Dr. P suggested we have our very last session on the beach instead of the conference room, and I happily agreed. I brought along the finished letter that had been the source of so much strife these last couple of weeks and met him in front of the lifeguard stand like we planned.
“I have the bottle,” I said, waving it around in the air, “and the letter.”
He pointed down the beach. “Perfect. Let’s head out to that jetty.”
We walked down the beach toward the jetty where I’d gotten my ankle stuck in the rocks only two short weeks ago.
“Do you think you said everything you needed to say in the letter?” Dr. P asked.
I nodded. “For the first time in my life, I didn’t hold anything back or pull any punches. What I finally came up with is real and raw and long overdue.”
“And how do you feel?” he asked.
“Like I filled the pages with the breathings of my heart,” I said, repeating the William Wordsworth quote he’d shared with me in one of our very first sessions.
The corners of his eyes crinkled upwards. “You’ve come a very long way in a very short time,” Dr. P said. “I am very proud of you, Joanna.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you. You forced me to take a look at things I’d been afraid to confront most of my life.”
He smiled. “I’m glad. You can always reach out to me, but I’ll give you some referrals for when you get back home. You may find it helpful to keep exploring some of these issues. In two short weeks, we only scratched the surface. Let me ask you, what’s your relationship like with your father? He’s still living, correct?”
“He is. He lives out in California. So does my older sister.”
“But you two aren’t close?”
“Not really. He loved my mother very much. Worshiped her, really. He’s a doctor, and when she got sick, it was like he made it his personal mission to get her better. If he wasn’t working, he was researching new treatments or drug trials she could try.”
“What about your sister? How’s their relationship?”
“She was almost fourteen when my mom first got sick, and he opened up to her a lot more than me about what was going on.”
“How’d that make you feel?”
“I can understand his behavior better now that I’m older, but I won’t lie, it created a wedge between us. I moved to New York right after I graduated high school, and then spent practically every holiday and every school break with Sam. Come to think of it, I haven’t been home since my mother’s funeral.”
“I’m sure that’s hard for him.”
I chewed my bottom lip. “I don’t know. If it is, he’s never said.”
“Maybe it’s time to find out?”
“You sound like my sister. She’s been hounding me to come out to California after the retreat.”
“Will you go?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve been away so long already. I have to get back to my real life.”
“Rebuilding your relationship with your father sounds like real life kinda stuff to me.”
“You know what I mean. But I have to get home to my job. My bills. Chaka and Khan.”
He laughed. “Who are Chaka and Khan?”
“The guy I’m renting an apartment from, they’re his dogs, and I promised I wouldn’t board them for too long.”
We stopped walking, and Dr. P placed his hand on my forearm. “You know, you’ll always find an excuse not to work things out with your father if you want one.”
“I promise to think about it.”
He nodded and pointed to the jetty. “We made it this far, you ready to finish the journey?”
We walked down the jetty to its farthest point, just past the lighthouse, where the waves crashed hardest against the silvery rocks.
Dr. P took the glass bottle from my pocket and removed the cork top. “May your past and may your pain be like a message in a bottle, pitched out to sea, to be carried by the winds and tides, washing up on a distant shore, never to return home again.”
I rolled the letter up into a thin scroll and held it tightly in my hand.
“Ready, Joanna?” he asked.
I moistened my lips. “Dr. P, I know it may not be protocol, but I’d like to hold onto the letter just a little bit longer, if that’s okay?”
“Can I ask you why?”
“I have a feeling I may need a cheat sheet when the time comes for me to own up to some of these things in person,” I said.
He grinned. “I understand. Here, take the bottle home with you,” he said, passing it to me. “I’m sure the East River or Hudson will be just as cathartic as the Atlantic when the time comes.”