Ready To Love Again (37 page)

Chase nodded. This was something he had been working on with David’s help. “It’s not that I wouldn’t talk about her—I just never initiated the conversation. I’ve been working on that.”

“Outstanding. How are you doing with therapy?”

“It was hard at first. David picked up on my avoidance issues in the first few minutes and called me on it.” Chase chuckled and shook his head, remembering their first meeting. “Since then, I’ve been working on being more open with my children and not avoiding problems or feelings when they come up.”

“That’s great.” Allison smiled before she opened Liz’s file. “Liz has an unhealthy fear of abandonment. She lost her mother, and you weren’t around very much after her death. Now her aunt is getting married and moving out of the house, and your girlfriend is not in your lives anymore.”

This last part surprised him. “Liz mentioned Katie left?”
 

Allison looked at him for a moment before deciding on what she wanted to share. “She mentioned her, but you’ll have to understand that I won’t discuss what we talk about in our sessions.”

Chase nodded in understanding, but his curiosity was piqued.

“I’ve also gathered that you haven’t been much of a disciplinarian.”
 

Chase chuckled but agreed, telling her what he had been working on with David’s help.

“Liz needs clear boundaries, so I recommend you continue with the plan you and David have set up. Remember she needs consistency. If she sees you waver, she will take advantage of it. Children can be very protective of their parents. If Liz knows that talking about Terri will upset you, she won’t bring up her own distress or confusion about death. This leaves her more vulnerable and isolated in her grief. She needs to know it’s okay to talk about her mother.”
 

Chase took a deep breath, relieved that Liz was responding well to therapy.

“Now, we need to address how you can help her with her abandonment issues. First, be honest, open, and clear. She needs to know she can come to you without your grief getting in the way. Next, do not avoid the topic when she brings it up, and be prepared to discuss the same details again and again. Sometimes children need to hear the same facts repeated until they process the information. It’s important that you be available, reassuring, and predictable.” Allison looked over her notes and then back at Chase.

“The biggest issue with Liz is her need to control the situation she’s in. She feels like everything is out of her control, and this is why you’re getting the tantrums. Find ways that help her have a measure of control in every situation. If you’re going on a date, get her involved in picking the place. Your sister is already doing these things by letting Liz help with the wedding preparations. Involve her more in the decisions you make. By doing this, you show her that she’s a part of your life and that she has value.”
 

Allison paused for a moment before she continued. “Communication is important, and when a child is left out of the loop, they tend to fill in the blanks with their own ideas, which aren’t always what we would expect.”

Chase sat back in his chair and mulled over what she’d said. It wasn’t until Liz caught him kissing Katie on the ball field that she had realized there was more going on. When he looked into the timing of her outbursts, everything started to make more sense. A light bulb went off in his head, and Chase leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

“So all I need to do is communicate more with Liz, and she’ll accept Katie?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that.” Allison gave him a sympathetic smile. “I can tell it means a great deal to you that they reconcile their differences. If it’s any consolation, in similar cases children rarely hate the significant other as an individual. It’s that they find it hard to reconcile their loyalty to the deceased parent with their desire to let the surviving parent find love again.”

Chase shouldn’t have been surprised at that piece of information. He and Katie had even had a similar conversation about love versus loyalty after they had seen Camelot. When he thought about what Allison said, the points David had made in their session started to ring in his ears.
 

The guilt
had
overwhelmed him at times. Was this why he’d let Katie go without a fight? He had told himself that it was all about Liz, but was it really? Chase filed that away to think about later when he could give it his full focus.

“Do you have any questions?” Allison asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“No, you’ve given me a lot to digest.”

“Liz is very mature for her age. I think she’ll resolve the majority of her problems in the next couple of months, as long as you continue to be consistent in your discipline and communication. I’ve already seen huge improvements in the past several weeks.”

Chase smiled his first genuine smile in days. “Thank you so much for your help. I also need to get Tony in here to talk to someone.”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

~*~

The time without Katie was unbearable, even though Liz’s behavior improved each week. The one upside to their separation was that Katie didn’t have to witness the occasional setbacks while his family worked through their grief.
 

They spent their free time together catching up on memories of Terri. The more they talked about her mother, the more Chase could see the small, positive changes in Liz’s attitude.

Chase also realized that Tony’s apparent disinterest in Terri stemmed from his loyalty to Katie. It amazed him how Tony’s troubles could be the complete opposite of Liz’s, yet still the same. Counseling had progressed, and they’d started sessions with a family group therapist. Sayid opened up a whole new understanding about how to help Liz and Tony.

Not only did Chase have some realizations, but apparently Liz did as well. She worked with Allison to get to the point where she was open to the idea of Chase dating again. It was obvious she wanted her father to be happy—she just needed to find a way past the anger she harbored over her mother’s death.

In their sessions together, Tony brought up his love for Katie often. At first, Liz defended her position that Katie had tried to replace Terri. After the therapist asked her if she thought Chase should be alone for the remainder of his life, he turned her thinking around and gave Liz some things to ponder. The look on her face was painful to watch. She struggled with wanting to keep her mother’s memory alive and letting her father be happy. After that, she was more open to the idea of someone new in his life, and he could see her walls slowly begin to crumble.

As for Tony, he needed someone to talk to about all the changes in their home. His acceptance of Katie had come from his desire for a mother. Chase didn’t doubt that he loved Katie very much, but it was the idea of having a mother that Tony clung to.

Chase adjusted his work schedule to spend more time with his children. He’d go in the early morning hours to work, and Gina would get the kids up and to Daniel’s house before she went to work. By noon, Chase would pick them up, and they would engage in different family activities that he’d put off before. It was too easy to drown in work and forget about the past. At least now he recognized it for what it was—avoidance.

Chapter 20

Katie was used to having Shawn underfoot, so four weeks was a long time to be alone. Monday mornings were the designated day for him to call her. This particular Monday morning, Katie fumbled through her routine, running into one distraction after another.

Gina called just as Katie climbed out of the shower and asked if she wanted to go out with her and Daniel for lunch. Katie declined, giving her a lame excuse. It was hard enough running into her at work—Katie wasn’t ready to put herself in a situation where Chase could come up in conversation. She could hear the disappointment in Gina’s voice, and Katie felt terrible for brushing her off for the third time in the past few weeks.

She was dressed and in the middle of applying a thin coat of makeup to cover the dark circles under her eyes when her power went out. In other circumstances, it would have been a small annoyance, but she hadn’t started her coffee yet and her hair was still dripping from her shower. With a heavy sigh, she drew back her hair into a ponytail and tried to tell herself that she didn’t need her morning pick-me-up.

She had almost convinced herself the day could only get better when she pulled her CSUMB hoodie out of the closet and noticed the box she’d hidden in the back. It was lying on the closet floor so that she didn’t have to see the dolphins Chase had given her. Tears sprang to her eyes when tiny pinpricks of regret jabbed down her spine.
 

Katie shook her head, refusing to let herself surrender to the sorrow she had fought off since their breakup. It was too late. The memory of her deceit the night he had given her the dolphins haunted her. She had needed him—needed one last night to savor his touch—before she shattered their future. Katie had been weak, and because of that weakness, she’d let him believe everything was fine.
 

The phone rang, startling her. Katie wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and grabbed her cell phone off the dresser. She needed to pull herself together. It wouldn’t do Shawn any good to hear her sniffling over something she couldn’t change.

Clearing her throat, she answered her phone with false cheer. “Hello?”

“Mom?” Shawn’s voice came through the receiver, making her smile.

“Hey, baby. How are you?”

“I miss you, Mommy.”

He never called her
Mommy
anymore. Something was up. “I miss you too, baby. You sound sad—are you okay?”

He sniffed, and she wanted to pull him through the phone and hold him in her arms. “No, I want to come home,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry, Shawn. You’ve got less than two weeks left with your dad.” The urge to take the next flight out of Monterey tugged at her heart. “Have you gone fishing with Uncle Kevin?”

“Yeah, we go on the weekends, but Dad never goes. He’s never home. I thought he’d be here more so we could do stuff.”

“What do you mean he’s never home?”

“He’s at work and stuff. I have to stay with Elena.”

“Do you like her?” In past conversations, he’d avoided bringing her up, so Katie wasn’t sure how he felt about her.

“She’s all right, but she cooks funny and the house has all this pink girly stuff and she wants me to call her Mom.”

Katie’s jaw clenched, and every muscle in her body tensed at the thought of
that
woman trying to take that title as her own. It took her a few moments to compose herself before she asked the next question.

“Do you call her Mom?”

“No, but she always tells me to,” he answered.

“Have you talked to your dad about it?”

“Nuh-uh. He said we’d play baseball, too, but we still haven’t. Coach always played ball with Tony and me.”

“I know, honey. Can I talk to your dad?” Katie asked. She needed to straighten out a few things with him if this was going to be their permanent arrangement.

“He’s not here. You can talk to Elena, if you want.”

“No, that’s okay,” she said. “Shawn, I know it’s hard to be away from home, but you’re going to have to stay for another two weeks.”

“Why?”
 

How do you explain to a child about court-ordered visitation?

“Because your dad doesn’t get to see you very much, so you need to spend this time with him. You won’t see him again until Christmas.”

“I know. I just miss you, Tony, and Coach. I even miss Liz.”

“We miss you, too.”

“I love you, Mom. Elena said it’s time to get off the phone.”
 

Katie’s blood boiled again. “I love you too, baby. Can you please put Elena on the phone?”

“Sure. Bye, Mom.” She heard him hand off the phone.

“Hello?” There was apprehension in Elena’s voice.

“I’m only going to say this once, so listen closely,” Katie said with a snarl. “If you don’t get Victor to spend more time with his son, I’ll make sure his court-ordered visitation is limited to one week in the summer.”

“He’s working a lot and—”

“I don’t care if he’s working or not, and neither does Shawn. He owns the damn company, and he can take the time to spend with his son.” When she heard Elena’s exasperated sigh, Katie bit the side of her cheek to keep from shouting. “Unless he doesn’t want to be home for other reasons?” This would be the one and only time Katie would ever speak to this woman, and she wasn’t going to hold back. “Maybe he’s found someone else on the side. You know what they say about a man who strays once . . .”

Katie could hear Elena’s heavy breathing on the other line.
 

“Next, the title of mother is earned. You’ve done nothing to earn it, so stop asking for it. Breaking up a family so you can weasel your way into my old life doesn’t make you Shawn’s mother.”

“Is that all?” Katie could almost hear the steam coming out of the woman’s ears.

“No. One more thing. If you ever try to keep my child from me, even if it’s just on the phone, I will make your life a living hell. Are we clear?”