostling Patrick as she sat upright. “Does this mean you’re finally back together? Everything is finally back to normal, and he’s moving back to Boston?”
“I don’t really know what it means, but no, he’s not coming back here. We’re supposed to talk later today. He’s flying to Hawaii tomorrow morning.”
“Well, you can’t let him, Chloe! You can’t! You love each other! He wrote you all those romantic letters that you never read because you’re a moron!”
“Thank you very much,” I snarled.
“You know what I mean,” she said more calmly. “You need to make this work out. I mean, really. Look what just happened to me. Life is too damn short. Get your man back.”
I sighed and shook my head. “It’s so much more complicated than that. How are we supposed to make it work out? He’ll be in Hawaii, and I’ll be here. Besides, I’m still angry with him for leaving in the first place. He left me, Ade. I’m no freaking Carrie from
“You listen to me, Chloe,” Adrianna said forcefully. “Get over it. You hear me? Get over it. Josh messed up. Big time. He really messed up, and he knows it. Honey, people make mistakes, and Josh made an enormous mistake. But like he told you, he needed to get away from the restaurant scene here. It was consuming him and draining him and making him miserable. We all saw what he was going through, and it sucked for him. So maybe he did the wrong thing by leaving Boston, but I can understand why he needed to get out of here, can’t you?”
I closed my eyes for a second and clenched my jaw. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I can. Do you know what he told me this morning at the hospital? He said that he loves this personal-chef job more than he thought he would, and he can’t imagine ever working in a restaurant again. I know that he doesn’t want to come back to Boston anytime soon. He’s happy where he is.”
“See? He needed to make some major life changes.”
“Including getting rid of me? He made his life changes, and now he can live with them.”
“No, that’s not fair. You are one part of his life, a big part, but only one part. If the rest of his life is in the crapper, how is he supposed to make you happy when everything else sucks? He had to get his work life straightened out for himself, and that’s allowed. He screwed up, he paid the price, and now it’s time to forgive him. You made your point, now get over it and quit punishing him. And yourself. You don’t get that may shots at real love.”
“I had it once. I’m sure I’ll find it again,” I said as dismissively as possible.
“Don’t be so cavalier about this,” Ade warned.
“I’m not being cavalier, but I worked hard to feel as independent as I do and to finally feel connected to school and becoming a social worker. For the first time, I am actually looking forward to graduating in May and getting a job. I think I could be good at this work. I don’t need a man! I can be happy and fulfilled with my friends, my family, and whatever great job I get.”
Adrianna sighed with exasperation. “I don’t know how you started equating independence with not having a relationship, dummy. You can do both. You can be a strong, savvy woman and still be in love. Don’t be stupid, Chloe. You have six weeks of vacation coming up.”
“So?”
“So go to Hawaii!”
“No,” I shook my head. “I’m not going to Hawaii. I have things to do here.”
“They can wait.”
“I have a whole semester of classes coming up,” I protested.
“You’ll be back for those. And then you’ll graduate, and you can do whatever you want then. You can be with Josh if you want to, Chloe. You love Josh.”
“I don’t love Josh. Josh is my past. He really is. I loved him. Loved what we had, but it’s over. It is over.” I swallowed hard.
“You’re being stubborn.”
“I’m not being stubborn. I’m being independent.” Adrianna flopped back on the couch with Patrick and looked at her baby. “She’s being stubborn.”
TWENTY-TWO
MY mother was a little disappointed that I hadn’t gone home to stay with her, but she
