Mumbo jumbo.She could feel her body coiling up. Did her company actually spend money on this nonsense? Was there any choice but to be here? “Maybe a tiny bit,” she said, holding up thumb and forefinger to show how tiny the bit was. “How far out of the box are we talking?”
Micah smiled again, which, she was realizing, was his way of deflecting. “That’s up to you. But I think you’ll like the direction we’re going. It’s all designed to help you help yourself.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered.
“For today, let’s get some background. We were talking about family—”
“No, you were mentioning it. We weren’t talking about it.” As long as they were pursuing clarity of thought, she was happy to clarify that she wasnottalking about her family.
“You’re correct. Let’s do that now.”
Oh boy, he was not taking the hint. Lorna put aside her untouched mug of tea. “Look, Micah, I appreciate that you’re doing your job... although I really don’t get your job, and that’s on me. But I don’t like the idea of getting too personal.”
“Are we getting personal?”
“You want to talk about my family.”
He shrugged lightly and took a sip of his tea. “We don’t have to talk about it. Perhaps you could just give me a general outline. Your mother is...?”
She forced herself to swallow. “Dead. Cancer.”
“Oh.” He put down his teacup and leaned forward. “I am very sorry for your loss. That must have been incredibly hard.”
It wasn’t just hard. It was torture, misery, anguish... all the things. The burn of tears immediately sprang to the back of her eyes. It had been several years now, but Lorna could hardly think of that time without feeling miserable. “Yes,” she said. “I was her caretaker, and in the end...” She’d said things to her motherthat would haunt her forever. “It was awful. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He reached for a box of tissues and handed them to her. “Then we won’t talk about it. Your father?” he asked, pivoting.
Her father? Another bad topic. “Umm... remarried. A long time ago. He lives in Florida.” Dear old Dad, who had come crawling back when it was too late.
“Any siblings?”
An image of Kristen popped into her mind’s eye. But it wasn’t the same Kristen Lorna had seen last. It was the Kristen of her youth. Her big sister Kristen, the lithe, tanned, blond, pretty Kristen she’d so admired. Lorna remembered always laughing then, with Kristen, at Kristen, around Kristen. Those were happy times. Her skin began to feel clammy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sick, but she was feeling weirdly queasy. Like she was at the top of a roller-coaster ride and waiting for the drop. “A sister,” she managed.
“And where is she?”
“Also in Florida. With my dad.”
“What’s her name?”
She swallowed down a swell of nausea. “Kristen.”
“Younger? Older?”
“Does it really matter?” she blurted. She was doing her best not to lose her cool, but this line of questioning was so... intrusive. She curled her hand into a ball and shoved it under a bent leg, trying to keep a grip. Micah simply looked at her, waiting for an answer. “She’s older.”
“And you and Kristen are close?”
Her throat was constricting, making it difficult to breathe. “No. Not now. We used to be. Look, I really don’t want to—”
“When—”
“We’re on a break!” she snapped. Was she perspiring? She feltso hot suddenly. She imagined dark stains spreading under her arms. She wanted to rip off her jacket.
He pushed the box of tissues closer to her. “Are you doing okay, Lorna?”
She grabbed a tissue. “I’m fine. There is something wrong with my tear ducts. Look, Micah, my sister and I are on a break because she’s an addict, and her addiction has ruined my life. Is that what you want to know?” She paused to dab at her eyes.What in the world?Was she going to keep shouting private things at him? This was precisely why she didn’t want to talk about it.
“Ah,” Micah said, like he’d just caught on to the theory of relativity.
