Page 8 of Drawing Home
The air smelled briny and fresh as she got closer to the water. She crossed Bay Street, where a family of ducks had halted traffic. She passed the theater and a seafood restaurant called the Dock House, then found shade in the shadow of the town’s historic windmill. From there, she surveyed Long Wharf. The dock was filled with boats of every size and variety: yachts and elegant sailboats and small skiffs. In the distance, Emma saw local captain Cole Hopkins sail by on his signature turquoise catamaran. At the edge of the dock, a couple stood taking pictures of each other, the shimmering, still water in the background.
She spotted Sean’s water taxi just pulling into a slip with one passenger on board, a woman who looked to be about eight months pregnant.
“Sorry to trouble you,” the woman said as Sean helped her off the boat. “I’m not supposed to be lifting anything.”
Sean’s dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Melville, barked from the deck at a low-flying seagull.
“Not a problem,” Emma said, hoisting the strap of the woman’s stuffed Vera Bradley bag over her shoulder and taking hold of her roller suitcase. “It’s just a few blocks to the hotel.”
Sean called Emma aside. “Meet us for drinks tonight at Murf’s? Alexis is done at nine.”
“I can’t go out. Penny’s acting up.”
Sean shook his head. “You need to live a little.”
Sometimes Penny zoned out during her therapy sessions. Instead of listening, she marveled at Dr. Wang’s endless array of shift dresses and matching accessories—gold trinkets, high-heeled and trendy footwear, intricately knotted silk scarves.
Basically, a dose of high fashion was the only thing that Penny got out of the weekly visits. Two years and counting, and Penny felt no closer to being able to “boss it back.” That was what Dr. Wang called not listening to her obsessive and compulsive thoughts.
Penny had admitted this to her mother, who must have repeated it to Dr. Wang. At their previous session, Dr. Wang said, “Penny, OCD is an illness and if you want to get better, you have to work at it. If a person had heart disease, the doctor would tell him to exercise and adjust his diet. You need to do the work so we can retrain your brain.”
Penny was all for retraining her brain. It was just that none of Dr. Wang’s advice helped.
“Remember, your OCD is notyou. It’s separate and something you can control.”
So far, Penny had seen no evidence of that.
And the worksheets weren’t helping. Every week, Penny was supposed to keep a log of things that triggered her anxiety—what had happened, what was she thinking, what was she feeling? Then she had to rate her level of worry on a scale of 1 to 10.
The concept of rating her worry was just so frustrating. She didn’t want to admit that she never feltdegreesof worry. She was worried, or she wasn’t. Whether the scale was 1 to 10 or 1 to 100 meant nothing. Worry was worry, and when she felt it, it took over. That’s when the compulsions kicked in.
And this brought Penny to the worst part of seeing Dr. Wang: Exposures. Yes, Penny washed her hands too much. Yes, she thought excessively about germs and getting a stomach virus. But it felt like torture to have to come to Dr. Wang’s office and, for example, touch the light switch and then touch her mouth.
“How are you doing, Penny?”
Today, Dr. Wang was wearing a lavender dress with silver jewelry. Or maybe it was white gold? Contemplating this, Penny realized she’d forgotten to do her worksheet that week. Maybe Dr. Wang would forget about it too.
“Do you have your worksheet?”
Penny shook her head.
“Can you remember for next week? It’s important, Penny.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. But really, who cared about a stupid worksheet? A worksheet wasn’t going to help her. The one person who had helped her was gone. She felt tears in her eyes but blinked them away. No need to get Dr. Wang all excited. Drawing with Henry helped her more than anything she’d ever done in therapy. When she was drawing, her mind was blank. She was free.
Dr. Wang handed her a tissue. “I know you suffered a loss last night. I’m sorry about Henry Wyatt.” She asked Penny if she wanted to talk about it, but Penny shook her head. Still, Dr. Wang went on and on about death being a part of life and that she was lucky she had met him and all sorts of other true, positive things. But none of it changed the fact that Mr. Wyatt was gone. And none of it acknowledged the thing that Penny knew would sound crazy: Mr. Wyatt had been her best friend. Her only friend.
What did it say about her that her best friend was an eighty-year-old man? And what was she going to do now that he was gone?
Chapter Five
For two weeks after the death of Henry Wyatt, Bea Winstead barely left the great house called Windsong. The house made her feel connected to Henry, and it was painful to leave it even for a few hours.
She surfaced only to attend the memorial service back in Manhattan, at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home on Madison Avenue, where she had spoken to few people. One of those few had been Henry’s longtime attorney Victor Bonivent.
“I’ll call you,” Victor had said.
But Victor had not called her. Bea realized, waking with a start in the middle of the night in Henry’s guest room, that the probate process must be well under way.
