And Three More
an excerpt
Phoebe settled into her therapist’s couch and closed her eyes, bracing for the journey through the dank recesses of her mind. She was determined to unearth what she’d lost.
She took three deep, calming breaths and visualized donning her caving helmet with a built-in searchlight: a shield against what she might encounter and a star illuminating her path.
The cave—jagged, dark, and dripping—filled in around her. At the sight of the wooden barricade, askew as if assembled in haste, her crowbar appeared in her hand. The only way back was through, she had learned. No shortcuts. Every time it was the same.
She pried apart weathered planks, rusted nails giving way. This portal between past and present was easier to open now. Removing a single board no longer made her brain sing with fatigue.
Through the opening, life’s detritus still decorated the cave like lilies on a pond: free weights, past loves, the pool where she had lifeguarded in her twenties.
She maneuvered her way through the barrier between present and past.
