Only thing that Keeps us apart is a different Timezone

After a month of Aunt Jasmine’s invasion — and an equally long recovery period where I considered faking my own death — I was finally back at work.
Can you believe she once told me, “Real therapists just hand out Xanax and call it a day”?
The nerve.
I even tried to pawn her off to my mother, but she wasn’t budging. Which raises the eternal question: how do you politely tell someone you never want them in your house again without ending up the villain?

The smell of cheap coffee and printer toner hit me as I stepped into my office. God, I’d missed this place — the smell was like a hug from a friend. God, I’d missed this place — the smell was like receiving money from your friend who borrowed from you.

Marie was my first appointment. Mid-forties. Kind eyes. Gave off the vibe of someone who baked cookies but never ate them — just handed them out like edible apologies.
We’d been sitting here for thirty minutes, me trying subtle nudges to get her talking, her staring into space like she was buffering. I started doodling to pass the time and was running out of things to draw (there’s only so many variations of sad cats you can do before it gets weird).

“I’m in an unloving marriage Doctor Harvey,” she finally said, flat as a stale soda.

Okay. Straight into the deep end.
“What...”

“I think about killing my husband sometimes, just so I could get away from him.”

Ah, it's just one of those days.

I adjusted my pen but didn’t write anything yet.

“Oh?” I said, trying to sound clinically neutral while my brain screamed Don’t react. Don’t react.

“You know… just like that Talia woman once did,” she added casually, like she was recommending a good lasagna recipe. “Worked for her, didn’t it?”

Now, I had a vague idea who she was talking about. It’s a peculiar case actually.

There was this woman — Talia [forgot-last-name], a former escort who decided to get married to a guy we’ll call Bill. And as most relationships go, she got tired of him quickly. Like snap, bitch, I want to be single quick.

Bill had a nice, juicy life insurance policy, so Talia thought: why settle for half in a divorce when you could have all of it and a one-way ticket to Cancun?

Great idea, right?

Except, somehow, the police got wind of this and sent in a C.I. to basically pretend to be a hit man.

And while we’re here — I need to clear this up for everyone: hitmen aren’t real, okay? Yes, there are people who kill for money, but they’re not John Wick. They don’t show up in a crisp suit with a silencer and a tragic backstory. They’re more “unemployed cousin with bad impulse control” or the junkie next door.

Anyway, the cops caught her entire “let’s kill my husband” conversation on tape, and she went to jail for solicitation of murder. It gets even crazier if you look it up later, but I wasn’t about to tell Marie that in case she took notes.

“Well, Marie…” I started slowly, “murder is, uh, generally frowned upon in modern society.”

She shrugged. “So is cheating, but here we are.”

Touché

I took a long sip from my coffee just so I didn’t have to answer immediately.
The truth is, ninety percent of my job is stopping people from making very bad permanent decisions based on temporary feelings — the other ten percent is explaining to them why killing people is bad without making it sound like I’m taking sides.

“So…” I finally said, “what’s the least illegal thing you could do right now to feel better? Perhaps we start with divorce before we move on to homicide.”

“I’ve thought about that,” she said, smiling. “But….”

“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice calm, “I feel like there’s some unpacking we should do here. Let’s start with why you feel that way about your husband.”

She gave me a look that said I was already wasting her time.

“Because he doesn’t love me anymore. We live together, but it’s like living with a stranger who just happens to complain about how I fold laundry...”

Oof. Relatable, except in my case, it’s my great aunt with the complaints.

“…It makes me feel like a ghost in my own house. Like I could disappear tomorrow and he’d only notice because the Wi-Fi bill didn’t get paid.”

Her words landed heavier than I expected. Honestly? I get it. that feeling of being alone even when surrounded by others. She’s not a psychopath; she just wants to be seen. It just happens that her intrusive thoughts were really wild.

I leaned forward.

“Marie, I heard you and it sounds like you’re not looking to kill your husband. What you want is to kill the version of yourself that feels invisible. You want him to see you again. To notice you. Am I right?”

Her lip trembled just enough to tell me I’d hit something real.

She nodded.

“Maybe. Or maybe I just want to be the one holding the remote once in a while.”

Okay, that’s possible, I guess.

We sat in silence for a beat. Then I said,

“You know… marriage is less about finding someone who folds laundry the way you like, and more about whether you can stand how they fold it for the next forty years. Love doesn’t die because of one big explosion. Sure, it fades in small, quiet ways…like socks left on the floor.”

She blinked at me, processing.

“That’s…depressing.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But the good news is, small quiet things can bring it back, too. You don’t need fireworks or huge romantic gestures. Sometimes it’s just… holding his hand again, even if he doesn’t reach first.”

Marie leaned back, sighing.
“You really think I can fix this?”

“Okay, I will.”

That earned me the smallest smile. Victory. A crisis averted.

Marie left looking calmer.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.

The advice I’d given her echoed in my head.

Small, quiet ways

And I couldn’t help but wonder: was I supposed to follow my own advice with Lily?

Because here I was, telling Marie not to run away from her marriage while mentally RSVP-ing to a wedding with another woman. And we all know what happens in weddings.

Diary note to self: I might be the biggest hypocrite on Earth.