I reflected for a moment. “But why not?”

“Because if you were happy all of the time, you wouldn’t appreciate it. You need balance and duality in life. If we didn’t feel sadness, happiness would mean nothing.”

Staring at him, I furrowed my little brow.

He petted my head. “Imagine if it was light all the time. The sun was shining. It was bright and beautiful every single day. If it never got dark, how would you sleep? If it never rained, how would you know that the sun was beautiful?”

I thought about how the rain and darkness made me feel. I liked the days when we stayed inside because it was too wet and muddy to play outside. Mother would let me put my hands in the clay, moulding misshapen mugs and vases before she’d dip them in glaze and fire them in the kiln. “I want to write stories about people who are happy, even when it rains.” I decided.

My father sighed. “You don’t want to be a writer, Grace.”

“Yes I do,” I declared, sitting upright. “I want to be just like you.”

He rubbed around his mouth, the stubble on his face making a scratchy noise. “Come with me, I want to show you something.” My father pulled the blankets off and led me downstairs, reaching in his pocket for a key before unlocking his office door. I had hardly ever been inside. Father’s office was off-limits.

The room was painted a deep mahogany. The entire space was lined with bookshelves filled with hundreds of books. There were piles of books on a table next to a striped sofa. Books on the floor, books on his desk, and books next to his computer. There was a typewriter in the corner surrounded by scribbled-up pages of paper, and even more books.

He began to dig in his filing cabinet as I stood there, shivering in my nightgown.

When he turned around, he was holding a thick file folder. He placed it on his desk and motioned for me to come look.

“These are all rejection letters,” my father said as he thumbed through the enormous stack. “For every story I have published, there are about fifty rejection letters that come first. If you want to write, you can’t just write about being happy. Because no one is just happy. No one is just anything.”

I watched as he flipped, page after page, laying them flat on the desk.

I stopped wanting to be a writer after that night.

Chapter 96

“Tell me the first time you felt anxious.”

I was reclined in a La-Z-Boy chair by the fireplace, covered to my neck in blankets. My legs were angled so that the heels of my boots laid flat on the leg rest. My eyes were closed, my face soft, intentionally relaxed. My arms were folded beneath the blankets.

The hypnotherapist, Julie, sat cross-legged in a chair alongside, clipboard and pen in hand. Her proximity was meant to provide a sense of security as I entered the subconscious world, but it only made me feel more claustrophobic.