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HOME ALONE
The day after I see my shrink, I’m feeling better. It might just be the residual effects of the pill Gray encouraged me to take last night so that I could sleep. Either way, as I sit with him in the sun-washed kitchen drinking coffee, the sense of foreboding is gone.
“It helped you to see Dr. Brown?” Gray asks. It’s oddly off-putting to hear Gray use his name. I try so hard to keep these parts of myself separate. Here I’m Annie, Gray’s wife and Victory’s mom. There I’m a mental patient haunted by my traumatic past. I don’t want those two selves to touch.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say with a dismissive, oh-it’s-nothing wave. “It’s just that time of year, he thinks.”
Gray puts a hand on my shoulder. He is headed out of town for a few days. I don’t know where he is going or when he will be back. This is part of our life together.
“Vivian can come stay with y
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