Page 91 of Counting the Days

When he saw her standing in his street, he thought she was injured. He thought something was very wrong, and she came to his house because she needed him. He was overwhelmed by a savage instinct to destroy whoever had hurt her. But the only person hurting her was him, because he could not give her that one thing.

He had devoted the past four months to sorting it all out. He knew he could not go back to her without being willing to be flexible and freeze embryos…. He had to dig deeper to figure out if it was possible to loosen his rigidity.

Her question tormented him: “Are you afraid of being like your father?”

So, he took that question to his therapist, set aside all his other excuses for not having children, and opened himself up. Together they discovered Danny could not bear the thought of a child growing up as lonely and scared as he had: being raised by two parents who were too busy and apathetic for parenting, feeling not good enough, feeling unheard and unseen, neverreceiving a soft word or gentle embrace. And, yes, he was afraid of repeating those same mistakes.

He had been recovering from the damaging influence of the Beckett household for two decades. The cruel combination of emotional neglect and intense pressure to perform left him utterly broken. He went off to college feeling like an unlovable object whose worth depended on a letter grade.

After college, he tried many modalities to assist his mental health, and they all helped: therapy, meditation, yoga, journaling, breathwork, screaming into pillows, and writing down his lovable qualities over and over again. He did this in cursive because his hypnotherapist informed him that cursive goes deeper into the subconscious. He’d gained confidence, he’d learned how to enjoy life, but getting there had been excruciating, and he could not risk tasking a young, innocent life with the same grueling journey.

He already had to endure witnessing the Beckett curse get passed on to his nieces and nephews. All the striving for perfection, competitiveness, incessant talking; every mental disorder his parents possessed was showing up in subtle ways in all seven of those sweet children. He tried to compensate by being an affectionate, attentive uncle, but they were not his children, and there was only so much he could do. And was it even possible for his own children to avoid the curse?

He still dealt with insecurity, anxiety, neurosis, and depression. If his children inherited those issues, it would be his fault. Seeing his struggles show up in a blameless child might break him. But a life without Rhea might break him as well…

When he woke up with Ekele jammed against his body while Rhea softly read to Chichi, his heart felt whole. It was as if lonely little Danny, who grew up in that cold house, was getting a second chance at having a family. And this time, the dad wasDanny, warm, loving, and playful, and the mom was Rhea, smiling, cuddly, and kind. Would his heart ever feel that whole again?

A loud sob escaped his fingers; he did not know he was capable of making such a dramatic noise. He quieted when he heard his bedroom door open. He did not look up but heard all three of his sisters enter. Two sat on either side of him, and one crawled on the bed behind him. They laid their heads down on his shoulders, and for once, they did not say anything at all.

—

Rhea’s Prius was in theright lane, heading northwest on the 101 freeway. At every exit, she slowed down, wanting to descend the off-ramp and head back to Danny’s house, but she compelled herself to continue onward.

She began repeating a mantra at each exit: “I am in the present moment. I have a wonderful life. I am healthy. I have great friends, a job I love, a home I love, and I am beautiful.”

She sobbed while she said each word, but the mantra spurred her forward. By the time she got home, she had recited the mantra eighty-nine times. She kept going, sobbing while saying her mantra aloud as she climbed up fifty-two steps. She sobbed and said it while she made butternut squash risotto. She sobbed and said it while she ate the risotto.

She played music through Bluetooth speakers at full volume. She sobbed and yelled her mantra while she danced around her house. The harder she danced, the harder she cried. She flung herself around, twisting and writhing, letting song after song move grief through her body. When she was finally too exhausted to continue, she picked up a throw pillow and screamed all her anguish into it.

She put down the pillow and picked up her new tools. With dry eyes, she began rebuilding her closet shelves. She worked lateinto the night, saying her mantra every few minutes. She felt tremendous pride when she stood back to take in her finished shelves. She put everything back inside her closet except one item.

She walked down fifty-two steps and threw her motherhood vision board in the dumpster. She decided she was never again going to vision board a life she did not have. From then on, she would use vision boards as a reminder to be grateful for what she did have. She hung her high school vision board on her bedroom wall. She pulled the couple in front of the beach bonfire off, so it more accurately depicted her current life. But she tucked it in her nightstand, in case Danny ever contacted her again.

She added a few cutouts that depicted her latest interests: cooking utensils and a small garden bed. InWomen’s Health,she found a woman rock climbing—a hobby she technically had not tried yet but felt confident she soon would.

She stepped back and took in her vision board. Her life was good, even without Danny. The more she said it out loud, the more she believed it. She repeated the mantra silently as she was brushing her teeth, putting on pajamas, and falling asleep.

When she opened her eyes, she felt a great deal better. She’d expected to wake up with a thousand pounds on her chest, but there was space in her lungs; she could breathe. She looked at her phone.

There was a text from Danny.

Her heart raced, but she did not feel the same fervent clawing she normally would have.

Danny:I’m not trying to be mysterious. I’m genuinely still processing. I don’t want to make you wait but I still don’t exactly know what to say other than I care about you and your feelings so much and thank you for your patience.

She immediately began reciting the mantra. For the next few days, she said it in the shower, said it on her way to work, and whispered it at work, when she was certain Louisca could not hear her.

“All those things really are true, you know?” Louisca said, tired of pretending he could not hear her.

“I know,” she said, and was surprised by how much she meant it.

She was hurting; she felt like she had lost Danny all over again. But this time, she did not drown in a dark depression for months. This time, she did not feel like she needed Danny more than air. ShewantedDanny with every cell in her body, but she did not need him. She was now able to genuinely reflect on all the wonderful things in her life, and some of those wonderful things were there because of Danny.

He’d shown her she was capable of cooking, having an herb garden, caring about the planet, and meeting her neighbors. He made her feel so beautiful as she was; his absolute acceptance of her made it easier for her to accept herself. She wondered if maybe that was the true definition of a soulmate: someone who swoops in and fills you up with so much love, you no longer need them.

Danny was not the other half of Rhea’s soul; he was an entirely separate soul who helped her be a stronger, more complete version of herself. Ironically, because of Danny Beckett, Rhea no longer needed Danny Beckett…but,wow,did she want him.

When she opened her eyes every morning, she craved the sound of his breathing. When she made a veggie bowl, she wanted to ask him if the sauce needed more rice vinegar. When she went paddleboarding on the Venice canals, she wanted to point out a particularly eccentric purple and yellow house and ask him, “Can you imagine living there? Andinviting peopleover?” Just little things; so many tiny reasons that added up to an astronomical amount.