Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
“Sophie?”
I hadn’t heard his voice in a month. My own shook. “H-hi.”
I heard Neil breathe a sigh of relief. “It’s so good to hear you.”
I tried to call you! You wouldn’t accept! I screamed internally. But I didn’t know what his state of mind was, and I didn’t want to hurt him or make him think that I didn’t want to talk to him in the future. “It’s good to hear from you, too. How are you?”
“I’m…in a mental hospital.” He laughed softly. “But I’m not a danger to myself, anymore.”
My chest ached. “So, does that mean…”
“Am I coming home? No.”
I wanted to slide down the wall, wailing.
“But I want to see you, Sophie. Would you consider coming up for a visit?” he asked hopefully.
I knew I had to say something, and I knew it had to be yes. I closed my eyes and tried to get myself under control. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Sophie…” he began, and I knew he’d heard the tears I was holding back.
“So much has been going on around here,” I lied, forcing cheerfulness into my tone. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
“Will you bring Olivia?” he asked. “How is she doing?”
“She’s fine, she’s doing… She’s so great, Neil. Really.” I considered his first question. “But I’m not sure—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted. “Maybe, this first time, it should be just you and I. It isn’t that I don’t miss her—”
“I would never think that.” God, we were just talking over each other in a disastrous and unhelpful effort to not hurt each other’s feelings. “I hope we’re not this nervous when I actually see you in person.”
He chuckled, and the sound banished some deep fear inside me that I hadn’t even recognized. This whole time, I’d been imagining Neil as the angry man threatening to divorce me in the emergency room. I wouldn’t let that go unremarked upon forever, but he was talking to me the way he’d talked to me before that night, and that made me much less afraid.
“I have to go,” he said, falsely chipper. “But I can’t wait to see you. Doctor Harris’s office will contact you with the details, all right?”
“Yeah, fine.” I dug my nails into my palms. I will not cry. I will not cry. It had been weeks, and a three-minute phone call wasn’t enough.
“Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
He loved me. Despite his threats, despite the fact he’d tried to end his life, he still loved me. And, despite all of that, I still loved him.
“I love you, too,” I said, and I hoped he felt every ounce of truth in it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“When considering what to wear to visit your husband in an inpatient mental health center,” I began, talking to myself in the mirror as I knotted my lavender silk scarf loosely. I frowned and pulled it off, tossing it aside. Nope, I definitely wasn’t qualified to write a “What To Wear To The Psychiatric Treatment Facility” article.
It doesn’t matter. You’re not meeting the Pope. You’re visiting Neil. Still, I stripped down to my underwear and started over. I picked an ecru broomstick skirt and paired it with a nude camisole, then layered a long, light white sweater over it. There. Not too fancy. Not trying too hard. But not too gloomy looking.
There really should have been a list somewhere of what to do on one of these visits. Google had turned up plenty of information about how to get a loved one committed, but not much about what to do once they were.
I felt awful not taking Olivia with me, but this was something I had to do on my own, first. I didn’t know how I was going to react, and I had to be able to worry about myself today. Also, after a month, she’d finally stopped looking around for her afi, and I didn’t want to confuse her when she saw him and he was gone, again. She’d been delighted when Mariposa had returned, so it wouldn’t hurt for them to have some time together without me.
The facility was upstate, all right. So upstate it was easier to fly to Montreal and drive back into the United States to see him. I’d finally gotten out of my poor, helpless me phase and found the number to Neil’s former personal assistant, who’d helped me figure out how to get the plane set up with a crew and a flight schedule and everything.
“Don’t you have an assistant?” he’d asked as an aside during one of our calls.
“No, mine is running away to live in the Bahamas.” I’m sure I’d sounded sarcastic, but it was true. Mode would be losing Penny Parker, Perfect PA, in just a couple months.
I really do need to hire someone, I thought as I looked over my outfit. Then, I stripped it off and went with the green, white, and black abstract print wrap dress I’d put on the first time.