Page 74 of The Last Session

God.First I’d wondered if Moon had been flirting with me—and now Sol? Was it them, or did I just need to get laid?

The greenhouse was a contrast to the desert, humid and filled with rows of plants and even some small trees. Sol waved me over to a table filled with buckets and planters.

“Try this.” He held out a closed fist, then dropped several glowing raspberries into my palm. I tossed them in my mouth. They burst with flavor, both tart and sweet.

“Wow,” I said. “Delicious.”

“Yeah.” Sol gestured around. “I thought Steven was a little nuts when he wanted to set all this up, but it’s been amazing. In a couple years I think we’ll be self-sustaining. Moon wants to get some goats and cows too.”

“Very cool.” I nodded. This close to him, staring directly, it struck me again how much he looked like Pastor John. Moon was the more charismatic one, but Sol had plenty of his own confidence.

Sol gestured to some folding chairs, and we both sat. He continued to smile at me, so I grasped for something to fill the silence. “So where are you from? I’m realizing I don’t know that much about you.”

He crossed his arms. “My story’s not that interesting. Boy grows up in Michigan. Boy moves to LA to be a rock star. Boy fails, but ends up meeting the love of his life.”

“How did you two meet, exactly?”

He chuckled. “It was an audition. The most stereotypical place to meet in LA. It was for laundry detergent; I read for the part of a complaining dad, and Moon was the long-suffering mom. We saw each other in the parking lot after and made fun of it.”

So Moon had been an actor. It wasn’t a surprise, given her flair for the dramatic. But it was interesting that none of the articles had mentioned it.

“Neither of us was traditional in that way,” he went on. “Moon never wanted children. Which makes sense, after the childhood she had.”

“She went through a lot,” I supplied.

“Oh yeah. Her single mom wasn’t the best caretaker after her brother died. Depressed, neglectful. My mom was the opposite: super anxious and controlling.”

“That must’ve been hard.” Back to social worker mode.

“It was. But!” He slapped his knees. “Let’s not talk about me. I want to know more about you.” He leaned forward, and I had the sliding sensation that I was back in Pastor John’s office, winning the full brunt of his attention. It had felt incredible then and still felt good now. Though I didn’t fully trust Sol, it seemed harmless enough to tell him some basics.

“Well, I’m from a town in upstate New York…”

“And your parents?”

I straightened. “My dad was a manager at a pharma company.”

“What was he like?”

Was this turning into an impromptu session? “Strong, silent, Christian type. He traveled a lot when I was growing up. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom.”

“Did she like it?”

“Um… she wanted more kids. I think she was disappointed with just one.”

“But you’re amazing,” Sol said, his eyes guileless.

“Thanks. I don’t know, it’s kind of ironic that what she wanted most in the world—to be a real capital-Mmother—she wasn’t great at.”

“Give me an example. Of how she wasn’t great at it.”

I paused. The memory jumped into my mind in full color. “Well, when I was thirteen I got a UTI. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I was sure God was punishing me—I’d just had my first sexual encounter. I was too scared to google the symptoms on my dad’s computer. But then it got worse, so I finally told my mom. She took me to her gynecologist, who was a man. When the nurse told me to get undressed, and I saw those stirrups…” I shook my head. “I just couldn’t do it.”

Sol nodded, shifting and crossing his legs. Now he was playing the therapist.

“When I refused to take off my clothes, my mom gotsoangry at me. She even started crying, saying I’d embarrassed her. Luckily, I guess the nurse told the doctor and he came in and said my urine test showed Ihad a UTI. He prescribed something and we left and my mom refused to talk to me for the rest of the day, even at the pharmacy.”

Sol rubbed his chin. “Why was she so upset?”

---