Page 65 of Since She's Been Gone

We went to a brunch place in Brentwood after to eat, our cheeks still red from the sun. As we got settled at our table, a woman with chunky vintage green and red bracelets and short curly black hair approached us.

“Is it you?” she asked Mom with a wide smile. “Is it really you?”

Mom’s entire body stiffened. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I know you,” she said curtly.

“You weren’t at Valentine’s House?” the woman asked her.

The name Valentine’s House stuck in my mind because, as a kid, I thought it was such a neat name for a house.

“No,” Mom said, clearing her throat.

“In New York City, back in the seventies?” the woman pressed.

“I went to college in New York, but I’ve never heard of Valentine’s House.”

“Oh,” the woman said.

“Maybe you remember me from NYU?” Mom asked her.

The woman shook her head. “I didn’t go to NYU.”

“Mom, I’m hungry,” I said. “Can we order?”

“Let’s do that,” Dad said.

“My daughter graduated from middle school today,” Mom explained to the woman. “We’re celebrating.”

“Congratulations,” the woman said.

“Thank you,” said Mom.

The woman slowly retreated from us, but I remember Mom being distracted for the rest of the meal, half present, half somewhere else, every so often looking up at the woman who was seated at a table nearby with her friends.

After we finished eating and left the restaurant, we passed the woman who was standing outside waiting for her car at the valet station.

Mom smiled at her as we walked by her when I heard the woman whisper under her breath, “I’m glad things turned out well for you.”

She isn’t who you think she is.

The words echo in my mind like a sound bouncing off a cave’s wall, reverberating over and over again.

Is this the trouble Laura Poitier alluded to that Mom got caught up in? Is this why I never saw her take a sip of alcohol? Why she specialized in treating addiction? Why she led a discussion withD.A.R.E.at my high school?

I think back on a conversation I had with her the year before she died, when we were discussing what colleges I might want to go to, and she shared with me how she got into the field of psychology.

“I lost both of my parents to cancer during my senior year of high school. Thankfully, a school counselor stepped in to help me. Talking with her gave me a window into what it meant to be a therapist. I thought I might be good at it,” she told me.

“But you went to college for acting,” I said.

“I did, but I tucked away that other experience in my mind and never forgot about it.”

“When did you decide to switch from acting to becoming a psychologist?” I asked her. “And how did you decide to specialize in addiction?”

She paused for a long while. “I can’t remember when I made the change,” she finally said. “I decided to focus on addiction because twelve-step recovery programs integrate the psychological with the spiritual. And after losing both of my parents at such a young age, I relied heavily on my faith.”

I took what she told me at face value. It felt effortless, and it made sense.

Now learning that she might’ve lived in a halfway house, she probably did rely heavily on her faith—but for her recovery. Her response to me was rooted in some truth. Lying by omission, lying without lies.

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