This quiet spot deep within the West Village Conservatory Gardens is composed of concentric circles: the frozen fountain is in the middle. Ringing it are a half dozen wooden benches. And surrounding the benches is a walking path.
I stand with my arms encircling myself, too, as I stare at the bench where April died.
Since I left Dr. Shields’s town house last night, I’ve pored over my file, and April’s, again and again. I remember the line Dr. Shields wrote about me, This process can set you free. Surrender to it, in a script that looks not unlike the message adorning the plaque.
I shiver, even though in the daytime, these frozen gardens aren’t so spooky. I’ve passed several people out for strolls, and the laughter of children not too far away carries through the crisp air. In the distance, an elderly woman in a bright green knitted hat pushes a small shopping cart. She’s heading my way but moving slowly.
Still, I feel unnerved, and utterly alone.
I was so certain answers would be contained in Dr. Shields’s notes.
But the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, the one I was sure I’d seen in April’s file but couldn’t pinpoint, remains elusive.
The elderly woman is closer now, her slow, heavy footsteps bringing her to the edge of the sitting area.
I rub my eyes, and yield to the temptation of a bench. I don’t choose April’s, though. I sit on the one next to it.
I’m more tired than I’ve ever been.
I slept for only a few hours last night, and my uneasy rest was jarred by nightmares: Ricky lunging at me. Becky falling into a swimming pool in Florida and drowning. Noah walking away.
Taking Dr. Shields’s pill was never an option, though. I’m through accepting her gifts.
I massage my temples, trying to ease the pounding in my head.
The woman in the green hat takes a seat on the bench one over from mine. April’s bench. She digs into her cart and pulls out a loaf of Wonder bread with bright polka-dot packaging. She begins tearing a slice into little pieces and tossing them onto the ground. Instantly, as if they’ve been waiting for her, a dozen or so birds descend.
I pull my eyes away from them as they flutter around the food.
If the clue isn’t in the notes, maybe I can find it by retracing April’s footsteps. Immediately before she came to this Conservatory, April sat on a stool and conversed with Dr. Shields in her kitchen, just as I did last night.
I visualize other locations where our paths have intersected: April and I both hovered over keyboards in the NYU classroom, letting Dr. Shields probe our innermost thoughts. We probably even sat at the same desk.
The two of us were then invited into Dr. Shields’s office, where we perched on the love seat, allowing our secrets to be teased out of us.
And of course, April and I each met Thomas at a bar, and felt his heated gaze, before bringing him to our homes.
The old lady continues tossing bread out for the birds.
“Mourning doves,” she says. “They mate for life, you know.”
She must be talking to me, because there’s nobody else around.
I nod.
“Want to feed them?” she offers, walking over and extending a fresh slice of bread toward me.
“Sure,” I say absently, taking it and tearing off a few bits to scatter.
Other places April and I have both been: Her bedroom at her parent’s apartment, the one with the ragged teddy bear still atop her comforter. And there was a photograph of the Insomnia Cookies storefront near Amsterdam Avenue that I recognized in her Instagram feed. I’ve stopped in there before, too, for snickerdoodle or double chocolate mint cookies.
Obviously, we’ve also both visited this garden.
I wouldn’t even have known of April’s existence if Thomas hadn’t invited me here to warn me about his wife.
Thomas.
I frown, thinking about how so much imploded—my job, my relationship with Noah—while I sat in a chair across from Thomas’s desk and he talked about the fake affair he concocted with the woman from the boutique.
Thomas’s office is one place I’ve been that April never frequented; Thomas said he only met with April on that night that ended in her apartment. Although, if she was really obsessed with him, she may have looked up the location of his workplace.
I toss out the last of my bread.
There’s something tugging at the edges of my mind. Something that has to do with Thomas’s office.
A mourning dove flutters past me, fracturing my thoughts. The small bird lands on April’s bench, by the old lady, and perches above the silver plaque.
I stare.
Adrenaline surges through my body, wiping away my exhaustion.
April’s name in that flowing script. The dates of her birth and death. The dove. I’ve seen it all before.
I lean forward, my breath quickening.
I realize where it was: on her funeral program, the one Mrs. Voss gave me.
I can almost feel my fingertips closing around the thing I’ve been hunting. My pulse hitches.
I grow very still as I reconsider a fact that has always seemed strange: Thomas faked an affair with some inconsequential woman to cover up his encounter with April. He was also desperate to get April’s folder; desperate enough to find a way to sneak me into the town house while he distracted Dr. Shields.
The clue that has been dancing around the edges of my consciousness was never in the folder, though.
I reach into my purse and pull out the funeral program that Mrs. Voss gave me, the one bearing April’s name and the sketch of the dove.
I slowly unfold it, smoothing out the paper.
There’s one vital difference between it and the scene on the bench just a few feet away from me.
It’s like when I was sent to the bar at the Sussex Hotel and I talked to two men: The detail that distinguished them, the wedding ring, was the one that really mattered.
The quote on the bench is different from the quote on the funeral program.
I read it on the program again, even though I know the line from the Beatles song by heart:
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
If Thomas had sung those words on the night he and April had met, she wouldn’t have asked her mother about the line’s origin. She would have known they were lyrics from a song.
But if she had merely seen the quote on his coffee mug, as I had, her curiosity might have been piqued.
I close my eyes and try to remember the exact layout of Thomas’s office. It contained a few chairs. But no matter which one a visitor claimed, they would have a clear view of his desk.
April had been in Thomas’s office, the one just blocks away from Insomnia Cookies.
But she didn’t go there to stalk him.
There’s only one other reason that could explain it, and also answer the question of why Thomas went to such lengths to conceal their one-night stand. Why he’s still so terrified of anyone finding out.
Mrs. Voss told me that April had been in and out of counseling.
April didn’t meet Thomas for the first time at a bar.
April met Thomas when she went to see him for therapy, as a client.
CHAPTER
SIXTY-FIVE
Monday, December 24
On the ninety-minute car ride back to Manhattan, sleep is feigned to avoid conversation with Thomas.
Perhaps he welcomes this: Instead of turning on the radio, he drives in silence, his stare fixed straight ahead. His hands grip the steering wheel. Thomas’s rigid posture is atypical, too. During long rides, he usually sings along to the music and taps out the beat on his thigh.