Page 91 of In Sheets of Rain

“Then what is it?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, honey. Don’t go on the defensive.”

“All right, you’ve got my back up now,” I said.

“See, you always do this,” he complained. “We’re only trying to help you.”

“Help me? I see.”

“Kylee, we’re worried.”

“So you’ve said. What exactly are you worried about, Sean?”

He ran a hand through his hair and released me, placing distance between him and myself.

“We think you might be having a nervous breakdown.”

“What?” I said.

“We want you to see a psychiatrist. A real shrink this time.”

“We? As in your mother and you?”

“Yeah. Kylee, can’t you see what you’re doing is crazy? You’re acting crazy. Doing crazy stuff. Just like your mother. You need to get help.”

“Right,” I said.

“Here are the details of a psychiatrist,” he said, slipping a business card across the table.

I stared at the white card stock and felt nothing.

“Will you do this for me, Kylee?” Sean asked.

“For you,” I said, my body numbing.

“Yeah, honey. We’re just so fucking worried. All right?”

* * *

“You’re not crazy,” the psychiatrist said.

She was a plump woman with curly hair and an affable manner. I didn’t lie down on a couch. Or even stare at a painted scene of One Tree Hill on the wall. I sat in a hard-backed chair beside a utilitarian desk as she asked me a series of questions about my life.

“No. You’ve had a shitty time of it,” she said. “You’ve no doubt burned yourself out. But you’re not crazy.”

“Right,” I said.

“And it sounds like you’re getting your life together. New job. New flat. New situation.”

“Yeah,” I said.

She smiled.

I smiled.

And I asked, “Can I get that in writing?”

* * *

Ilicked the stamp, pressed it onto the paper, and stared at the envelope.

Then said, “Fuck you, Sean. And same to your mother.”

And sent evidence of my sanity to my husband via FastPost.

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