Page 63 of Drawing Home
They reached a room with a long table and heavy wood cabinets. Angus made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “You have arrived.”
Penny’s dad picked her up in a different car this time, a black convertible.
“What a perfect day, right?” her dad said, pulling into the Coopers Beach parking lot.
It was hot but not too hot, just enough clouds to occasionally drift over the sun. The beach was as crowded as if it were a weekend.
Penny followed her father down the long rubber mat covering the hot sand to a spot near the ocean. She wanted to dash right into the water, but they’d picked up sandwiches from Bagel Buoy on the way over and if they didn’t eat them, they’d go bad. Her dad hadn’t thought to bring a cooler like her mom always did.
“Thanks for giving me an excuse to get out of work,” she said.
“Yeah, it should be against the law to work on a day like this,” he said, passing her a bottle of Poland Spring.
Penny still didn’t fully understand what her dad did for a living. He’d said the acting thing wasn’t “panning out.” He tried to explain producing, but to her it just sounded like hunting around for money, and how did you make money by asking people for money?
“So where are you staying?” Penny asked. That, too, had been vague during their last conversation.
“I found a great rental just off Division Street.”
“How long are you going to be here?”
He smiled at her. “You sure like definitive answers, don’t you?”
“Mom says I have a particularly low tolerance for gray areas.”
That’s why she wasn’t looking forward to sneaking around later that night to go to the party. But she would do it. A part of her wanted to talk to her dad about the conflict she felt between trying to keep up with her friends and sticking to her mother’s rules. But talking to her father about that somehow felt even more disloyal to her mother than lying about it in the first place.
They finished eating and headed to the ocean. Her dad waded in up to his waist while Penny stood at the edge, letting the water rush over her feet.
Don’t think about it,she told herself. But another part of her brain, the stronger part, was already counting.
In the distance, her father waved her in. She held up her hand, one finger.Just a sec.Back to counting.
After a minute or so, her father made his way back to her. By that point, she was on the verge of tears.
“Hey, you don’t want to come in?” he said.
“I do. But I can’t!” And then the tears did come, hard and messy. She stood there sobbing like a baby. Surprised and clearly confused, her dad put his arm around her and led her back to the towels.
“What’s going on?” he said, passing her one of the paper napkins from their lunch. She wiped her nose, realized the napkin had cream cheese on it, and started crying even harder. Her dad looked at her with alarm. She had to say something, to explain. It was hard to admit what was going on, but sitting there sobbing for the rest of the afternoon was clearly not an option.
“I have OCD,” she said.
Her dad seemed to consider this for a few seconds. “You mean you wash your hands all the time? That sort of thing?”
She nodded. “Yeah. That and other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
Again, she hesitated. She didn’t want to scare him off. Visiting with her was supposed to be fun. But she realized, looking down at the soggy napkin in her lap, knowing her face was red and puffy, that it was too late for that. So she told him about the counting, the checking on things, the germ phobia.
Her dad nodded, and she could tell he was trying to play it off like this was totally not a big deal. But she could hear the urgency in his voice when he said, “What does your mother say about all this? Did you see a…therapist or something?”
“Yeah. Dr. Wang. She helps me try to manage my thoughts. It’s a kind of therapy called CBT.”
“But it’s not working?”
Penny shrugged. “Maybe for a while. I felt better last year. I was drawing a lot—with the artist who left me the house. I don’t know. When I was doing that, I felt a little better. My therapist says it takes time and not to get frustrated. But I feel like it’s never going to go away. She said I could try taking Prozac.”
