Mrs. Graham isn’t going to dinner with her husband tonight.
I visited earlier today, she’d told her daughter.
I suddenly know where she went. I can see her kneeling to set down a bouquet of flowers, lost in the memories of the almost forty-two years they had together.
On one side of the closet hang three coats—a raincoat, a light jacket, and a heavier wool one. They’re all women’s coats.
The other half of the closet is bare.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Thursday, December 6
You’re fighting the urge to peek inside, aren’t you?
You picked up the package a few minutes ago. The wrapping reveals no clues about its contents. The sturdy, generic-looking white bag with the reinforced handle and no logo, is stuffed with tissue paper to protect the object within.
You retrieved it from a young man who lives in a small apartment building. You probably barely got a look at him as he handed it over; he’s a taciturn individual. There was nothing for you to sign; the object had been paid for and the receipt e-mailed to the purchaser.
As you quickly stride down Sixth Avenue, you might be rationalizing that it really wouldn’t be snooping. There is no seal to break, or tape to remove. The next time you pause at a street corner waiting for the light to turn, you could simply peel back a few layers of tissue and catch a glimpse. No one will ever know, you might be telling yourself.
The bag is heavy in your hand, but not uncomfortably so.
Your mind is curious by nature, and you alternately shy away from and embrace risks. Which side of you will win dominance today?
You will need to see the contents of this bag, but you should only view it on the terms dictated in this office.
You’ve been told these are our foundational sessions, but there is more than a single foundation being laid.
Sometimes a test is so small and quiet you don’t even notice it’s a test.
Sometimes a relationship that appears caring and supportive carries hidden danger.
Sometimes a therapist who coaxes out all of your secrets is holding the biggest one in the room.
You arrive at the office at four minutes past the appointed time. You are out of breath, though you try to conceal this by taking quick, shallow inhalations. A lock of hair has worked itself loose from your topknot, and you are wearing a simple black top and black jeans. It’s surprisingly disappointing that your ensemble is uninspired today.
“Hi, Dr. Shields,” you say. “Sorry I’m a little late. I was at work when you texted.”
You set down your large makeup case and offer up the bag. Your expression does not convey guilt or evasiveness.
Your response to the unorthodox request thus far has been flawless.
You agreed immediately. You did not ask a single question. You were not given much advance notice, yet you rushed to complete the task.
Now for the final piece.
“Are you curious about what is inside?”
The question is asked lightly, without the slightest hint of accusation.
You give a little laugh and say, “Yeah, I was guessing maybe a couple of books?”
Your response is natural, unfiltered. You maintain eye contact. You don’t fiddle with your silver rings. You don’t exhibit a tell.
You suppressed your curiosity. You continue to prove your loyalty.
Now the question you’ve carried for the past twelve blocks can be satisfied.
A sculpture of a falcon—Murano glass containing gold leaf flecks—is carefully eased out of the bag. The crest of the falcon is cold and smooth.
“Wow,” you say.
“It’s a gift for my husband. Go ahead, you can touch it.”
You hesitate. A frown creases your brow.
“It’s not as fragile as it looks,” you are assured.
You run your fingertips over the glass. The falcon appears poised to take flight with a beat of its wings; the piece embodies coiled, dynamic tension.
“It’s his favorite bird. Their exceptional visual acuity enables them to identify the presence of prey through the slightest ripple of grass in a verdant landscape.”
“I’m sure he’ll love it,” you say.
You hesitate. Then: “I didn’t know you were married.”
When a response is not immediately offered, your cheeks redden.
“I always watch you take notes with your left hand and I’ve never seen you wear a wedding ring before,” you say.
“Ah. You’re very observant. A stone was loose, so it needed to be fixed.”
This is not the truth, but while you have vowed to be scrupulously honest, no similar promise has been made to you.
The ring was removed after Thomas confessed to his affair. For a variety of reasons it is back on.
The falcon is returned to the bag, the tissue paper nestled around it once again. It will be personally delivered to Thomas’s new rental apartment, the one he moved into a few months ago, tonight.
It isn’t a special occasion. At least not one that he knows about. He will experience surprise.
Sometimes an exquisite gift is actually a vessel utilized to issue a warning shot.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Thursday, December 6
I freeze up when Dr. Shields tucks the sculpture back into the bag and says that is all she needs from me today.
I’m so thrown I can’t remember the exact wording of my question, but I plunge ahead anyway.
“Oh, I was just wondering . . .” I begin. My voice comes out a little higher than normal. “All the stuff I’ve been telling you, is that going to be used in one of your papers? Or—”
Before I can continue she interrupts, something she has never done before.
“Everything you’ve shared with me will remain confidential, Jessica,” she says. “I never release the files of my clients under any circumstances.”
Then she tells me not to worry, that I’ll still be paid the usual amount.
She bows her head to look at the package again and I feel dismissed.
I simply say, “Okay . . . thank you.”
I walk across the carpet, my footsteps swallowed by the delicately patterned carpet, and take a last glance back at her before I close the door behind me.
She is backlit by the window, and the low sunlight turns her hair the color of fire. Her periwinkle turtleneck sweater and silk skirt skim her long, lithe body. She is completely motionless.
The vision almost makes my breath catch in my throat.
I exit the building and walk down the sidewalk toward the subway, thinking about how I put together a few clues—Dr. Shields’s missing wedding band, the empty chair across from her in the French restaurant, and the possibility of her wiping away a tear—and formed an assumption. I thought that her husband might be dead, similarly to how I misread signals and inferred Mrs. Graham’s husband was alive.
As I descend the subway steps and wait on the platform, I glance at the guys around me, trying to imagine the kind of man Dr. Shields would marry. I wonder if he is tall and fit, like her. Just a few years older, probably, with thick blondish hair and the kind of eyes that crinkle in the corners when he smiles. He’s still boyishly handsome, but he doesn’t inspire double takes the way she does.
I can see him having grown up on the East Coast, then attending an elite boarding school. Exeter, maybe, followed by Yale. That could be where they met. He’s the type to know his way around a sailboat and a golf course, but he isn’t a snob.