Everyone thought Sara James had it all together-respected primary care physician, devoted wife, engaged mother. Such a fantastic girl. But when a surprise pregnancy ends in devastating loss, something inside her gives way. Sara shuts down, emotionally withdrawing from her husband, Rob, and their two teenage kids, Jen and Bryan. After two years of going through the motions, she leaves the country to serve with Doctors Without Borders--hoping that saving lives abroad will somehow save her from herself.
Rob, is left behind to hold their fractured family together. Jen and Bryan, stumble through adolescence without the mother they once knew. Over time, new partners emerge, a divorce is finalized, and the family begins-tentatively, imperfectly--to move forward.
But healing doesn't follow a straight line. And forgiveness rarely arrives all at once.
Told with wry humor, emotional nuance, and unwavering compassion, Such a Fantastic Girl is a novel about the roles we play, the identities we lose, and the quiet courage it takes to choose connection--even after everything falls apart.
Everyone thought Sara James had it all together-respected primary care physician, devoted wife, engaged mother. Such a fantastic girl. But when a surprise pregnancy ends in devastating loss, something inside her gives way. Sara shuts down, emotionally withdrawing from her husband, Rob, and their two teenage kids, Jen and Bryan. After two years of going through the motions, she leaves the country to serve with Doctors Without Borders--hoping that saving lives abroad will somehow save her from herself.
Rob, is left behind to hold their fractured family together. Jen and Bryan, stumble through adolescence without the mother they once knew. Over time, new partners emerge, a divorce is finalized, and the family begins-tentatively, imperfectly--to move forward.
But healing doesn't follow a straight line. And forgiveness rarely arrives all at once.
Told with wry humor, emotional nuance, and unwavering compassion, Such a Fantastic Girl is a novel about the roles we play, the identities we lose, and the quiet courage it takes to choose connection--even after everything falls apart.
It was hot outside and humid. My hair was plastered to the back of my neck, and even having it pulled into a ponytail didn't lessen the stickiness, and certainly did nothing to mitigate the near-constant low buzz of mosquitoes. I double-tapped the track pad on my laptop to launch the video therapy session. It was long overdue. In the deepest recesses of my belly, I felt a weird churning sensation I knew to be trepidation and nerves and my own awareness that I had done harm to people I loved. I should never have done harm. I took an oath, but I put myself first. I watched the computer screen, and a small woman appeared.
"Sara, hi. Mary Burgess,â she said introducing herself. âHow are you today?" she asked.
"I'm okay, I guess. Nervous, I think. Definitely ashamed." The words were inadequate for how I felt. I felt ashamed for not caring more, for not feeling terrible about not putting my children first. I should feel like a Grade A asshole, but mostly I felt bad for not feeling like a Grade A asshole.
"We are going to unpack everything. There's no need for you to get so mired in overwhelming feelings that you can't see your way out of the situation you see yourself in. We're going to get to a point where you can feel comfortable with the decisions you make for yourself.â The therapistâs head seemed to expand onscreen, but thatâs when I realized she was moving closer to her screen to see me better. âIt's going to be a lot of work. What I need from you is commitment. I need to know why you want to go through therapy now, and I need to know your whole story. Do you think you can give me the whole story?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, the knot in my throat portending tears, and I felt like I had cried every tear I had over the past few years. The well should have been dry, and yet ugly tears hid in the wings. This feeling. What I felt right now. This was why I didn't want to go through therapy. But I also knew that I didn't feel human, and facing things head-on was the only way I could become a functioning human being again. All I could do was keep nodding, and Mary smiled, acknowledging my agreement.
"Great. Then, let's start with something easy. Tell me about you when you were growing up. What were you like?" I watched a little light on the side of the screen turn green. "Oh, that's the session timer," the therapist said. "We also record all the sessions and load them into your electronic medical record. The little light freaks people out sometimes."
"I totally get it," I said. "Sometimes, I think when I see a patient, it's going to be a quick in and out, and then as I'm leaving the room, there's the 'Hey, docâŚby the wayâŚ' and it's always something complicated. Do what you need to do. You won't get any complaints from me."
She peered back at me. I peered back at her.
"All righty," I said, and I cracked my knuckles. "Me. Growing up. I was a good kid. Didn't cause trouble. My mom always said I was fantasticâa fantastic student, athlete, daughter, friendâŚa fantastic girl. I was such a fantastic girl for a long, long time, becoming a fantastic woman, doctor, co-worker, wife, and mother. Then this thing happened, punching me right out of being fantastic and into something else. For what seemed like a long time, I crawled around in the dark, scrounging for my fantastic self, and I never found her again. I had to be something else."
"Stop," Mary said, holding up a hand like she might be directing traffic. I wasnât prepared for hand signals, but even over the distance between our computers and cameras, I shut my mouth. "Why were you fantastic? Why weren't you just good or amazing or sometimes human? That's a lot to put on a kid. The word fantastic and fantasy aren't just randomly connected. Were you a fantasy?" Mary looked concerned and confused, like what I had told her was something akin to growing up and practicing blood sacrifice.
"My parents had trouble conceiving. They went through a lot to get pregnant and stay pregnant, and I think by the time I was born, I was the concrete result of a shared fantasy.â Maryâs face took on a look of concern and caring, which vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. I thought it wasnât that unlike the mask I wore for my patients; but was it a mask? I really did care for my patients, and it was easy to care for them because at the end of the day, they were things I could put away and not worry about until next time.
I continued, âYeah. Sounds strange, but they had a shared dream, and they dreamed it every night for five years before I was born. They weren't shy about telling me I was a miracle, and I think I must have gotten used to thinking that everything I did was special, magical, beyond my own limited perception," I said. I let my answer percolate a little bit. What would I have told a patient who answered me like this? Mary smiled, but it wasnât a happy smile. It was the smile of commiseration and understanding that best intentions donât always yield the best results. I could see her sitting back in her chair, her hands clasped on her desk. I wondered if she had children, if sheâd had trouble conceiving, if she had suffered a loss. I watched her pupils zipping back and forth while she processed my response. She was thinking ahead several steps, shaping the session in her mind.
"Not to be a broken record, but that's a lot to put on a kid. You were an only child?"
"Yes. My mother's uterus ruptured after I was born. God shut down the factory, permanently," I whispered. "I don't think anyone should feel sorry for me or my parents, though. I had a fantastic childhood. We traveled, volunteered, went and did things, and my parents allowed me to grow into a woman who wanted to help people, who wanted to pursue medicine. I think if I didn't have my profession throughout all of what's happened over the past years, I don't think I could have gone on some days."
Mary said, "Then I'm glad your work has been able to sustain you in some way. Do you think your work also allowed you to hide from facing your problems, really addressing them? Allowed you to go on without making some critical decisions?"
"I mean, probably. Not making a choice is still a choice, and I failed to make some vital choices. I ignored my daughter who was wasting away in front of me, and I left just days before my ex-husband took her for a psychiatric evaluation and therapy for her eating disorder. I did harm. I was a terrible mother. I was so caught up in my own stuff that I quit being a parent, quit taking care of this vulnerable person, and I almost killed her."
Was I a monster? I thought about one of those Godzilla movies where the monster is stomping on buildings, cars, people, without any regard for the destruction. I thought about King Kong. He destroyed everything just to have the one thing he wanted more than anything, and in the end, he didnât get it. In the end, well, it didnât end well for him. I thought I was Godzilla and King Kong all wrapped into a fantastically dysfunctional package.
"Stop," Mary said, again raising her hand in the âhaltâ gesture. "You aren't the only character in your story. Got that? We are going to pick this thing apart, though, and we are going to work through accepting responsibility, and we are also going to develop coping skills, and only you will know what your limits are, but we will work toward it together." She paused. "You do need to know, though, and I've seen this with many patients, you were never alone. Never. Everyoneâyour parents, friends, husband, childrenâwanted to help you, but they didnât know the secret handshake to get access to your feelings, emotions, and psyche. You didn't know either. So. I want to begin by focusing on the good stuff. I want to know Sara James during her best, happiest, most fantastic days. How does that sound?â
"It sounds all right, I guess. Do you think they will ever be able to forgive me?" I was pretty sure the people of Godzillaâs fictional Tokyo didnât forgive him. People were unpredictable, though. Being welcomed back with open arms was probably a pipedream. Every time I thought about reaching out to Jen and Bryan, I chickened out. I wrote to them plenty, but I never mailed anything, never emailed. My ego and cowardice were my Achillesâ heel.
"Maybe yes, maybe no. Humans are funny creatures, and you are going to have to accept what your family is willing to give you. It may only be an olive branch, or it could be the keys to the castle. It could be a lump of coal. Whatever it is, when you've done the work, it's going to have to be sufficient. The timing of everything was at a pretty critical developmental time in your kids' lives. They aren't going to forgive you and celebrate you because you finally dealt with your grief. It doesn't work that way."
I nodded. Of course it wouldn't work that way. Wishful thinking. Cleaning up my mess wasn't going to be like emptying a dustpan and looking around and having a completely clean floor.
"Tell you what," Mary said. "You have a chance to feel like a human again, reset the mechanism inside yourself. You will have to have the courage to accept whatever the consequences may be. Things happen in life, and we are on a need-to-know basis, and, still, we hunt for meaning. Why did this or that happen? It doesnât make sense even though I lived a good life, and I did everything I was supposed to do. But hereâs the thing: Life doesnât always make sense."
âDo you have homework for me? Should I be journaling, cutting things out of magazines and making a collage or a vision board or something? I feel like I should be doing more than just talking. Itâs funny, though. Talking is the one thing I didnât do with my family when I had the chance.â
Sara, age 42, is in therapy. She wants to look at why she put herself first, above her children, why she âdoesnât feel like a Grade A Assholeâ. As a doctor, sheâd taken an oath to âdo no harmâ, but she had done harm, to people she loved. All her life sheâd been âsuch a fantastic girlâ, but then something knocked her back.
Her children, Jen and Bryan, weigh in. Jen recalls when the family got a horse. Bryan recalls when Mom âshut down on doing mom-type thingsâ. Husband Rob knows exactly when it happened. It was the miscarriage. After two years of distancing herself from her family, Sara drops a bombshell. She is joining Doctors Without Borders, in Africa, alone. A divorce follows naturally.
Jen is dangerously anorexic; Bryan pulls out his eyelashes and cries in bed every night. Sara pays a surprise visit home, and the kids donât want to see her.
Eventually, everyone moves on, goes into therapy, finds a new partner.
The story traces the psychological development of all the characters, tracing forward from the miscarriage, and tracing backward to the early relationship, when it was all âbabies, puppies, kittens, rainbowsâ.
The teenagers are nuanced, and their voices sound authentically young. As they mature, they begin to have more grown-up analyses of their lives. I was fascinated by Jenâs self-talk technique that helped her improve her running. I liked the incorporation of text messaging. I liked Robâs idea of offering Sara âpromptsâ to aid her in rebuilding rapport with the kids.
Itâs a pretty ordinary story; it becomes a little bit âand-then-one-more-thing-happenedâ. Though this is a not-uncommon structure for family sagas, I kind of wanted some overarching theme or some big plot twist. Yet itâs poignant how a very ordinary occurrence, a miscarriage, which happens to couples all the time, could be the catalyst for a whole family to fall apart. I was glad to see someone talking about how emotionally devastating a miscarriage is; it is a little-recognised tragedy. Reading this book has helped me with my guilt feelings about all the mistakes I made as a mom.