Shower
Get dressed
Eat breakfast
Go to work
Eat lunch
Go home
Make dinner for Ezra
Talk to Ezra over dinner
Go to bed
Nine things. All she’d have to do tomorrow was nine things. She could handle that.
27
When Emily got to work the next day, Priya was waiting in her office with a yogurt and granola parfait and a cinnamon latte, Emily’s breakfast of choice when she was being indulgent.
“How are you doing?” Priya asked as she handed them over.
Emily took a shaky breath, surprised by the gesture. “I’m doing better,” she said, her voice wobbling, and then added: “Even if it doesn’t sound that way.”
Priya put her hand around Emily’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It sucks.”
Emily started to laugh, which stopped the tears that were threatening to fall. “Says the psychologist.”
“Says the psychologist,” Priya agreed. “You know, I used to try to reason things away. I’d tell myself, well, it’s not as bad as being tortured as a prisoner of war, or starving to death, or dying painfully of a completely preventable disease in a remote village without modern medicine. And that’s true. But also, it doesn’t take away from the fact that some things just suck. What was it you said a couple of weeks ago in our consultation group? ‘Sometimes shit is just shit’？”
Emily smiled at her. “This is one of those times.”
Priya turned so she was facing Emily. “I know you don’t love the idea of something shitty making you stronger, so I’ll just say: Don’t forget that not everything is shitty.”
Dr. West had said that, too, when Emily was twenty. She acknowledged that sometimes you get dealt a crappy hand. And there was no reason for it. And accepting that is important. But then she told Emily that sometimes it helps to look at the parts of life that don’t suck. Because even if your hand is crappy, you always have at least a few good cards.
“Like what?” Emily had asked her back then, the first time they met.
“You tell me,” Dr. West had said. “What in your life isn’t terrible right now? What’s one of your good cards?”
It hadn’t taken Emily long. “My sister loves me and is really supportive.”
“Great,” Dr. West had said. “What else?”
“Except for my hand hurting, I’m healthy,” Emily had said.
“And?” Dr. West prompted her.
“And my dad has enough money to help me pay for school. And I managed to get a 3.6 this past semester. And I really liked reading the books for the literature classes I was in. And I have somewhere nice to stay for the summer. And I have enough money from gigs to pay for it. And . . .”
Dr. West had let her continue. She’d gone on, eventually listing things like: “Chocolate exists in the world and I get to eat it” and “New York has four seasons and they’re all beautiful in different ways.”
“How are you feeling?” Dr. West had said, when Emily had exhausted all the things that were good in her life.
“A little better,” Emily had admitted.
That didn’t fix anything, of course, and she still had to wade her way through her emotions, detangling them and unwrapping them, before letting them coil back up, neater than they were before. But it was a life preserver, that list, something to hang on to when she felt like she was about to go under.
“You know,” Priya said, “I had a miscarriage four years ago, just before I started working here. The year before we had Anika.”
“I’m so sorry,” Emily said, moving closer to her.
“It was scary,” Priya said, twisting the bracelets on her wrist. “I took misoprostol, that pill that’s supposed to make it happen faster. The cramping was so bad. And the blood. Neel wanted to take me to the emergency room.”
“No one talks about it,” Emily said. “Or if they do, it’s in whispers. And they leave out the details.”
Priya slid her bracelets off her wrist and then back on again. “It’s hard. To talk about. To go through.”
“Is it still hard?” Emily asked, hoping her friend would give her a road map, a course to follow so she would know how she’d feel next.
“It is,” Priya said slowly. “But then sometimes I look at Anika and I think—if I’d had that baby, I wouldn’t have had her. And . . .” Her voice drifted off.
“Does that make it easier, or harder?” Emily asked.