Page 41 of Rather: The Therapist

With jumbled thoughts packed as tight as my suitcase, I fastened the gap with the weight of my body. I sat atop the hardshell case as my bottled feelings began to surface. This wasn’t a waiting game anymore. This was happening.

In ninety days, I’d be draped in white with my hand stretched, waiting for my husband to slip the band he’d purchased on my finger. As a young girl, my sisters and I had gone over our wedding day a hundred times over, obsessing over every detail. Yet, neither of those details included the arrangement that had been made on my behalf.

While I wasn’t opposed to the idea of it all or the shortcut to forever that I was lucky enough to have access to, it left me with so many questions. Marrying a man I had never met and having ninety days to learn everything there was to know about him while simultaneously falling in love felt dramatic.

For the most part, I knew if I wanted a life with a man on day one, so that wasn’t the issue. It was the fact I would be isolated from the people who meant the entire world to me while trying to maintain my freedom, preparing for marriage, getting to know my future husband, and falling in love.

“Here,” the deep baritone of my father soothed the anxiety creeping up in my chest.

I whipped around and toward the door is where I found Chem. He lessened the distance between us, stretching his long legs across the lengthy floor. With each passing day, he looked more like our father. Sounded more like our father.

Though I’d like to believe it was the reality, I understood the brain, how it worked, and how it coped. Chemistry was a splitting image of his brothers. One would believe his stepfather was his biological father. They all resembled Catherine. However, my father was scribed into his features somehow, someway.

His posture. His voice. His temperament. His vocabulary. His walk. His stance. It was all Richie.

So, maybe he was transforming and becoming the man I missed so much it hurt. Or, maybe I missed him so much I filled the void he’d left with bits of Chem because he gave so much of himself to us. He always had.

And, in so many ways, he’d always been a father to us. My father’s passing only magnified those qualities. It intensified those traits.

It highlighted his fatherly instincts. It aged his voice. It aged his skin. It quieted his resolve. It made him feel more like and look more like the man we’d buried in our family compound to keep him close to us at all times.

“Thank you, Teddy.”

“Don’t do that, baby.”

He tapped my leg as he forbid my verbal acknowledgement of his greatness and my gratitude. Chemistry was the light of our lives. Mine. Rugger’s. Roaman’s. Royce’s. Roulette’s. Range’s. And, Rome’s entire universe.

He was the sun and the moon in her world. He was everything to her. Though he’d never admit it or claim favoritism, we all knew she was everything to him. She and Jru were on equal playing fields and she hadn’t come from his nutsack. She’d come from Richie’s.

“Lift up. I’ve got it, Rather.”

My emotions made a fool of my limbs. Led by their intensity, I lunged forward and swooped Chem’s body into my arms. His squared shoulders rounded as his spine flexed to accommodate me. His arms caressed my back as he squeezed me tightly, planting a kiss on my forehead.

“Is everything okay, baby?”

Anything for you, Teddy. Everything for you, Teddy.

Though the words didn’t emerge, I knew he’d heard them. Felt them. And, understood them. He’d bend the world to rescue us. It was important he understood each of us would do the same without question or reservation.

“Y–yes,” I choked, knowing I wasn’t at all insane.

He sounded older. He sounded wiser. He sounded safer. He sounded homely.

“Is today the day you start lying to me? Because, I’ll restart this motherfucker.”

Still wrapped in his embrace, I felt his firmness soften. The invitation into his heart, into his head was met with slight resistance. I never wanted him to feel as though I was reluctant to make good on my sacrifice.

That wasn’t the case. I’d stand ten toes down behind him, behind my family. It was that lone fact that had my heart in my throat.

“I miss him,” I admitted.

His heart beat faster, harder against his chest. The vibration from his scoffing rattled my ear.

“I can’t begin to tell you how m– how much I do.”

His absence during our father’s demise had taken a toll on him. It was vivid. It was telling. Richie was such a sore subject for Teddy.

“But, that’s not it, baby.”

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