Page 81 of Falling Like Stars

She smiles. “So, this truly good man of yours. Does he feel the same about you?”

“I think so. Maybe. Though sometimes I find it hard to believe that he could.”

“Because you’ve been so hard on yourself for so long,” Dr. Baldwin states.

I glance up at her uncertainly. “He wants me to visit his family.”

“Are you asking my permission to go?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

Dr. Baldwin sits back, thinking. “Were this a brand-new relationship, I might say to take things slow, but you’re already in love with him and he’s in love with you. Your heart is healing, but your mind is stubbornly clinging to the old programming. So long as you have good communication with him and are aware of the potential pitfalls, I wouldn’t stand in the way of you living your life. It’s been on hold long enough, don’t you think?”

I nod and ease a sigh of relief, but an ugly feeling twists my guts.

“There’s something else I’d like to ask you about,” I begin. “This man…I think something bad may have happened to him.”

I tell her what Zach told me about Eva on Oscar night, leaving out all names and details that would give Zach away.

“I see,” Dr. Baldwin says, frowning. “You’re describing a potential sexual assault.”

The words punch me in the heart. “He doesn’t know for sure that anything happened, and he doesn’t want to find out. I just want to be able to support him however he needs me to. I think I already pushed him too hard about it, but only because the idea of anyone hurting him...”

More tears well and I choke my words back. I read somewhere that therapists have to report if a patient intends to harm someone; better to keep my thoughts about Eva Dean to myself.

Dr. Baldwin is still frowning in concern. “The way to support him is to let him come to his own decisions in his own time. If he’s struggling, I recommend he talk to someone, of course, but whether he decides to pursue the truth of that night is entirely up to him.”

“You wouldn’t want him to seek the truth? For clarity or…closure?”

“My professional standpoint is to work with people where they are, not try to push them over their edges. If his edge is not knowing, I wouldn’t push him to know unless he wanted to go there.” She offers an encouraging smile. “Being there for him is the best thing you can do.”

Being there for Zach, loving him as best I can with my cracked and tattered heart, is all I want to do.

“I’m not used to being good for someone else,” I say. “Kind of hard to imagine. And scary. I don’t want to let him down.”

Dr. Baldwin smiles. “Let’s keep working together, yes? That’s how you don’t let yourself down. That’s how you keep being good to you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE PRIVATE JET touches down at Spirit of St. Louis airport around noon. Rowan, sitting across from me in the posh leather seats, peers out the window at the small airfield. She’s wearing jeans rolled up at the shin, a gray shirt, white sneakers, and a black jacket, the sleeves also rolled up. My Tom Ford. Her Tom Ford, since the moment I put it round her shoulders at her birthday party.

“I’m not seeing much city,” Rowan says, and shoots me a smile. “I was expecting buildings, cars…possibly even a really big arch.”

“My family lives in Kirkwood,” I say. “It’s about twelve miles southwest of St. Louis. We had a little place in the city, but my parents prefer peace and quiet. When I had the means, I moved them.” I cock my head. “Disappointed?”

“I’ve lived in LA all my life,” she says. “I like peace and quiet. Hence, the cabin.”

“This isn’t going to be as quiet as your cabin,” I say, although that’s kind of the point. Rowan’s been without anything like a real family for so long, I think maybe a dose of mine couldn’t hurt.

“I think I wouldn’t mind that,” she says, answering my words and thoughts, both.

“You might change your mind when you meet my brother.”

The car service is waiting when the jet finishes taxiing on the airfield. We exchange the posh interior of the jet for the posh interior of a Cadillac sedan for the ten-minute ride to the Kirkwood house. A neighborhood of huge homes spread far apart, interspersed with large swaths of forest, passes outside the window until the car takes us down a lone road. At the end is a cul-de-sac with the big house. It’s a newer-build, about eight years old—a French provincial style single story, with stone and plaster façade and high triangular arches over the doors and windows.

The driver takes our two rolling luggage bags from the trunk. I sign off and then he drives away.

Rowan stares up at the house. “You bought this for them?”

---