by Katie Cross
“Did he stick his finger down your throat?”
“Well … no.”
“Did he force the food into your mouth?”
“No, but—”
“Then he may have been a trigger, or the thing that finally made it all too much, but this isn’t something you can blame on him.”
My nostrils flared, but I silenced my rush of anger and tried to speak as calmly as possible. “It seems like a stretch that I fell off the wagon on a binge that hasn’t happened in years because I haven’t taken a vacation. This happened once Daniel came back.”
“Vacations aren’t always self-care.”
I threw my hands up. “Then what is?”
“Sounds like you have soul-searching to do.”
“I don’t want to soul-search. I want to get rid of Daniel and go back to my life with the girls.”
“Were you really happy?”
Tears filled my eyes, rising from a depth that terrified me. No, I hadn’t been happy. I’d been productive, and admired, and needed, but that wasn’t the same thing. I swallowed hard and forced the tears back.
“No.”
“Self-care isn’t a vacation, Bitsy. It’s not just a romantic getaway or a luxurious spa or anything like that. At its core, self-care is respect. Respect for yourself, for the person you are, for the things you do, and for the people you love. That’s what you need to learn.”
“You think that’s the key? To something so big, so encompassing? Just … self-care.”
She shook her head. “No. I know it is. At least for you, right now, I believe it is. We’re all multifaceted, right? We all have different needs. To me, yours is pretty apparent.”
Beneath it all was the undeniable pain of admitting that Janine was right. I, Bitsy, the leader of the Health and Happiness Society and the woman who was always put together, was a fraud. I needed help.
Again.
She stood up.
“For the next one hundred days, I want you to focus on self-care. Do it every day for twenty minutes, and once a week—away from the girls—for at least an hour.”
My eyes almost bulged out of my head. “Once a week?” I screeched. “Are you kidding? I’m a single mom! I can’t swing that. The money for babysitters alone…”
“Once a week for at least an hour,” she said again, this time more firmly. “That’s ten dollars a week. You can swing that. If it’s the difference between keeping your girls and losing them, I bet you’ll figure it out.”
I shrank back. She was right.
“Email me at 9:00 every night to tell me what you did that day, why it was self-care, and how you felt doing it. We’ll meet up for lunch in a little while to see how it’s going.”
My mouth bobbed open. Janine was extending love and friendship. Even I couldn’t turn that away. I stomped my pride down and nodded.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I will.”
She gave me a half-smile. Her lips had thinned over the years. Her hair, still cut in the same short style that I’d always seen it in, had a few more streaks of gray than I remembered. I couldn’t help but think of my mother and what she would have looked like. Would I have made this mistake if she was here?
Would any of this have happened?
“Starting tomorrow,” Janine said, turning toward the back door again. “If I don’t get an email from you, you’ll get a text from me.”
“Thank you,” I said as she left. She raised a hand, then blew a kiss and disappeared into the house.
I watched her go, a strange feeling sinking into my chest. It wasn’t total despair, just as it wasn’t hope. It was a weird jumble of emotions that told me things were about to get interesting again. Ghosts lingered in all these corners of my soul, and they were screeching now. Annoying, hideous pests I had silenced long ago.
Perhaps a bit frightening, too.
For at least two hours, I planned out the exact conversation I’d use to smooth things over with Lizzy.
Despite my preparations, uncertainty flittered in my gut like dust bunnies. I cleaned the house—twice—while waiting for them to return. Except for a text that said, Be there at 7:30, I hadn’t heard anything else by Saturday evening.
My fingers itched to check my phone. I already knew my calories for the day. A bowl of oatmeal sweetened with a touch of honey. That was it. My stomach growled, then settled back into the same nauseated feeling as before. I forced the thoughts of food away, unable to muster an appetite.
After I checked on a bubbling cheese casserole, swiped down the counter one last time, and considered a third go at vacuuming, the front door burst open. A thin body threw herself inside.
“Mom!” Lana cried. “I’m home!”
I dropped to my knees for a hug. Her skinny arms wrapped around my neck, and relief surged through me. I’d expected them to never come back or to not want to see me again. To be so in love with Jade and their father that they forgot all about me.
Lana let me go, dropped her backpack in the middle of the kitchen, and bounced over to the oven.
“Dinner!” she screamed. “I’m so hungry I’m going to die!”
Daniel appeared in the doorway with Lizzy. She shot me a wary look. Her eyes darted all over the kitchen. I gave her a wide smile, but inside, my heart shriveled like crispy parchment paper.
“Hey, Lizzy. Did you have fun?” I asked.
She nodded, setting her bag aside. When she gave me a hug, it felt wooden and stiff. My heart broke when she took her bag into her room without a word. At least she’d come back.
I’d have to hold onto that.
Daniel waited in the doorway, carrying a long white envelope. I straightened with a deep breath.
“Go put your stuff away, please,” I said to Lana, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. “We’ll have dinner in twenty minutes, and you can tell me everything. Please excuse your father and me. I want to talk to him for a few minutes.”
As if she sensed the tension, Lana obeyed without question. She grabbed her bag and dragged it behind her, humming something under her breath.
“Bye, Dad! Love you! Tell Jade she’s the best,” she called moments before the bedroom door slammed shut.
Daniel’s eyebrows rose when I turned to face him.
“I’m sorry you had to see that on Friday,” I said before he could speak first. “That was ugly and hasn’t happened in a very long time, in case you’re wondering.”
Silence stretched between us. He worried his bottom lip with his teeth.
“Did she say anything?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, not to me. She was more somber and disengaged than usual. She didn’t eat much, actually. When Jade and Lana made sugar cookies, she asked if she could do a low-calorie version.”
I flinched. Yikes.
“Does Lana know?” I asked.
“Not on my part. Lizzy never said anything about it that I heard, anyway. Neither did Jade.”
“Jade knows?” I cried. “What? Why did you have to tell her?”
Nothing about divorce was as fun as my dirty laundry aired in front of the next wife. Especially Jade. Something about her chafed me under the skin.
“I didn’t,” he muttered, his expression stony. “Lizzy did. She was crying and upset, and Jade soothed her. Lizzy told her everything.”
My chest burned, but I kept my retorts to myself. This was my fault. Not Jade’s. I should feel grateful that she was there to comfort my daughter when I obviously couldn’t, but all I could muster was suffocating terror and jealousy.
“I don’t know that Lizzy really understood what she saw,” Daniel said as he dragged a hand through his hair. “I tried to talk to her about it, but she changed the subject, so I let it go. Jade didn’t tell me everything that Lizzy said, just that she’s upset and confused. Honestly, I had no idea how to handle it.”
Me neither, I wanted to say.
“You need to talk to Lizzy, Bits. It doesn’t mean anything coming from me or Jade.”
/> “I know. I plan on it right now.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“No.”
He said nothing. I cleared my throat. ”Look, I’ve already spoken with my … ah … therapist and have a plan.”
I refused to look away from our tentative stare, although the effort almost killed me. He extended the envelope.
“Good. I’m sorry to do this, Bitsy, but … this is an official appointment date to discuss custody at my new lawyer’s office,” he said. “After Friday night, I felt I had to. My lawyer wants to talk it out there, and then take it to the judge. The court date is also in there.”
My stomach clenched like a cold fist. I accepted the paper with a robotic motion, my whole body numb. Custody. Friday night. Court date.
“Fine,” I whispered.
“Let me know if I can do anything to help her through this.” He paused. “Or you.”
The idea of asking Daniel for help made me want to throw up again, but I pushed it away. This wasn’t just about me anymore. I forced the words out of my mouth, wondering why his offer had to come so many years too late.
“Thank you.”
After one last, lingering look, he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. I pitched the envelope on the table and headed for the hallway. Years of practice came to my rescue as I silently twisted the doorknob to the girls’ bedroom and opened the door without being detected.
Both girls moved through their shared room at their usual pace. Lana zipped around like a deranged bee, half-singing and half-chattering a story, while Lizzy took her time to refold some clothes and set them into neat stacks in her perfectly clean drawers. I knocked on the door and pushed it open a few inches.
“Hey, girls.”
“Mom!” Lana cried, whipping around. “Is it dinner time yet?”
“Yes. Please go set the table,” I said. “Can I talk to Lizzy for a minute?”
Lana shrieked and darted from the room.
Lizzy kept unpacking her clothes with methodical precision, her back to me. I sat on her bed and plucked a long-sleeved shirt from her backpack. It fell into place as I started to fold it, smoothing out the wrinkle lines. For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
“You and I need to talk about Friday night,” I said.
She glanced at me through her eyelashes but didn’t say anything. The strange uncertainty in her eyes—as if I were a stranger and not her mom—cut deep. My heart gave a painful hiccup. I put a hand on top of hers, and she stilled.
“Can we talk about it?” I whispered.
Her brow wrinkled. “What were you doing?”
I had the stomach flu, I thought of saying. A thousand other excuses fluttered to the surface. But lying to her would only disrespect her intelligence.
I couldn’t do that.
She may have even seen me gag myself, and excuses would just shatter her trust in me further.
Not to mention the food carnage in the kitchen.
“I was right in the middle of making some poor choices. These poor choices were something I grew up with.”
“You made yourself throw up.”
My throat constricted. So she had seen it.
“Yes, sweetheart. I did.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Why? Throwing up is gross.”
“Because I have some adult problems, and I decided to deal with them in an unhealthy way. I ate too much food, and then when I felt sick, I made myself throw up.”
She frowned, and the puzzlement in her eyes broke my heart again. “Did you feel better?”
“No. I felt worse.”
“Then why do it?”
“I was running from my problems, not fixing them. In the moment, it sometimes feels like it will help, but it never does.”
“What are your problems?”
Losing you. You’re growing up too fast. Your father, for sure. Jade—who is a little too normal and perfect.
I fumbled for an appropriate response. How on earth could I explain something so complicated to a young, innocent girl?
Did it really have to be complicated?
“My problems started a long time ago, when I was a teenager. About the time my mom died.”
“Did you make yourself throw up then, too?”
“I did.”
“Should I do that?”
I suppressed the urge to shout no! at the top of my lungs. Instead, I tilted my head to the side. “What do you think?”
“I hate throwing up.”
A hesitant smile found its way to my lips. “I agree,” I said. “It tastes terrible, and it hurts my throat. So, no. I don’t think you should do that. Not just for those reasons, but because running from our problems doesn’t make them go away.”
“Then why do you do it?”
I blinked. Trust a child to distill it into such simple terms. “Because sometimes I have feelings that I don’t want to feel. Feelings that I don’t want to deal with in a healthy way, so I turn to unhealthy ways.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and picked at a lint ball on her princess quilt. “What’s a healthy way?”
“Let’s see.” I leaned back on my palms. “What would be healthier than making myself sick? Playing a game with my daughters. Talking to Mira when I’m sad. Writing in my journal. Going for a walk.”
Even as I ran through the list, nothing on it really appealed to me. Janine’s order that I practice self-care flittered through my mind again.
None of those felt like self-care.
“Mowing the lawn?” she asked.
I laughed. The pitch of her voice was less uncertain—a good sign.
“Sure. Mowing the lawn can help. It’s exercise and burns cal—off the unhealthy energy. Lizzy, sweetheart, what I did was wrong. It was a bad choice, and I’m so sad that you had to see it. And I’m sad that I did it. I don’t want you to do the same things I did, so I’m getting help.”
Her eyes widened, filling with terror. “Are you going to leave us?”
“No, honey. No.” I pulled her onto my lap. She relaxed against me and rested her head on my shoulder. “But I’ve already spoken with a professional therapist who has ideas for how I can make better choices.”
I brushed her hair out of her eyes and planted a kiss on her forehead. With every second that passed, she molded a little deeper into my arms.
The press of her body against mine. The tickle of her hair. The warm reassurance that even though I’d messed up, she still loved me. It all sank into my bones.
I hadn’t lost her. Not yet.
“I’m glad you’re getting help, Mom.”
She tilted her head back to look at me. I smiled and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Me too. I don’t want you to go through the same thing. So we’ll figure this out, okay? Unfortunately, adults aren’t perfect. We try to be, but we aren’t, so you’ll have to be patient with me.”
“I love you, Mom.”
I squeezed her extra tight. Any resistance I’d felt to Janine’s instructions dissipated. Whatever I had to test out for filling my empty bucket, whatever I had to figure out for self-care, I would do it. I had to.
The alternatives were just too horrifying.
“I love you, too, Lizzy girl. More than you could ever know. Please forgive me?”
“Of course.”
I held her a little tighter until Lana’s high-pitched voice carried down the hallway.
“OMG Lizzy!” she screamed. “There’s so. Much. Cheese!”
New THHS Check-In Conversation Opened in WonderFriendApp
Opened by: LEXIE
Lexie: It’s Sunday, and I’ve received no official announcement of a meeting this week. The heralds haven’t been singing, and I had to figure out how to open a conversation on this app. Where the crap is Bitsy? What if she doesn’t remind me on Tuesday to meet on Wednesday?
Megan: Me either. I’ve been stalking my own email. I assumed zombie apocalypse or Bitsy is in the hospital on a ventilator and un
able to text. I called. No admits like her so far.
Rachelle: There isn’t even an email with an article to study and be quizzed on later. I’m scared.
Mira: Let’s call this week off? Bitsy’s been pretty swamped.
Lexie: Call it off? But that’s never happened!
Megan: *gasp*
Rachelle: Well THAT cake is ruined because I just peed my pants. Is it even possible to cancel an HHS meeting?
Lexie: I’m willing to bet that Bitsy has by-laws about this. I think not.
Megan: Didn’t we sign contracts once that said we had to supply burden of proof for why we couldn’t attend?
Lexie: Maybe when we gave her our souls?
Rachelle: Those contracts were to not weigh-in anymore. They expired after a year, but only after rigorous negotiation and a promise not to say our weight out loud ever again.
Megan: I didn’t even know that. I should pay more attention.
Lexie: More proof she owns our souls. And I don’t think any of us really care, do we?
Megan: Where IS Bitsy? It’s not like her to just let us run amok like this. We need structure and discipline.
Rachelle: We may even slip in a swear word or two.
Lexie: ^ DON’T GET CRAZY.
Megan: Well, now I’m just worried. It’s been twelve hours since we started this conversation, and she hasn’t even scolded. Mira? Is everything okay?
Rachelle: Do I need to come over with emergency cupcakes and Gerard Butler? Even if not, can you say yes?
Lexie: He fixes everything. So does buttercream.
Mira: Everything is okay. I’m sure Bitsy will pop in soon.
Lexie: She’s moonlighting as Wonder Woman again, isn’t she?
Megan: You’re right. Still, something fishy is up. Bitsy has never left unanswered texts on her phone this long, and I can tell she hasn’t read any of them yet. I didn’t think her OCD lets her ignore the little red flag.
Rachelle: I don’t see why we’ve ruled out the zombie apocalypse already.
Lexie: Some of us haven’t.
Bitsy: No meeting this week.
Conversation CLOSED by BITSY
Chapter 7
Under Control
The fresh smell of window cleaner filled my kitchen Monday evening.