Page 98 of For Her Own Good

“I am. My little sister’s been killing it for a long time. Sometimes I just feel like I’m along for the ride.”

His expression tells me he’s not just saying this, not trying to butter me up with saccharine platitudes. I can almost always pick up on when people resent the ever-loving hell out of their relatives or friends with mental illness but are trying to be martyrs. I don’t get that from Jerome at all.

“I’m sure sometimes you are.”

He laughs, a hearty thing, and offers me a toast. “Ain’t that the truth.”

* * *

By the timewe’re finishing our entrees, I have decided that despite my earlier reservations, Jerome Garrett might be the answer to some of my prayers. Not all of them, certainly, because my advisors will be wary, Tad will be ripshit, and I’m guessing my father’s ghost will be so distraught he’ll be pissed he was cremated so he can’t roll over in his grave. But after talking to Jerome, I feel like perhaps my father took everything that happened between their businesses as a personal slight instead of the exhilarating game Jerome seemed to see it as.

If everything checks out, I will be selling a good portion of my shares in Patrick Enterprises to Garrett Industries. Which will mean I’ll still maintain the largest stake in the company, and as a voting bloc, Jerome and I will have the final say on any decision that comes to the board.

I’m not giving him an answer until I can review everything, but after speaking with him and reviewing the portfolio he brought for me, I feel as though we have a lot of the same sensibilities. We both feel more responsible to our employees than to our shareholders, are committed to doing our best to be environmentally conscientious and innovative, and share a dedication to diversity at all levels of the company, but especially in the C-suite.

Yes, I’m going to have my people go through his proposal with a fine-tooth comb and tear it to shreds, but fundamentally…this might be okay? My heart doesn’t shrivel at the idea of leaving my people in Jerome’s care the way it does when I imagine doing the same with Tad. Will I always agree completely with him? No, of course not, but I do fundamentally think Jerome will do a good job of steering the Patrick Enterprises ship. Which is what I tell him.

“I’m going to have a lot of questions, and I’m sure the lawyers will have a lot to say about all of this, but I do feel, at my core, as though this is a real possibility. I wouldn’t waste your time by telling you it was if I didn’t mean it. I am cautiously optimistic about what we’ve discussed.”

Jerome looks pleased as punch, and he should. This would significantly increase his presence in certain sectors and introduce his presence in others. It would make an already powerful man more powerful. But from his treatment of me, the way he talks about his sister, I feel as though I can trust him—within reason, of course. I don’t mind having to check on the ship, make sure it’s still headed in the right direction, but I sure as fuck don’t want to have to be steering it myself all the time which is what the past several months have felt like.

I like the way he rises when I stand to leave, offers me his hand again.

“Thank you again for meeting with me. I hope this all works out, and even if not, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise. I’ll be in touch.”

And then I head toward the exit.

It’s still difficult. I hate the idea of disappointing my father, of handing his legacy over to someone who isn’t me or someone he trusted, like Tad. But the thing is…I cannot do this. I cannot run this company without sacrificing my mental health. I’d like to be able to power through and do the difficult thing, but I can’t. It is not within my capabilities. Admitting that blows. Makes me feel incompetent, less than worthy, all the worst things people have said to me for my whole life. Not to mention having to admit that my father was wrong about me and giving up on the approval I’d finally been able to win from him after feeling like a disappointment for so long. That…that will be the worst part of it, I’m sure.

But possibly, by making an informed and responsible decision, I’m actually not fucking this up as badly as I thought? God, I hope so because I cannot handle feeling nauseated like this forever. There is some shit that I have recognized as my depression being an asshole and I can ride through it, but I cannot chill on the feeling-like-I’m-going-to-hurl express. Not gonna happen. Indeed, I’m not chilling anymore—it’s an effort to not be puking up my excellent dinner on this carpet on my way down to my car.

I want to go home. I want Lowry. He’ll understand and let me lay my head in his lap while he pets my hair, and he won’t complain while he holds my hair back as I puke. He’ll get that my anxiety has grown beyond the bounds of what my mind can bear so it’s visiting itself upon my body in an effort to be like, “Hey, Dickhead, pay attention to me. You should do something before I move on to other things like chest pains. Wouldn’t that be fun?” Ugh. He’ll encourage me to talk to Doctor Gendron about it and make me feel smart and responsible for doing it instead of like a failure.

Before I go home, though, I need to make a detour to the restroom because for fuck’s sake, I can’t not vomit.

I head straight to the last stall and barely lock it before I’m on my knees and hurling all the things into the toilet. Perfect, A-plus. At least it doesn’t take long for my stomach to empty its contents. The bile burns my throat and tastes god-awful in my mouth. I don’t think I can wait until next week to see Doctor Gendron, I’ll leave her a message when I get home and she’ll either call me back and put in a scrip or she’ll fit me in tomorrow. She always does.

When I make my way out, there are a couple of other women washing their hands, checking their makeup, gossiping at the sinks. And they all totes heard me tossing a sidewalk pizza. Awesome.

In case I had any doubt, as I wash out the foul taste from my mouth, the woman next to me gives me a sympathetic smile.

“Morning sickness? God, I had it the worst with my first baby. Don’t worry, the second one was so much easier.”

Uh, what? I could protest, “No it’s just a physical manifestation of my overwhelming anxiety. Obviously.” The thought of being knocked up had never entered my mind. But now it does, even as I smile politely because there is no goddamn way I’m pregnant. We use condoms, every time. There is no fucking way. No. Fucking. Way.

I walk out feeling like I’m in a fog. Trail over to the car feeling the same and ride back to my apartment without saying a word to Holden, other than handing him the information Jerome Garrett gave me and telling him to sic my lawyers on it immediately. I walk into my building and wait until he drives away, but then—just for the hell of it—walk to the nearest drugstore a couple of blocks away. Just for shits and giggles, just so I can sleep tonight, just so I can prove to my sometimes worthless brain that no, I’m not pregnant, I must be throwing up because I’m so stressed. Because that would be oh-so-much better.

So I drift through picking up a pregnancy test and wander back to my apartment. Everything is surreal under the streetlamps. People are going about their business as if everything is fine, totally fine, and the earth is not flailing on its axis. So one woman said something in a bathroom. That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. If wishes were fishes and all that. But this is not a wish I’ve ever had. Ever.

I’ve certainly worried about getting pregnant, but never had I thought beyond that. The outcome always seemed obvious: I would end it because I can’t have children. I can maintain my own very small life—anything beyond that is too much. Plus, I hate the idea of knowingly passing on the kind of suffering I’ve endured to someone else who had absolutely no say in the matter. Yes, I’m okay now, but it wasn’t easy to get here, and who knows if I’m going to stay this way? What happens if I have more in common with my mother than I think? There have been so many days when I wish I’d never been born and I don’t want to put anyone else through that.

Except…

Things wouldn’t be the same for a baby of Lowry’s as they’d been for me. If he wanted to be a father, for us to be a family, and I could survive the pregnancy? I’d never let myself think about it, but now that I have—and wasn’t that a terrible idea?—it’s maybe something that I want. That I covet. There’s no point in even dwelling on the possibility, though. I don’t know if I’m pregnant. If I am, there’s no saying that I’ll be able to carry a baby to term. My depression could rear its ugly head violently and to save my own life, I’d have to end it. Jesus, I don’t need to be considering how to terminate a pregnancy I don’t even know is real yet. I need to clear my mind of all of it—because I’ve always been so good at letting shit go. For fuck’s sake.

I’ve made it back to my apartment, into the bathroom and the thought of being like my mother… It sends a chill down my spine and I have to turn away from the mirror where all I’d see is reminders that I’m her daughter.

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