In A Country Of Mothers

27

Mr. and Mrs. Goodman drove Jody back to New York. She lay like a queen across the backseat, propped up with pillows and wrapped in a blanket. A video camera — a combination get-well birthday-Chanukah present from her parents — rested on her stomach, leaving Jody with the feeling that while she’d lost the contest, she’d been given what amounted to a nice consolation prize.

When they pulled up to the building, Mrs. Goodman took her bag of cleaning supplies out of the trunk and hurried upstairs, spraying anything and everything with Lysol, Fantastik, 409, creating a kind of chemical fog that simulated a super clean, germ-free environment. Jody imagined her mother asking her to say “Aah” while she sprayed the stuff directly down Jody’s throat.

Her father carried in bags of food brought from home. When he made a move to sit down, her mother patted his back and pointed him toward the door. “The car,” she said. “You never know what they’ll take.”

The apartment seemed smaller and crummier than Jody remembered. Though it was still early in the afternoon, already it was getting dark. A breeze seeped in through the window; the pipes banged. Coming back just now might not have been such a great idea; still, it was done. She was there, and she was staying. Besides, Claire was taking her to the doctor.

“I’ve made an appointment,” she’d said. “I’m taking you. Next week.”

“Taking me?”

“I’ve arranged my schedule so I can go with you. Would you rather go alone?”

“No,” Jody said. “Not particularly.”

“I’ve also asked your parents to come in after they drop you off. I thought it would be useful for the three of us to talk. Do you have any objections?” Claire paused. “Would you like to be there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So, I’ll see them at four.”

Her mother made the bed with sheets that smelled like Clorox, hung new towels in the bathroom, filled the refrigerator with juices and frozen foods, and then said goodbye.

Jody raised the video camera to her eye and filmed her mother leaving.

“We’ll call you tonight from home,” her mother said, blowing sterile kisses as she walked backward toward the door.

“You could stay over,” Jody said. “Get a hotel room, go to a play, relax. It’s a lot to drive back and forth in one day.”

“I’m tired of Neil Simon. Besides, your father likes to sleep in his own bed. I’ll call you.”

Jody closed the door and put on the chain, puzzled that neither of her parents had said anything about their meeting with Claire. Did they think it was a secret?

The telephone rang. “Hello,” Jody said, expecting it to be Ellen.

“Welcome back. It’s Peter Sears.”

The boy who came on your stomach, Jody almost added. “I can’t talk now,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. Someone from Gary Marc’s office is friends with a friend of my dad’s. He said you almost died or something. So listen. I was thinking you might want to go to a movie, or”—he paused—“we could stay home and play.”

Play what, Jody wondered. Knock, knock — who’s there? No one’s home right now, but I’ll come on your back later.

“I’m sick,” Jody said. “I can’t see you.”

“You’re not, like, pregnant or anything, are you?”

“I’m not like anything,” Jody said, slamming the phone down.

“Are you among the living?” Michael asked when he called later that afternoon.

“Hard to tell,” Jody said.

“I spoke with Harry last week. He’s decided you either killed yourself or joined a convent. You should call him.” Michael stopped. “So, listen, you want a part-time job — come in a couple days a week, file my dirty underwear, the usual stuff?”

Jody wanted it. She wanted to do something. But she never knew when, without warning, she’d either have to lie down or fall down, when suddenly a mysterious free-floating fever would make her head beat with the deep tribal rhythms of pain. She didn’t want anyone to see her spastic shuffle back and forth from the Xerox machine. She didn’t want anyone to ask why Michael hired the handicapped.

“I want to but I can’t,” Jody said. “Not yet.”

“Well, whenever you’re ready …”

“Thanks.” For an asshole, Michael was pretty nice.

28

“Tell me about Jody,” Claire said. “How was the trip back? How’s she doing?”

“She’s settling in,” Mrs. Goodman said.

“Good,” Claire said. “Good.”

“If you could give me some background information…. Jody and I have talked about her being adopted — could you tell me the story behind that?” Claire glanced at the Goodmans, crossed her legs, picked up a legal pad, and started making notes. The Goodmans were short, round people who looked as if they’d once been taller but something, perhaps an accident, had squashed them slightly.

“When our son was born, there were complications,” Mrs. Goodman said. “It wasn’t possible to have more children.”

“Ben had heart problems,” Mr, Goodman said.

“Ben”—the missing name. Sam and Claire had considered naming Adam Benjamin, but then decided to go with something shorter.

“With Ben, it wasn’t like it is now, with specialists, machines, miracles. We were on our own. He lived for nine years. Good care. His mother’s good care, that’s what kept him alive.”

“Was Jody adopted before or after your son died?”

“Ben,” Mr. Goodman said. “He was named for my father, who lived to be a hundred and one. When we married, we talked about having four or five children. We always wanted more.”

“It didn’t happen until later,” Mrs. Goodman added. “A lawyer we were in contact with called and said he’d heard of a baby.”

“What did the lawyer tell you?” Claire asked, in a voice a little too loud. She felt like she was hearing the B side of her own life story.

“There was a lot of secrecy,” Mrs. Goodman said, twisting her fingers together as though she could braid them. “It’s not easy to lose a child. We wanted Ben to have a sister. And there we were with this beautiful little girl and he was gone. He would’ve loved her so much. If I left Jody with anyone, I worried. I was convinced that if I even turned my back, if we had an evening out, the crib would be empty and she’d be gone.”

“It must have been quite a strain on your marriage.”

The Goodmans didn’t answer.

“I love her as much as you do,” Mr. Goodman said softly to Mrs. Goodman. “You know that. Maybe I don’t show it as well, but I do.” He wound his watch, then raised it to his ear and listened to the even ticking for a few seconds.

“Perhaps,” Claire suggested, “your worries had more to do with your son’s death than Jody’s arrival.”

Claire was disappointed in the Goodmans. For twenty-four years she’d pictured her child’s family as superior, sophisticated in a European manner: bound leather volumes, Oriental rugs, summer trips to France. Mrs. Goodman sat before her in a cotton knit suit, her hair sprayed in place, a thick braid of gold around her neck. There was nothing to indicate that this woman had been entrusted with a special task; she could’ve been anyone’s mother. Claire breathed deeply and gave the Goodmans a chance to come clean.

“You know she was sick before, when she was a baby,” Mrs. Goodman said. “The most horrible ear infections. I thought I’d lose my mind. Sitting in waiting rooms with her on my lap — I remember thinking I was just going to keel over. It was too much; but she got better, thank God. And now, again. You think we don’t feel guilty? We never wanted her to go to Los Angeles. I never even wanted her to leave home.”

“There are things Jody wants,” Claire said. “She has to try and achieve them.”

“Seeing her like this brings back everything,” Mrs. Goodman said.

“What about Jody’s biological parents? What were you told about them?”

“In excellent health — health was very important. The mother was unmarried, from a good family. That’s it. That’s all we knew.”

“And you just went along with this?”

“We had no choice. We wanted a baby.”

“What was the lawyer’s name?” Claire asked.

Mr. Goodman rubbed the side of his face. “It’s been so long now, I don’t remember. He died about fifteen years ago, I remember that.”

“In those days adoption wasn’t what it is now,” Mrs. Goodman said. “You didn’t go out to lunch with the mother.”

“Okay,” Claire said, “then tell me what Jody was like as a child.”

Mrs. Goodman clasped her hands together, tilted her head backward, and closed her eyes, as if going into a trance. “All the little girls in the neighborhood would come to our house with their stuffed animals. Jody loved stuffed animals and birthday parties. They’d set up a table, prop up all the animals around it, and at each place they’d put a cookie or a candy. Then they’d go around and eat all the treats. A lot of cookies,” Mrs Goodman said, opening her eyes, laughing. “I baked a lot of cookies.”

Claire smiled. “What else can you tell me?”

These moments of pleasure in the family album gave Claire something like a sugar high, so thick and sweet and good it almost made her sick. But she wanted more, as much as she could get.

“Her first day of elementary school,” Mrs. Goodman said, “I put her in one of those Florence Eiseman dresses, the kind with the appliqué—she had such beautiful clothes — and we walked to school. I stayed. The whole first day I stayed right there outside the door, along with a few of the other mothers. We couldn’t leave.”

“And later?”

“Everyone liked her. Lots of friends. Kids coming and going. They liked our house. We were very tolerant.”

When Jody was thirteen, when the Goodmans were chaperoning her first boy/girl parties, Claire was thirty-two years old. She and Sam were married, living on Eighty-third Street. Claire was still working nights at a crisis center, coming home at five in the morning, smoking dope with Sam, going out for eggs in the diner on the corner, and then sleeping until it was time to do it again.

The buzzer went off.

“Tolerant?” Claire asked.

“We didn’t make them turn the stereo down,” Mrs. Goodman said. “We kept potato chips and Coca-Cola in the cupboard.”

“There’s so much more to talk about,” Claire said. “Do you think you could come in again tomorrow morning?”

“We weren’t planning to stay over,” Mrs. Goodman said, looking at her husband.

“Could you?”

“I think it’s enough for now,” Mrs. Goodman said. “We really need to get home.”

“Well,” Claire said, “if anything comes to mind, give me a call. Whatever I can do, I’m at your disposal.”

They both nodded.

“Oh, I almost forgot. One last question,” Claire said, picking up her legal pad. “What’s Jody’s date of birth?”

“December 10, 1966,” Mrs. Goodman said, standing up, letting Mr. Goodman help with her coat.

“That’s the date she was delivered to you?” Claire asked.

“No, her birthday. I don’t know what time, but Fm sure that was the day.”

How would you know? Claire almost asked. “Isn’t it possible she was born a few days earlier — say, on the sixth?”

Caught up in the memory, Mrs. Goodman spoke quickly. “The lawyer called us and said, ‘Your package has arrived and it’s wrapped in pink ribbons.’ I’ll never forget it. We arranged for our pediatrician to examine the baby at the hospital.”

“Which hospital?” Claire asked aggressively.

Mrs. Goodman buttoned her coat, an ugly full-length down that looked like a sleeping bag.

“Where was she born?” Claire asked again.

Mrs. Goodman’s face went cloudy and she turned to her husband. “Downtown,” she said. “In the city. We didn’t go there ourselves.”

“Doctors? Columbia? Capitol Hill?”

“Yes, one of those,” Mrs. Goodman said.

“Which one?”

Mrs. Goodman shrugged and pulled on her gloves. “I really can’t remember.”

The patient in the waiting room knocked on the office door.

“Just a minute,” Claire called.

“Nice meeting you,” Mr. Goodman said, shaking Claire’s hand. “We’re grateful for your interest in Jody.”

“We’ll talk,” Claire said.

And the Goodmans left.

Claire was dizzy. The session had gone fifteen minutes over. Bea was in the waiting room; Claire was late. The date was wrong. Everything was all wrong. It was an error — that was the best explanation. An error, something fouled up in all the paper shuffling. Worse things happened. Sometimes people took the wrong baby home.

29

Tuesday morning, riding in a cab across town, Jody was drenched in sweat, plastered to the backseat as though she were riding the Cyclone — the amusement park ride where the bottom drops out and all the brave souls stick to the sides, defying gravity.

She was nervous about seeing Claire. Whatever had gone on between them before had been invigorating, but also a relief when it was over. Something about the way Claire got too close — focused on Jody as if she were the most important thing in the world — was weird. And she did it so naturally that Jody felt like shit, certain her discomfort was only a personal reaction, a reflection of her distrust.

“I have failure to thrive,” Jody blurted on their way to New York Hospital.

“Only infants have that,” Claire said.

Claire looked different — more life-size, worn, less like a goddess.

“I am an infant. I knew this would happen. Just because I never told you doesn’t mean I didn’t know. I’m my brother. I’m my mother. This is full realization.”

“Actualization,” Claire said.

“Whatever.”

“It was a pleasure to meet your parents,” Claire said.

Jody shrugged.

“You mean a lot to them.”

“It’s not me personally who means a lot,” Jody said. “It’s a child. A child means too much.”

“When you’re a mother you’ll understand,” Claire said.

The cab pulled up in front of the hospital. Jody overtipped the driver and tripped over her feet getting out of the car.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked.

The only reason she was letting Claire take her — besides the fact that she was too tired to take herself — was that she figured that since Claire had little kids, she was used to taking people to doctors and explaining what was wrong with them. Jody, on the other hand, couldn’t explain anything anymore.

A nurse led Claire and Jody down a hallway of closed doors and warning Signs: BIO HAZARD, CAUTION: RADIATION, DANGER: OXYGEN. Then she handed Jody what looked like an application form attached to a clipboard and left them sitting outside a room marked EXAM ONE.

Jody stared at the forms. She was about to throw up.

“Do you need help?” Claire asked, taking the clipboard away from her. “Here — I’ll ask the questions, you tell me the answers.”

Just getting up and getting dressed was more than a day’s work; the hospital was too much.

“Would you like me to come with you?” Claire asked when the nurse called for Jody.

“No thanks.”

Leaning back against the cold white wall of the examining room, Jody felt like she was in a fog.

Dr. Marilyn Esterhaus walked in, asked the same questions everyone else had asked, and with thick rubber gloves felt Jody’s stomach, liver, and spleen, then asked if they’d ever been enlarged before she got sick. They hadn’t. Esterhaus listened to Jody’s chest, making her breathe deeply so many times that she started to black out and had to put her head between her knees.

“It says here,” Esterhaus said, looking down at the forms, “that you had radiation treatments to your ears. How many treatments?”

“Five or six. I really don’t know.”

“Let’s try to find out.” Esterhaus pulled the gloves off with a fast snappy sound. “I’m going to have some blood drawn. You can get dressed, then come down to my office. By the way, have you ever had an AIDS test?”

“Negative.”

“Negative meaning you haven’t had one?”

“Negative, meaning it came back negative.”

“So there’s no reason to do another one?”

“Guess not,” Jody said.

Dr. Esterhaus slipped out of the room. A minute later Claire knocked on the door and said, “Can I come in?”

“Why not.” Jody was dressed but still sitting on the table. Her shoes were on the floor.

“Are we waiting for something?” Claire asked.

“Blood sucking,” Jody said.

Marilyn Esterhaus’s office was a dark cube crammed with textbooks, back issues of Immunology Today, and styrofoam containers marked PERISHABLE, HANDLE WITH CARE, HUMAN TISSUE.

“Did you always have a heart murmur?” she asked.

“I don’t have a heart murmur,” Jody said.

“Sometimes people with these viral illnesses develop them — it’s nothing to worry about.” She paused and jotted something down. “I want you to have an MRI. A brain scan. If nothing else, it’ll give us a baseline. And the pictures are quite remarkable.”

“Polaroids are nice too,” Jody said. “And I can take them at home.”

“Is it necessary?” Claire asked.

“Is this in my imagination?” Jody asked.

“No,” Esterhaus said. “It’s real.”

“Is it going to get worse?”

“It’s important to relax. Stress aggravates viruses, depresses the immune system.”

“What can we do?” Claire asked.

“Nothing, really. The blood will take a couple of weeks; have the scan, check back. There are a few experimental drugs being used with other immunosuppressive illnesses, but I’m hesitant to recommend them. They can be toxic. With this we have the advantage of time, so let’s use that.”

“Can I get pregnant?” Jody asked, surprising even herself. “I mean, what would happen if I got pregnant?”

“You probably wouldn’t be able to carry a baby to term,” Esterhaus said.

It was something she had to ask. Not that she was planning on it, but she supposed it was one way of getting grounded in this world. If you have no lineage, make one.

“Does it have a name?” Jody asked.

“What?” Esterhaus said.

“The virus,” Jody said.

“Let’s wait for the test results,” the doctor said, standing to dismiss them.

“Are you upset?” Claire asked in the cab on the way home.

“There were no surprises.” Jody glanced out the window at the buildings whipping by, and the motion nauseated her.

“We’ve never talked about you wanting to have a child. Is that something important?”

Jody felt as if Claire were trying to crawl inside her, to invade her with questions.

“You know,” Claire said, “they really don’t know much about these things.”

Jody nodded as the cab drifted down Second Avenue.

“I’m coming to the brain scan with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Sweetie, you don’t have to tell me what to do,” Claire said, patting Jody’s knee. “I can figure it out for myself.”

“She’s taking me for a scan,” Jody told her mother. “It’s a magnet that makes photographic slices of the brain. I don’t know why, but it makes me think of Green Eggs and Ham.”

“I’m glad,” her mother said, ignoring Dr. Seuss. “If she wants to arrange things, let her. Believe me, she’s not doing it for free. We’ll get a nice big bill.”

“Why don’t you ever do anything? You’re my mother.”

“How can you say I never do things for you?” her mother asked. “Who drove all the way to Los Angeles?”

“You did,” Jody said.

“And we had a good time, didn’t we?”

Jody didn’t answer. It was true, they’d had a good time. The last good time. She didn’t regret it, but it had nothing to do with what was going on now.

“See,” her mother said. “I’m like your friend.”

“I have friends,” Jody said. “Be my mother.”

• • •

The Magnetic Resonance Imaging factory was on the lower floors of a mansion on the Upper East Side. Although it was well lit and tastefully decorated, it could have been Frankenstein’s lab, buried in the tombs of a nice quiet street. She didn’t want to admit it, but Jody was glad Claire was with her — it seemed like a place where people checked in and didn’t necessarily check out.

“How are you going to pay?” was the first thing the receptionist asked.

“Bill me,” Jody said.

The woman shook her head. “We accept payment in advance. You can charge it on your MasterCard or Visa.”

“Visa,” Jody said.

“That’ll be nine hundred and fifty dollars.”

Jody was tempted to ask if there was a discount for cash. She signed the charge slip anyway, and the receptionist led her to a staircase. Claire’s heels clicked behind her as they walked down the marble steps.

The basement was seamlessly shiny and white, its perfect, postmodern, postindustrial design not unlike the inside of a spaceship so new it’d never been flown.

“How long does it take?” Jody asked.

“You’ll have to ask the technician,” the woman said, guiding them into a cold anteroom.

“Leave your purses, credit cards, removable dental plates, anything magnetic or metal.” The woman pointed to a large plastic basket.

Claire handed over her purse, and they both emptied their pockets. Jody felt like she was being robbed. She dropped a roll of money into the basket.

“The machinery is not affected by paper,” the woman said, handing it back.

“Does this machine give off radiation?” Claire asked.

“You’ll have to ask the technician. Think carefully — are you wearing any bobby pins or, again, removable dental plates?”

“I didn’t know they still made bobby pins,” Jody said.

“Sign this.” The woman handed Jody a consent form attached to a clipboard.

Jody looked at the form and turned to Claire. “Basically, if they kill me, I have to agree not to sue.”

“My husband’s a lawyer,” Claire said to the woman. “I’m not sure these are legally enforceable.”

The woman didn’t blink. “Just sign,” she said.

Jody signed.

“The technician will be with you shortly. Whatever you do, don’t open this door.” The woman pointed to a door in front of them.

“What happens, Igor escapes?”

The woman took the clipboard from Jody and walked off without a word. They sat. Claire crossed and recrossed her legs.

A technician came out of the door they weren’t supposed to open. “Goodman?” he said. It came out sounding like “goddamn.”

She raised her hand. “Is there a bathroom?”

“Does this give off radiation?” Claire asked.

“How long does it take?” Jody asked. “Can she come with me?”

“Do you have any bobby pins, removable dental work, or metal in your head?” the technician asked.

“Metal in my head?”

“Steel plates, pins, et cetera?”

Claire looked at Jody. “I don’t think so,” Jody said.

“Bathroom’s right there,” the technician said, pointing to something that only started to look like a door when Jody stared at it.

She peed in two seconds, then spent five minutes in front of the mirror examining her head, wondering if maybe there was metal buried in it, metal she didn’t know about. Nails. Chunks of gold. Something that could be drawn through her skull, ripped out in an excruciating flash. Claire had never mentioned her husband before. A lawyer? Jody pictured someone who looked like Raymond Burr.

The MRI machine was the size of a small nuclear reactor. There was a hole in the center, like the eye of a hurricane. The technician had Jody lie down on a narrow metal bed jutting out of the hole, then covered her with a blanket. “Don’t move,” he said, pushing a button that slid the bed deep into the machine. Jody felt like she’d been loaded into a cannon, reinserted into the womb, dipped into a coffin. The inner walls were less than two inches from her nose.

“Even my apartment’s bigger than this,” Jody called.

“It’s all right,” the technician said.

“For you, maybe,” Jody said.

“You’re going to have to be quiet.”

“For how long?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“You can stand here and talk to her,” he said to Claire.

“Are you sure this doesn’t expose me to any harmful rays?” Claire asked.

“Will you stop being so fucking self-centered?” Jody felt like yelling from inside the machine.

“Positive,” the guy said. He took Claire’s hand and put it down on Jody’s leg. “Hold her leg and talk to her.”

Claire squeezed her leg. “Do you want me to read to you?”

“From what?”

“Family Circle,” Claire said, grabbing the only magazine nearby.

“We’re running,” the technician announced over a loudspeaker from inside the dark control booth. “Talk to you in forty-five minutes.”

“‘Apple raisin cake. A delicious and healthy dessert, or after-school snack — great in lunchboxes too. Three cups flour, one box raisins….’”

30

Just after the first of the year, Claire started house hunting for real. She shuffled her schedule, created blocks of empty hours; and as if in a dream or a fugue, without a word to anyone, she walked out of her office, into the cool damp of the garage, and took off, driving deep into the suburban landscape. As the car slid up the parkway, crossing the Harlem River, it was as if she were slipping into a strange unrecorded sleep. Alone in the car, there was no reality and she became herself, truly Claire.

She drove up and down streets with names like Maple Avenue, Post Office Road, Hickory Street, cruising the big houses, zeroing in on details such as carefully groomed privet hedges and painted fences. All of them were enough the same that nothing looked incongruous or out of place. There was comfort in familiarity and in the fact that these weren’t developments, preplanned nightmares, stamped out and snapped together. These places had grown, however spontaneously, in response to an idea of how things ought to be. A promise of sorts.

What Claire wanted was serenity and sameness. A private fortress, a seemingly impenetrable veneer. A place where no one would know or care about anything, as long as things looked all right from the outside, a place that at the very least looked safe.

She drove around and around projecting her fantasies onto the seemingly deserted houses and empty streets, all the while thinking about her family — Sam and the boys, Jody.

Why didn’t they realize what it did to Claire when they put up a fight, how it undermined her efforts?

She checked in with real estate agents, women who sat behind gunmetal desks well armed with books of names and addresses, maps and photos. She pulled into parking spaces in the center of those small suburban towns, tilted the rearview mirror down, put on fresh lipstick and sometimes a little blush, making sure she looked decent, able to make an appearance, a presentation; then she walked right in and sat down.

In the houses of strangers, Claire could dream. Everything was exactly the way she wanted it. She could see herself as a different person in a different life. She tried them on, as though she could actually lift the very foundations up over her shoulders, pull the walls close around her neck, button them up, and spin circles in front of a mirror. She wrapped the houses around her bones, the layers of rooms like layers of clothing. Bathrooms were like underwear, functional, basic; bedrooms were jeans and T-shirts, leisure clothes. The living and dining rooms, like silk blouses and good skirts, had to look sharp, be well coordinated, and make a coherent statement. The kitchen was like shoes, essential.

“Too big” or “too small,” “just not me,” Claire always concluded, and then moved on. Every few miles there was another town, every town had real estate agents, every agent had a book of photos and the keys to all the houses.

Lately, Claire had the sense that her patients were generally in better shape than she was. One afternoon in January a large envelope arrived from Claire’s former and least favorite patient, Polly. Carefully packed between pieces of shirt cardboard were two eight-by-ten wedding photos. “Thought you might want the enclosed if only to round out your files. The wedding was beautiful, truly the happiest day of my life. My husband, Phil, is working temporarily for my father and will continue looking for something of his own. Meanwhile I wanted to apologize for my attitude towards you. I realize you were only trying to help and that on occasion I blamed my own frustration on you. I hope it will please you to know that things are working out well for me and that I thank you for your efforts.”

Claire looked at the photographs: stock wedding portraits — glassy-eyed, the husband stood behind the wife, his arms extended around her, marking her as his possession as if claiming her for the camera would make it true. Then she tore the pictures in half so they’d fit neatly into the wastebasket under her desk.

While waiting for her two-fifteen patient, Claire flipped through catalogs. She had wanted to give Jody some kind of a small present at Christmas or New Year’s, but hadn’t known how to handle it. Now she decided just to order and send, no questions asked, no card enclosed — little mysteries, pennies from heaven. From Lillian Vernon she ordered a backseat organizer for Adam’s car toys, and monogrammed mugs for herself, Sam, the boys, and Jody — filling out a separate form for Jody’s, shipping it directly to her. Claire’s patient never showed, and she spent the full hour shopping by mail; underwear from Victoria’s Secret, a skirt ensemble from Tweeds, a computerized car compass from The Sharper Image.

When Claire opened her door at three, she was five hundred dollars poorer and the Owenses were already fighting in the waiting room.

“I work goddamned hard,” Jim Owens was saying, “so you and your son can buy whatever the hell you want.”

“Would you like to come in?” Claire asked.

The Owenses were overwhelming. They didn’t need Claire; they needed a referee and a professional league to play in.

“We were just talking about her son,” Jim said.

“Your son. He acts just like you.”

“You don’t have the first idea of what I was like as a kid. If I wanted something, I had to ask for it.”

“‘Nobody gave me anything’,” Gloria whined, imitating her husband.

“Bitch,” he said.

“Perhaps we could give this discussion a little more focus,” Claire said.

“Look,” Jim said, “all I want is for the kid to know the rules. I think you’ve said it yourself — kids need limits.”

“Did something happen?” Claire asked.

Gloria raised her hand. “I bought him a new pair of sneakers.”

“A hundred and ten bucks.”

“They were the ones he wanted, they fit him well, and all his friends have them. I don’t want my child to be an outcast. Kids are so sensitive.”

“As I’ve already told my wife,” Jim said, “it’s not the money I’m so angry about, it’s that two days later he needed cab fare to get to school because one of the other kids got mugged on the bus, and what’d they take? His sneakers.”

Gloria shook her head. “Why does everything have to become an issue?”

“As far as I’m concerned, these damn sneakers are costing me fifteen bucks a day. It’s ridiculous. Get the kid some real shoes.”

“Why don’t you?” Gloria asked.

“Because I’m too fucking busy working all day to earn the goddamn money.”

After forty minutes of relentless bickering, Claire cut them off. “We need to work on the two of you making decisions together, rather than one making a choice and then blaming the other for not being involved.”

The Owenses nodded, drew in their breath, and started their sparring match again.

Claire glanced at her watch. “Perhaps next week we can talk about techniques for negotiation instead of just fighting.”

“Thanks,” Gloria said, standing up.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jim said grudgingly, hitching up his pants as he turned to leave. “You know,” he said to his wife, “next week we could just stay home and argue, save the money, and then go out for a nice dinner.”

Claire sat at her desk making session notes and writing out bills. Ten sessions, twelve hundred and fifty dollars; but for you eight-fifty. She asked herself what made the sliding scale slide — a good story, a pretty face? Then she dug Polly’s wedding pictures out of the trash, pulled out one of her embossed note cards, and in her most ornate hand wrote: “Congratulations. Beautiful photos. I’m so pleased things are working out. Be well. Yours, Claire Roth.” She dropped the photos back in the trash, then sealed and stamped the little envelope. Guilt management.

At ten after five, Jody came in, late, walking slowly, like an old woman whose muscles had drawn up on her.

“I don’t think I’ve told you,” she said, “but I’m not going back to UCLA. It’s over. Finis. Down the drain.” Jody paused, looked at her shoes, and waited. “One of my friends is shipping my stuff back. In exchange for all my furniture, the landlord is canceling my lease. And for five hundred dollars a service is driving my mother’s old car back to Bethesda.” She stopped again. “I’m trying to think if there’s anything else involved in canceling a life. I keep thinking I’m forgetting something. Maybe it’s me. Maybe that’s the problem — I’m still here.”

Claire wanted to go to Jody, to hold her and tell her it would be all right, that it was a bad time, a bad day. She wanted to plait Jody’s hair into small braids. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and forced herself to stay in her chair. “It seems like you did a really good job of arranging things,” she said.

“I was supposed to be a director, remember? That’s what directors do — they direct.”

“I should have you organize my life.”

“Retired,” Jody said, and sat there mute.

Jody was frustrating. Sometimes she was sarcastic and unreachable, different from what Claire wanted her to be.

“I want you to meet my husband, Sam, and the kids.”

Jody looked at Claire as if to ask why.

“I want to help you, to take care of you. I’m offering you things I’ve never offered anyone,” Claire said, her voice cracking. “I care about you more than anyone, except my other children.”

A slip: why did she say other? What was she doing? She was losing it. This was pathetic. It would have made perfect sense if Jody got up, spit on her, and walked out for good. Claire might even have admired her for it.

Jody only shrugged. And soon it was six o’clock.

“We’re out of time for now, but maybe we should take an excursion to Bloomingdale’s, a kind of cure. I’ll call you tonight.”

After Jody had left, Claire noticed a sweater on the floor next to the chair. She picked it up, rubbed it against her face, and quickly pulled it over her head.

Outside, fat flakes of snow were falling. Claire called her local real estate agent, asked what time she was showing the apartment, and hurried home to meet them there. If she wanted it done, she’d have to do it herself. Exhausted, still wearing Jody’s sweater, she stood in the front hall looking dispassionately at the apartment, curious what the pair of young architects on their way over would think: disappointing, small, unstylish? The architects would hate it, noting how odd it was for an apartment in such a good location to be so utterly lacking in potential. Jody would probably hate the apartment as well.

The doorbell rang and Claire ushered in the real estate agent and the two young men. “Hello, welcome. I’m Claire Roth.”

The architects introduced themselves — Tom and Bill — and shook Claire’s hand. They were both dressed in classic, expensive wool suits.

Claire’s skirt was all wrong, and with Jody’s sweater pulled over her blouse, she knew she looked bad. There was no way they would want the apartment.

As the realtor led them from room to room, Claire brought up the rear, answering unasked questions about the apartment, the building, the co-op board, pointing out details she thought would be of interest — molding, the window frames, the new bathroom fixtures. While they were in the master bedroom, Frecia and the boys came in.

“Look what I made!” Adam shouted, coming toward Claire, trailing slush, a snowball in his mittened palm.

Even before noticing his joy, Claire noticed a spot of red in the snowball — blood, she figured, or the top of a crack vial. She snatched the snowball from Adam’s hand and dug at the red spot with her fingernail.

“Mitten fuzz,” he said. “Don’t hurt it.”

After careful examination, Claire pushed it back into the snowball. “Sorry, honey,” she said. “Why don’t we put the snowball in the freezer so it won’t melt? Would that be a good idea?”

Claire led Adam and his snowball into the kitchen. The realtor and the architects came out of the bedroom.

“Thanks very much,” Tom said as they headed for the door.

Claire rushed over to show them out. “Any first impressions?”

“I’m sure it’d work well for someone like you,” Bill said. “But for us it’s not possible.”

“Why?” Claire asked, as though the man could tell what was wrong with her by diagnosing the apartment.

“The rooms are too oddly sized,” he said, stepping around Claire and opening the door.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” the agent said. “I’ll call you.”

“Who were those people?” Jake asked.

“Jerks,” Claire said. “Pretentious jerks.”

That night after dinner, after Claire had given Adam a bath and put him to sleep, she and Sam were lying on their bed with the door closed. With his index finger Sam traced the outline of Claire’s breast through the sweater. “Is this my sweater?” he asked.

Claire shook her head. “I have to make a call,” she said, not moving.

“It’s ridiculous,” Sam said.

“What?”

“You spend more time talking to that girl than you do to me.”

“She’s my patient.”

Sam laughed. “I’ve heard you, Claire. You giggle and trade movie-star gossip with her. It’s hardly therapeutic.”

“I was thinking of inviting her over,” she said.

“She’s your client.”

“She’s one of us, like one of the kids.”

“Except I don’t know her.”

“I’m not asking for your analysis,” Claire said, pulling away. “I just want to know if it’s all right with you to have her over.”

“You’re the shrink, I’m just a lawyer,” Sam said, scratching himself. “If she decides to sue, call me.”

“You can be such an asshole,” Claire said.

He rolled onto his side and aimed the remote control at the TV. “Fucking cunt,” he said.

“Piece of shit,” Claire said. “Stinking.”

Jake walked in without knocking. “Can you stop fighting. It’s distracting.” He turned and walked out again, leaving the door open behind him.

“One day,” Claire muttered, “I’m gonna kill him. I can’t live like this anymore. We have no privacy.”

“While we’re on the subject,” Sam said, “I know you’re showing the apartment.”

Claire didn’t answer.

“Is this something we should talk about, or are you planning to just pack up, sneak off, and leave me homeless?”

“I’m working on it,” Claire said.

“These are decisions people make together. I’m not sure I want to move.”

“Fine. Then we can get divorced. You keep the apartment and you’ll still have to buy me and the kids a house.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Does everything have to be so goddamn difficult?” she said, getting up off the bed, folding clothing, putting it away, slamming the dresser drawers. “Why is everything such a struggle? Why don’t—”

“Why don’t I just do whatever you want?” Sam said. “Because I’m a person, Claire. Because I have ideas that don’t belong to you. This is a marriage, not a monarchy.”

The phone rang and Claire ran to answer it. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Roth?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Bea”—the patient who’d escaped her children’s lives, her husband’s complaints, and her apartment. “You once gave me your number at home and said I could call.”

“I remember,” Claire said. “Are you all right?”

“I came home from my class tonight and there was a letter on the kitchen table, propped up against the salt shaker.”

“Yes?”

“It was from Herbert. He left. He said he was tired of coming home to an empty apartment, tired of me not cooking, not taking care of him anymore. So he left. After thirty-six years. I came home from an art history lecture and this is what I get? He’s fifty-seven years old. Does he think he can just walk out of here and into some other apartment where some other old woman is going to cook and clean for him?”

Claire didn’t say anything for a minute. She looked at Sam stretched out on the bed holding the remote control, pouting.

“Would you like to come in and see me in the morning?” Claire asked.

“I’m supposed to go to the Met with one of the girls from my class. I’m not going to cancel just for Herbert. It would give him too much pleasure, wherever he is.”

“Well, call me tomorrow if you want to talk.”

“Thanks,” Bea said. “Sorry to bother you at home. I just wanted you to know.”

“It’s okay,” Claire said.

Bea laughed. “The funny thing is, I called you, but I really have nothing to say — I’m speechless.”

“Well, you can call me back if you need to. Are you going to be all right?”

“How would I know?” Bea said. “Well, good night.”

Claire stared at the receiver for a minute and then hung up and left the room, closing the door behind her.

31

“You’re floundering, babe,” Ellen said when Jody told her about the plan to meet Claire’s family. “You don’t even ice-skate.”

“At least Claire wants me. I should be glad for that.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“It’s scary. I never thought it would happen, but I’m needy, Ellen. Needy. It’s vile.”

“If I were you, I’d be furious with her for reducing you to this infantile blob. You have no self-confidence. That’s what this is all about — low self-esteem. I saw an ‘Oprah’ on it.”

“Viral castration,” Jody said. “It’s smooth, it’s fast, it’s final.”

That Claire liked her was flattering; anytime someone likes you, the instinct is to like them back. True, the relationship was out of the ordinary, several degrees more intense than Jody was prepared for, but so were the circumstances. When Jody had started this, she never thought Claire would mean anything to her. It’d been simple enough at first, but things had changed, and Jody had discovered that everything wasn’t as it seemed. Her belief in her family’s power had been an illusion, and her concept of self was constructed around the myth of literally being their child. She wasn’t theirs, wasn’t anyone’s. What all that meant wasn’t clear; but Claire was helping her, almost cradling her while she figured it out. This wasn’t the first time someone had treated Jody as though she were special. All through school her teachers had doted on her, and later Michael and Harry as well. People enjoyed her, so the rules changed in her favor. This wasn’t something Jody asked for; it just happened and she went along with it.

After hanging up with Ellen in Dallas, Jody put on her coat, took the elevator down, and hailed a taxi on Hudson Street. She wasn’t meeting Claire and her family for an hour and a half. “Museum of Natural History,” Jody told the driver. The safest place in the world, locked in time, reminiscent of childhood Sunday afternoons at the Smithsonian: the mammoth elephant in the Great Hall, the Eskimos chewing blubber in their dioramas.

A person will do anything to survive. Call it animal instinct. Jody went to the museum sure that if she could spend an hour not thinking — about failure, about Claire, about Ellen, about anything — if she could give herself over to the quiet, gravelike darkness of history preserved, she would be returned, healed.

At the entrance to the Great Mammal Hall, she stopped to get her breath. Jody was in with the caribou, the brown bear, the wapiti.

“It won’t get out, right?” a little kid behind her asked his mother.

Jody was thinking that this time, it all just might come crashing out. Claire had started dropping her family’s names into the conversation a while ago — Sam this, Jake and Adam that — and Jody had tried to pretend they didn’t exist. Shrinks weren’t supposed to have families, no one other than you, as if they, too, lived for those fifty minutes. That was the way it had to be. Now Claire was insisting that she meet them and wouldn’t let go of it. A year ago it wouldn’t have bothered Jody; but now, when all that had always seemed near, familiar, and good had gone sour, Claire seemed to be flaunting her success, her husband, her children.

Jody looked around. The Alaskan brown bear was up on its hind feet, two stories tall. The male wapiti had its head thrown back, its mouth dropped open, its black eyes popping out. All the animals looked as if they’d seen the ghost of something terrible. The silence felt trapped — stillness stuffed, sewn in. Everyone had a family, everyone belonged to someone and imitated them in ways they would never notice or need to articulate. Jody had simply arrived, delivered to her parents’ house like food ordered in. She considered what would happen if she skipped out on Claire’s family, if she simply hailed a taxi and went back down to Perry Street. Would she spend the rest of the afternoon feeling like a failure, having missed out on another amazing opportunity, curious how her life had come to this incredible grinding halt?

The flying squirrel was perfect: in a deep-black case like in the darkest dream, it was fixed against tall trees, moonlight, a distant forest, and snow-covered mountain peaks. Fully extended, the northern squirrel was up there, out there, hanging in midair.

Jody would pull herself together. She would go to the park and meet Claire’s family. What harm could come of it? She hurried toward the exit, wishing there was someone to lead her out, eyes closed, blind. She walked quickly, trying not to pay attention; but all the same, the last thing she saw on her way out was the dodo bird.

At three-thirty, the appointed time, she stood on the grassy knoll above Wollman Rink. The light was starting to fade, the chill of night slowly seeping into the air. Hovering over the park, backlit, were the tall apartment buildings of Central Park South. The thick red letters of the Essex House sign hugged the skyline in the same way that the “Hollywood” letters clung to the hill in L.A. It had been a deceptively warm day for late January: faces were flushed; left and right, people had taken off their coats, stripping down to turtlenecks. A hopeful afternoon. Jody would meet Claire’s family; she would exchange greetings and then, as soon as politely possible, break away.

A long line of would-be skaters curved up the path leading to the rink. From above, the ice was crowded, as though all of New York had come out for a skate this particular Sunday afternoon. Jody climbed a rock and looked for Claire, working the line from back to front. She was there, halfway down, also looking. There was no reason to rush. Claire was at least thirty people away from the entrance. When she was within fifteen, Jody would start down the path, pressing through the line—“Excuse me, coming through … Meeting someone up front, par don me.”

Then Claire spotted her and waved frantically. Jody automatically waved back and went forward.

“I thought you might be standing us up,” Claire said.

“Running late,” Jody said, not sure which of the strangers surrounding them were Roths. Claire tapped the backs of a man and two children in front of her. Jody expected her to say, Please allow me to introduce the recalcitrant, resistant, deeply neurotic Miss Goodman. Instead she patted the hair on top of the smaller boy’s head and in a clear and happy voice said, “Guys, this is Jody.”

Sam turned and faced her — not a vampire, not a gorilla, just a guy. “Good to meet you,” he said.

“Yo,” the elder boy said.

The younger one, Adam, looked down at his shoes. “I don’t wanna wear skates. Just my shoes.”

The line moved forward. At the admissions window, Jody took out her wallet, but Claire stopped her and let Sam pay for all of them. “My treat,” she said. “All day.”

The clubhouse was noisy, filled with shouting children, out-of-date pop songs, and people in a hurry. Jody focused on putting on her skates. She could feel herself disappearing into a haze.

“Pull the laces tight,” Claire said.

Jody looked at her blankly.

“Pull the laces tight,” Claire said again, this time reaching over to help. “It supports the ankle.”

Sam, Claire, Jake, and Adam. Real people, only better, like a family from a TV commercial. Handsome and cool compared with Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, who were getting ready to apply for Social Security. Claire in her off-duty clothes — faded jeans, turtleneck, with her blond hair held back with a thick barrette. Sam in wide-wale cords, a hand-knit sweater, hair just a little long, a little gray. By contrast Jody felt dark, black, mismatched. It wasn’t their fault. Claire’s family didn’t look at her strangely, didn’t treat her as if she were peculiar or contagious. Nothing about their actions screamed, Oh my God, it’s a patient—be careful.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” Jody said, remembering that one year for Chanukah her mother bought three pairs of skates, packed meat loaf sandwiches and thermoses of cocoa, and drove Jody and her father down to the C&O Canal. For the first hour it was wonderful, right out of a Norman Rockwell painting: Mom, Dad, and Jody in mittens and long scarves, gracefully sawing their way back and forth across the ice. Then Jody’s father fell, landed on his coccyx, rode home facedown sprawled across the backseat, and spent the next month sitting on inflatable rings intended for infant use in swimming pools.

“Of course you can,” Claire said, pulling her toward the rink. “Tell me when you get tired and we’ll take a rest.”

Jody and Claire wobbled out of the clubhouse walking on the thin blades like demented ducks. The skaters whirled past, and the only way to get onto the ice was to take a running start, a flying leap. If you hesitated, they’d crush you.

“Have you ever jumped rope?” Claire asked.

“Not recently.”

“Well, it’s like that, like jumping in.”

Jody was looking at the skaters, trying to gauge the pace, when Claire grabbed her hand and jerked her onto the ice. Jody pulled back. Around them three people fell. “Skate,” Claire said. And Jody did, at first in odd, jerking motions, and then more evenly, using her arms to swing herself forward.

“Odie,” Adam said. “Odie, take me around. Slow,” he said. “I like slow.” A three-foot, chestnut-haired, blue-eyed ladykiller. Jody took him around a few times, and then he said, “Okay, Odie — now Mom.”

Claire had introduced her and now she was on the inside, one of the gang. It wasn’t that they gushed over her or went out of their way to be nice. In fact, it was almost the opposite: she was nothing special, just a girl.

Jody delivered Adam to Claire and then took a break by the side of the rink, watching them skate as a family, Claire with Jake, Adam with Sam. It all came together — the music, the end of a winter afternoon, the perfect family. Everything they did was easy, effortless. They just did it and it came out right. Jody wanted life to be that easy. She wanted to be like them, and if she couldn’t be, then at least she hoped that maybe something would rub off. For the first time, she wanted all that Claire had been offering, that and more.

“Go on, go with Sam,” Claire said, pushing her toward where he stood a few feet away, arm already extended. “Go on.”

Jody slid her hand into Sam’s and they took off. They skated, they sailed, steering with the swing of their arms and the tilt of their legs. Jody was along for the ride, taking off on the even glide of the skates, taking in the skeletal trees against the sky, the horse-drawn carriages in the distance, the winter city near dusk. The sensation of motion, round and round, breathed life back into her. Round and round, skating the great wide circle, in matching rhythm and stride. They passed Claire and Adam, waved and called out to them, then took off again, skating faster, legs working harder, wheeling their way around. Jody imagined that people were watching them, thinking they were together. She pushed her hand farther into Sam’s. His palm was large, rough. The way he wrapped his fingers around her hand but didn’t squeeze, didn’t crush, made Jody feel good.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked him as they skated. “I didn’t want to come here today. I was dreading it.”

“Why?”

“Scared to meet you.”

Sam smiled. “Am I as bad as you expected, or worse?”

“I’m not sure. Do you have twelve toes, thorny toad bumps, hornrimmed glasses, and disfiguring leprosy?”

“How’d you know?” Sam asked.

“Wow,” Claire said when they finally came in for a landing, stopping only because the guards were clearing the rink so the ice could be resurfaced. “You two are fantastic together.”

Jody blushed.

Jake lifted his nose into the air. “Hot dogs,” he said. “I smell hot dogs.”

“Not here,” Claire said. “Let’s get something better.”

They took off their skates, put their regular shoes on, and went up the path toward Fifth Avenue. Over the hills and through the woods. Jody could barely walk. It was going to hurt later, really hurt. The effect of the virus was evident. Her vision was uneven, her heart was skipping awkwardly; but she’d rather drop dead than leave the Roths now.

“Why’re the ducks all crowded into that one part?” Jake asked when they passed the pond. It was almost dark and would’ve been creepy if they weren’t all together.

“The rest of the pond is frozen,” Claire said.

“Why don’t they go somewhere else for the winter, like Aunt Shirley?” he asked.

“Because it’s their home.”

On Fifth Avenue the streetlights glowed orange, and Jody remembered the night shoot with Harry on this very corner. She remembered Carol Heberton going into the fountain fifteen times. A lifetime ago. Sam put his hand up for a cab. “I love this,” Claire said, wrapping her arm around Jody. “Isn’t it great?”

It was. The ache that began at the base of Jody’s skull and went full-length through her heart and lungs to the bleeding blister on her little toe, was real. It was active, reeking of health and physicality, and she was thankful for it — for being reminded of family, and how inescapably full of life children were.

They went to Serendipity, drank vats of hot chocolate. And when the waitress asked what Jody wanted to eat, she nodded in Claire’s direction and said, “I’ll have whatever she’s having.” When the chili arrived, she realized she didn’t even like chili; then she looked at Claire stirring the sour cream around, adding extra onions, and dug in. For chili, it was actually quite good. Past the point of thinking for herself, past the point of tension, she was filled with the intoxicating satisfaction that comes with being thoroughly spent. But her happiness, the height and buoyancy of it, frightened her. It was as though she’d been forcing herself to sit by the side of the pool, not daring to dip her toes in, and suddenly she was taking the steps to the high dive two at a time, running the length of the board, and hurling herself off the end.

“Are you okay?” Claire asked.

Jody nodded.

“What are you thinking?”

Jody shrugged. “Nothing.”

“You’re smiling.”

Jody shrugged again. She was stoned on relief. The worst part was over.

“What did you do to your hair?” Claire said, reaching over and running her fingers through it.

“Brushed it,” Jody said.

“You’d look great in earrings. Are your ears pierced?”

“Have been since I was twelve. Spencer Gifts, Montgomery Mall — shot straight through the lobe with one of those guns.”

“I never noticed. I’ll have to remember that. We’ll get you some really nice earrings.”

Jody shrugged and watched Adam dissecting onion rings while Jake and Sam wordlessly wolfed down enormous hamburgers.

In the cab on the way home — warm, full, pressed against Adam and Claire — Jody nearly fell asleep.

“Why don’t you come to the apartment?” Claire whispered. “You can sleep over if you want.”

Jody shook her head. “I have to go home,” she said. “I’m so tired, you wouldn’t believe. I wonder where my key is.” She worked her hand into her pocket. “Hope I didn’t lose it.”

“You really should give me a duplicate,” Claire said. “Just in case.”

“Found it,” Jody said, producing the key.

“Well, maybe you can come over tomorrow.”

The cab pulled over to the curb and a horn blared behind them as the Roths slowly piled out and they all said their goodbyes. Sam tried to hand Jody a ten, but she waved the money away and pulled the door shut. “Perry and West Fourth,” she told the driver, and the cab pulled away. Jody took a deep breath. There was absolutely nothing left; everything had been spilled, drained, sucked dry. All she could think about was how great the Roths were, and how much she wanted a hot shower, warm blankets, and a big, fluffy pillow.

32

In the middle of a warm week in March, prematurely pressed into a heat wave that brought the flowers out early and left people damning both the summer to come and the winter that had never quite arrived, Claire found the house she wanted.

At ten a.m., strapped into a minivan en route to a house the real estate agent couldn’t really describe, didn’t have a picture of, but just knew Claire would love, she saw what she’d been looking for. Marked with a yellow FOR SALE sign and set back across a long lawn was a small, plain farmhouse, white with green shutters and a porch that wrapped three-quarters of the way around.

“Stop,” Claire said. “You’re passing it.”

“Oh, you don’t want that,” the agent said. “Besides, it’s under contract. I’ll have to remind someone to take care of that sign.”

“Stop,” Claire insisted, and the agent tapped the brakes, shifted into reverse, and backed up. Like a garbage truck, the car made an alarming beep-beeping warning sound.

“I know this house very well,” she said. “I showed it a thousand times before they found a buyer. It’s too small. Four bedrooms, only one’s decent-sized. No place to put a live-in. Two and a half baths — most of my clients want three or three and a half minimum. It looks like the place where my grandmother grew up. And all that grass — no one wants so much grass with such a small house. Bushes, a few evergreens, some flower beds, yes — but lawn mowing, who needs it? And you can be sure whoever would live here wouldn’t have a gardener.”

How about two strong boys and a husband, Claire thought, all of whom could stand to do a little work.

“Could we go in?” Claire asked, releasing her seat belt, and lifting the door lock like an animal opening its own cage. The agent followed her onto the front porch, where Claire stood with her nose pressed to the

“I don’t have the key,” the agent said flatly.

“When was it built?” Claire asked.

“Had to be the 1940s. No one would’ve done something like this in the fifties.”

Claire pressed her nose against the windowpane. The living room had a fireplace, a long mantel, wooden floors. To the right was a staircase with a thick wooden banister.

“Standard layout,” the agent said. “Kitchen’s a horrible aqua green, appliances and everything — it’s like being inside a Jacques Cousteau nightmare. Basement’s unfinished. One of the bathrooms needs a lot of work.”

To Claire it gave off the timeless image of family and home. Four bedrooms was two more than they already had. She pulled out her camera and took a few shots. “What are they getting?” she asked.

“Confidential,” the agent said, tapping her toe on the porch with every click of the shutter. “I’ll wait in the car,” she finally said.

Claire walked around the house, full circle, snapping the whole way round. She wanted the whole picture, soup to nuts. Finished, she got back into the car, turned to the agent, and said, “Now show me what you wanted me to see.”

Later, all Claire could remember about the other house, the one that was supposed to be just right for her, was a huge stained-glass window in the living room that filtered the morning light so that it landed like a pool of blood on the floor, and the agent asking over and over again why she wasn’t taking any photos.

“You’ll let me know,” Claire had said when they got back to the agent’s office, “if the deal falls through.” She shook the woman’s hand.

Back in the city, Claire left the car in the garage and went across the street to the one-hour photo shop. She dropped off the film, tucked the claim slip into her pocket, and hurried off to her office. Waiting for Bea, she thought about the house so intently that she imagined she could hear guests coming up to the front door and calling, “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?”

The buzzer went off, and soon Bea was sitting across from her.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said. “I should be depressed. I should be miserable, but I’m not.”

“Are you taking any medication?”

“No, it’s me. It’s only me. I’m happy.”

What was there for Claire to say? How could she say, No you’re not. If someone says she’s happy, do you have her declared insane and committed, or count her as cured and send her away? This was such a rare occurrence that it was confusing.

“It’s peculiar. I wake up alone in my bed feeling good. That never happened before. In the evening, I eat whatever I want, I watch the television shows I like. There’s something very satisfying about it.”

Claire sat and listened. There were people who claimed to be happy as a defense against their sadness; they said they were happy again and again, as though saying it often enough would make it come true.

“It sounds good,” she said when Bea paused and looked up at her. “Sounds like you’re really pleased.”

“If I’d known I’d feel this good, I would’ve kicked him out years ago.”

“Do you feel lonely?”

“Not really. I think I may have been lonelier before.” Bea wasn’t lying.

Claire smiled. “I’m happy for you,” she said.

After Bea had gone, Claire raced out, picked up the photos, and spread them across her desk. For the next week or so, whenever something upset her she would take out the photos and, instantly dipping into the dream, picture herself and the family — including Jody — in the house together.

About ten days later, the real estate agent left a message on her machine. “I have news. The contract on that farmhouse”—she said “farmhouse” as though the very word nauseated her—“fell through. Too complicated to explain, but it’s on the market again. And I’ll tell you a secret: they’re anxious to sell. They’re waiting to settle on another place. Another secret — and I really shouldn’t be telling you this. The bid they’d accepted was three even, but if they could get it soon, I think they’d go lower. Call me.”

Claire went running to Sam’s office. “There’s something I should’ve told you,” she said, slipping her hand into her pockets, rubbing her fingers across the photos.

“Do I want to hear it?” Sam asked.

“I found it,” she said, laying the photos out over the papers on Sam’s desk. “It wasn’t available before, but something happened. If we move fast we can get it cheap.”

Sam leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and rocked. “I don’t know, Claire. We don’t know anything about buying houses. The boys are in the middle of a school year. We’d have to sell our place. Something like this takes a lot of planning.”

“I have been planning. Sam, I want this. Just look at the pictures.”

“You always want something,” he said, tilting forward to glance down at the photos.

“No, I really want this. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it. It means too much to me.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, picking up the old magnifying glass that had been his grandfather’s and going over the pictures carefully, as though this seventy-five-year-old chunk of scratched glass would reveal their significance.

Claire dug deep into the zippered compartment of her purse, pulled out two of her most favorite pictures, and handed them to Sam.

“It’s nice,” he said, staring at them for a second, then tossing them on the desk with the others and looking away.

“See, the living room’s in here, and there’s a fireplace with a really nice mantel.”

Sam was still staring out the window.

“Take a ride with me,” Claire said. “I have a break until later this afternoon,” she lied.

“Now?”

“Yes, now,” Claire said. “We can talk in the car.”

“I have things to do. I’m in the middle of something,” he said, scooping up the photos and handing them back to Claire. “Maybe tomorrow, or on the weekend.”

“Sam, this house is the beginning of a new life.” She was more intent than she’d been in years. “It’s less than an hour away.”

“Where is it? What town? What state?”

“Connecticut — just outside of Greenwich, for God’s sake. I think it’s called Glenville,” Claire said, pulling her hair repetitively, an old nervous tic.

“Fine. Okay. You want to get it over with?” he said, springing up from the desk and yanking his coat off the pole by the door. “Let’s go.”

“I have to make a couple calls,” Claire said, taking her appointment book out of her bag.

Sam slipped his coat on. “Can’t you make them from the car?”

Claire shook her head.

He picked up a stack of books and went out the door. “I’ll run these down the hall. Be right back.”

From Sam’s desk, Claire called her two-thirty and left a message on his machine. She called the analyst across the hall and asked him to put up a note just in case. Then she dialed again. “Hi, cookie,” she said when Jody answered.

“Sorry, wrong number,” Jody said.

“I have an emergency this afternoon. I need to cancel our appointment.”

“It’s because you’re tired of me,” Jody said. “I’ve become boring. Fine, go ahead, get someone else. Get a good anorexic for all I care. Try inviting her out to lunch.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” Claire said. “I’ll call you tonight when I get home.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Jody, you have to stop this. Perk up, sweetie. I can’t stand this depression thing anymore.”

“Are you telling me to snap out of it? You, a shrink?”

“Spring’s right around the corner. It’s time to get on with your life.”

“I don’t have one, remember? And where’d you get that line — Hallmark?”

“Got to go,” Claire said. “I’ll call you later.”

In the car, Claire talked nonstop. “My whole life I’ve always wanted to live in Connecticut. As a child, it was my fantasy. I thought all the best movie stars lived there, Katharine Hepburn and I don’t know who else. Connecticut,” she said, “Connecticut. Successful, refined, rich.”

“Waspish,” Sam said. “I hate to impose reality onto this conversation, but what about the apartment? Is anyone even interested in it? And what about the kids — their friends, for instance?”

“They’ll finish the year in the city and start in Connecticut in the fall.” Claire drew out “Connecticut” until it had about a hundred syllables.

“Isn’t it too late to get them into a school?”

“Public school, Sam. Everyone in the suburbs goes to public school. We’ll save a fortune.”

“I thought kids in Connecticut,” he said, “went to prep school.”

“Only the unmanageable ones.”

“So we have a few years to go,” Sam said. “Okay, how do I get to work? Or am I supposed to quit work and just stay home and mow the lawn all day? I noticed from the photos that there’s quite a bit of grass to deal with.”

“We have a car, and there’s a train, and we’ll get one of those ride-’em mowers.”

“Honey, right now my office is an eight-minute walk from our apartment, six if I’m in a hurry. I’d have to get up in the middle of the night in order to get in on time, and I’d be coming home very late.”

“It’s fifty-three useful minutes by train. You can relax, read, work, sleep, whatever. Thousands of people do it every day.”

“Goys. I’m a Jew. Do I have to remind you? Jews get sick if they read when they’re in motion. It’s genetic — something about escaping Egypt, the bumpy ride. By the way, are Jews even allowed in Connecticut?”

“We’ll get a big hairy dog, and every night you can walk it around the neighborhood. It’ll get rid of your love handles.”

“And my love life. So, how many million bucks is it all going to cost? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

“Less than a larger apartment.”

“How much?”

“They’re asking three-thirty, but the agent says they’ll take less. I figured we’d offer two-ninety.”

“And how much can we get for the apartment?”

“Three, maybe three-fifteen. But if we come down a little, we’ll probably find a buyer right away.”

“And how much do we have in the bank?”

“Sam, we’re not paying cash.”

“If you want me to take the idea seriously, we have to talk seriously.”

“You’re intimidating me.” Claire pulled onto the shoulder next to the driveway. Suddenly she didn’t want Sam to see the house. She felt like he wanted to take it away from her.

“This is it?” Sam asked.

Claire started crying.

“So pull in already.”

She put the car in park.

“Honey, go into the driveway and let’s look around. We came all the way out here. It’s fine if you’ve changed your mind, but we might as well have a look, don’t you think?”

Now Claire was really crying — over Sam, the house, Jody, everything. She wished there was no one and nothing.

“Is it unlocked?” Sam asked, opening the car door. “Do you want to come with me?”

Claire shook her head no, and he got out of the car and walked down the long driveway. She watched him try the front door, then pull a credit card from his wallet and pop the lock open. Once inside, he turned and waved at Claire, giving her the thumbs-up sign, and then disappeared. Claire was still strapped in — the seat belt cutting against her neck — thinking of ways she could gain control over her life. Get rid of Sam, the kids, and the apartment. Drop Jody. Get her own place uptown — or even out of town, it didn’t matter.

After Sam had been gone for twenty minutes, Claire started to worry. An escapee might have camped out in the empty house, or Sam could’ve fallen down the stairs that led to the unfinished basement, slamming his head against the cement floor at the bottom. She got out of the car, went to the front door, and rang the bell. “Sam?” she called. Hearing no answer, she pushed the door open and stepped inside the house for the first time. “Sam, are you here?”

“Upstairs,” he hollered.

“Are you all right?”

“Of course.”

Relieved, she went through the dining room into the kitchen. It was aqua all right, but pretty — the sort of look a decorator in Manhattan might charge a fortune to accomplish.

“Come upstairs!” Sam yelled.

Claire slowly went up the dark stairs. “Where are you?”

“In our bedroom,” he said.

Claire started down the hall toward the back of the house.

“Wrong way,” he said, suddenly behind her. “I like this one better. It looks out onto the front yard.” She turned back toward him, stopping to stick her head into the bathroom; the tub was cracked in half.

In the small front bedroom, Sam pulled Claire toward him. “Is this what you want? Is this your fantasy?”

She nodded.

“Is there any reason why you shouldn’t have whatever you want?”

Claire didn’t answer.

He ran his hand up Claire’s leg, under her skirt. “I think we should try it out,” he said, curling his fingers inside the elastic band of her underwear.

“Sam, I don’t know,” she said, pushing him away.

“Are you having second thoughts?” he asked, unzipping his pants.

“There’s no furniture.” Claire crossed her arms and stood awkwardly in the center of the room, her underwear caught halfway down her thighs, the lining of her skirt rubbing against her bare ass.

When Sam reached out, uncrossed her arms, and began unbuttoning her blouse, she didn’t resist.

“The bathroom tub’s cracked in half,” she said. “We’d probably need a new one.”

“Big enough to fuck in,” Sam said, unhooking her bra and rubbing his face against her breasts, sliding his hand under her skirt and pulling her underwear the rest of the way down. “And a lock on our door.”

Naked, their flesh stuck to the varnished floorboards. As they flip-flopped from top to bottom, positioning and repositioning themselves, their skin made thick peeling sounds. Later, in the car on the way home, it would be red and raw, their hips and buttocks covered with abrasions not unlike burns; they would shift uncomfortably in their seats. But at the time, in the moment, they hadn’t noticed.

When they walked into the apartment at five, Frecia was furious. “I don’t know where you’ve been,” she said, her accent heavy with anger. “But as much as I love these children, I got a life of my own.”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “An emergency came up.”

“Emergency my eye,” Frecia said, looking at their satisfied faces.

“Here’s cab money,” Claire said, pulling out all the cash in her wallet and handing it over without bothering to count. “Did anyone call?” she asked.

“A girl called Jody. She said she was checking on your big emergency.”

“Anyone else?”

“Your friend Naomi,” she said. “She wanted to know if selling her husband and children was illegal.” Frecia turned to Sam. “And your office, mister.”

Claire went into the bedroom to call Jody. The answering machine clicked on; she hung up without leaving a message.

Sam came up behind her and tickled her neck. “I suppose I should call the office,” he said.

Claire handed him the phone. “I’m going for a walk,” she said. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Why don’t you order some Chinese for dinner. Adam likes lemon chicken.”

Sam nodded as he spoke to his secretary.

“See you,” Claire said, putting on her coat and sliding her tote bag over her shoulder — in it was her purse, the camera, all kinds of stuff. In the elevator going down, she decided it was too heavy. She pulled out her purse and the camera and left the rest with the doorman.

Buttoning her coat, she walked west across Eighth Street, crossing Sixth Avenue, heading down Christopher and West Fourth, then turned left onto Perry Street. She pulled her scarf close. Checking the numbers on the brownstones, she made her way to 63. She had it memorized: Jody Goodman, 63 Perry Street, Apartment 4B, New York, New York 10014. The building was an old brick-and-limestone fortress; the entrance was a wooden double door, three steps up, columns on either side. The door swung open and a young woman stepped out, startling her.

“Are you looking for something?”

“No,” Claire said, stepping back.

The woman walked off, and Claire caught the door just before it closed. She stepped into the anteroom, checking the names and numbers on the mailboxes. 4B GOODMAN. The lock was broken, the flap hanging open, the mail nearly falling out. What was she doing there? Did she want to show Jody the pictures of the house, to explain that now, finally, they would be a family. Someone came out the inside door and Claire slipped in. Taking the elevator to the fourth floor, she stood outside the apartment as though she expected Jody to open the door and ask why it had taken her so long to get there. The hallway was deserted. Claire reached into her pocket and comforted herself by rubbing her fingers back and forth across the smooth gloss of the photographs. She stood outside the apartment far longer than anyone should just stand anywhere; was that how burglars and rapists worked? She pressed her ear to the wall, heard nothing, then rang the bell. Claire thought that perhaps Jody was inside, knew Claire was there, and was purposely ignoring her. “Jody,” she called, knocking on the door. “It’s me, Claire. Open up.” She thought of hurling herself against the door over and over again, screaming, demanding to be let in. Do you know who I am? And if she huffed and puffed and knocked her way in, what would she do then?

She took the elevator back down and stopped at the mailboxes again before going out into the street, feeling tired and vaguely confused.

33

It was a bright afternoon near the end of March, a day filled with the strange and fragile sense that at any moment all that was clear might be taken away and replaced with a dark and heavy rain. Jody moved down the street, aiming the video camera at whatever looked interesting — a cat crossing the road as a cab barreled down the street, the age-old game of beat the clock.

On the corner of Perry and West Fourth, near home, she saw something that caused her to instinctively duck behind the iron rail of a brownstone. Coming out the door and down the steps of Jody’s building was Claire Roth. Jody used the zoom, pulled in close, and pressed Record, locking in on Claire, trailing her from what seemed like a safe distance. She pulled open the door to Patisserie Lanciani — Jody’s cafe — slipped off her coat, and took one of the window seats. The waitress came and went. A cup of coffee arrived. Claire added sugar, no milk, and looked innocently out the window. The tape ran; Jody was getting the goods on Claire, video proof like the kind they showed on television: “Video Trial,” “True Stories,” “New York’s Weirdest.” Claire reached into her pocket and pulled out a stack of something that Jody couldn’t quite make out. Cards? The zoom was fully extended; she needed to get closer to pick up more detail. Creeping down the block until she was directly across the street, Jody situated herself so that she was shielded by a delivery van. Photographs. Claire had reached into the pocket of her coat and taken out a stack of snapshots. She’d laid them out across the cafe table and arranged them in a specific order, as if she were fitting the pieces of a puzzle together. Jody was sure the pictures were of her apartment. Claire had broken in, gone through her drawers, her closet, the boxes under her bed, taking Polaroids of everything. She’d rounded up all Jody’s secrets and stolen them. Claire would take whatever she could get from Jody; that much was suddenly and surprisingly clear.

Video still running, her eye fixed on Claire, Jody came closer to the cafe, stepping into the street, hoping for a better position. Once she was out in the street, exposed, Claire looked up, saw Jody, and registered the expression of having been caught. A nearly lethal rush of confusion and guilt coursed through Jody. She couldn’t move. A car horn blared. “Outta the street, retard!” someone yelled. Like lifting lead, Jody raised one foot, then another, and made her way to the curb, camera still fixed to her eye. Claire tapped on the glass and gestured that Jody should come in. Jody stood at the window, blank. Claire tapped on the glass again, but Jody was unable to respond. Claire went around to the door and said, “It’s getting cold out. Come on in, have a cup of cocoa or something.”

Jody sat down. The photographs were gone, as though they’d existed only in Jody’s viewfinder.

“How are you?” Claire asked. “You look a little pale.”

Had Claire slipped them into the deep pockets of her coat? Jody shifted from side to side, looking at the dark wool draped over the chair, hoping to see the white edge of a photo poking out of the pocket. Nothing. The camera was there, hanging off the side of the chair, but where were the pictures? She must have slipped them into her purse. The purse was on the table in front of Claire, screaming to be opened.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Claire said. “Maybe you should have a croissant and some cocoa.”

“Double espresso,” Jody said to the waitress.

“Have something with it,” Claire said. “Espresso isn’t very nourishing.”

Jody didn’t answer.

“So, tell me about your day. You’ve been out making movies? It occurred to me just last week that you and I should make a movie together — write a screenplay about therapy. You’d write the girl and I’d write the therapist.”

“I don’t think so,” Jody said.

“It could be so funny, and there’s so much to say.” Claire acted as if she hadn’t heard Jody’s answer. “I always wanted to be a writer.”

“Strange,” Jody said, “I would’ve thought you wanted to be a photographer.”

Claire didn’t respond except to look vaguely puzzled. “I’m not very visual,” she said. “I’m much more mental.” She tapped her temple.

Jody tipped her head in the direction of the camera dangling off the chair.

“Oh,” Claire said. “That’s Sam’s. I didn’t want to leave it with the doorman.”

The espresso arrived, and Jody poured sugar into it until it was the consistency of granular mud.

“You need to take better care of yourself. No wonder you’re not well.” Claire called the waitress over. “Could we have a croissant, please.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Do you want it or not?” the waitress asked.

“No,” Jody said.

“Then I’ll have it and maybe you’ll eat some.” The waitress went off and Claire leaned toward Jody. “That sweater’s my favorite color. Do you know what it means to me to see you wearing that color?”

Jody shrugged.

“It means we have a lot in common. Two peas in a pod. I’d like you to come over for dinner sometime this week, and on Wednesday there’s a play at Adam’s school. You’d love it.”

If Claire had been anywhere near normal, she would have explained what she’d been doing. She would have said, Oh, there you are, what a coincidence. I just stopped by your building. But there was nothing — not a word, not a gesture.

“You know,” Claire said, “I’ve been thinking that if I can talk Sam into taking charge of the boys for a weekend, we could go away together. Just the two of us. Out to the beach, or maybe up to the Berkshires. It’d be great if we could have some real time together.”

Jody finished her coffee, picked up the video camera, and turned it on Claire. “Why don’t you tell me about your day,” she said, pushing the Record button. “It’s a documentary. The scene is Claire Roth at Patisserie Lanciani. Tell me where you’ve been today. Were you seeing patients?” Jody paused. “And why do you call them patients? You’re not a doctor. What can you tell me about your background, your training? Your philosophy, your approach to therapy? Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Put down the camera,” Claire whispered. “People are watching.”

“Yes, we’re here in Patisserie Lanciani with a live audience, a roomful of real people.” Jody panned the room and then returned to Claire, closing in so that Claire’s face filled the entire frame. “They, too, crave the answers. The myth of the therapeutic process, the great wide unknown; doesn’t touch the truth, does it? No, it all goes on in here.” Jody tapped her temple just as Claire had done minutes before. “What you see, how you perceive, what drives you. Perhaps you could illuminate the process for us.”

“Stop.” Claire looked at her as if to say, How can you be so mean. Jody met her glance, evenly and head-on.

“Me? Why? You just said you wanted to make movies — well, this is how it’s done. Come on, loosen up. So, what’d you do today?”

Claire jumped up and ran for the bathroom.

Jody sat alone at the table. Perhaps she’d been wrong. It was possible that what she’d witnessed — Claire descending the steps at 63 Perry — wasn’t the clear and heartbreaking twist of betrayal she’d first thought it was. She was distorting Claire’s interest, turning it into something darker and more dangerous than it really was. Claire had probably left a package outside her door, a little present, or a sweet note on beautiful paper. Jody would find it there and, humiliated, would have to call Claire immediately to beg her forgiveness. Time and time again, Claire would say, I’ve asked you to trust me, but you won’t. And Jody would end up apologizing not only for the afternoon’s awkwardness but for a lifetime of doubt.

Claire’s purse was on the table, begging the question. Jody scanned the room. All the people who’d just been looking at her had gone back to their cappuccinos, their éclairs, their own pathetic conversations. She reached for Claire’s purse and pulled the zipper back, expecting to find the photos tucked neatly between her wallet and cosmetic case. There was nothing except mail — so much, in fact, that various envelopes stuck out, and Jody had trouble closing the purse. Worried that Claire would come out of the bathroom and catch her rummaging, she was trying to push them back in when on the left corner of one she noticed, familiar handwriting — the return address of someone she knew in L. A. She pulled the envelope all the way out of the purse and checked; it was addressed to Jody Goodman, 63 Perry Street 4-B, NY NY 10014. She pulled out another — her phone bill. A bank statement … a postcard from Carol Heberton … a schedule of screenings at the Museum of Modern Art. Claire had stolen her mail. She had reached into the mailbox and walked off with everything. A federal crime. In all the months that the lock had been broken, none of the multitude of strangers that came in and out of the building had ever taken anything. Then Jody heard the click of the bathroom door unlocking and jammed everything except the postcard back into the purse and zipped it closed. The purse was back in position on the table before the bathroom door opened. Jody tucked Heberton’s card into her back pocket, picked up her video camera, and looked out the window, pretending to be shooting something in the distance.

“I didn’t realize what time it was,” Claire said, standing over the table. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.” She squeezed Jody’s arm. Jody glanced up. Her eyes were red. “It’s all right,” Claire added. “Everything will be all right. Don’t worry.” Then she took some money from her purse, put it on the table, and went out the door. Jody ordered a second espresso, poured in the sugar, and spooned the thick brown syrup into her mouth as though it were a prescription product. Trying to figure, trying to figure. She was trapped. Whatever it was that existed between her and Claire, she couldn’t stand it; all the same, she’d been living on it and couldn’t go without. Even now she didn’t hate Claire — she hated herself for buying in, craving it, getting hooked. She finished the espresso and paid the bill, thinking that crawling out of a well was harder than falling in.

A losing streak. Coked up on espresso, paranoia, and guilt, she raced home and found Peter Sears waiting in the vestibule. “Hi,” he said. “I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.”

Jody’s mailbox was empty, and the metal door was hanging open. Three other boxes also had broken locks, but the mail was there, waiting.

“How long have you been here?” Jody asked.

“Only a minute,” Peter said. “But I was about to give up.”

“My lucky day.”

“How’re you feeling — better?”

Jody shrugged. According to Esterhaus’s estimate, she would get better eventually, though maybe not for two years. According to what Jody’s mother read, it was a systemic yeast infection from eating too much sugar, and according to her father it was environmental poisoning. Jody herself had read reports calling it a B-cell virus, chronic immune dysfunction syndrome, a new herpes — a rare combination, a grenade-type virus with an unidentified trigger pin. If it didn’t kill you, it could last forever, waxing and waning.

“Frankly,” she said, “I feel like shit.”

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Sure, why not.” Jody figured she had nothing to lose.

“I’ve really missed you,” Peter said in the elevator on the way up.

Jody looked at her apartment door before unlocking it. There were no signs of tampering. On the floor, just inside, was a delivery menu from a Mexican restaurant. No note on pretty stationery, no magical explanation.

“Do you want to get naked now,” she said to Peter, “or can I listen to my messages first?”

“It’s not like that,” he said.

Jody rewound her machine, thinking she’d find a clue. There was only one message — from Ilene, the East Villager from UCLA. “I wanted you to be the first to know — well, almost the first to know. Remember that idea we worked up for story class? I went ahead and wrote it. The script got sold for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Can you believe it? God! Well, I hope you’re feeling better. Sorry, I—”

Jody turned off the machine. She didn’t need to hear it.

“Sounds great,” Peter said.

“Shut up,” Jody said, disappearing into the bathroom. She came back seconds later with her hands full of small packages. “Look,” she said, spilling them onto the sofa. “I have condoms. All kinds.”

“It’s different,” Peter said. “Or I’m different.”

“Bummer,” Jody said.

Peter shrugged. “I didn’t say I’d sworn off, just that things were different. You seem tense, upset. I took a course in massage. Would you like me to give you one?”

In what was left of the late afternoon light, with all the shades up, Jody stripped naked. She was so thin now that she didn’t care who saw her. There was nothing to hide. Her bad thighs and big butt had vanished. She lay on the bed and let Peter work his hands over her, applying pressure to spots where knots had formed.

“Tell me where you feel it and we can work it out,” he said. He found places left over from the skating expedition, knots that suddenly felt like scars. He pressed his fingers into places so sore that Jody had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming. He was good, his hands strong and smooth. He dug deep into her, drawing the tension out, as if it were possible to pick up the muscles one by one and wring them like wet washcloths. She rolled onto her back, and when his palms traveled up the insides of her thighs, she met them and guided them further. She unbuttoned his shirt and slid her tongue over his chest. He sighed. He worked the muscles in her neck and shoulders, going all the way down her arms. She bit his nipples. In his chinos he rubbed against her, teasing. No hurry, no rush. She unzipped his pants and pressed her face to the front of his underwear, licking him through the heavy cotton. She pulled him on top of her. He reached for a condom. Three times her phone rang; each time the machine picked up and the caller — Claire — hung up. Peter and Jody spent the rest of the evening and most of the night sexing and resting, sexing and resting.

“So what happened?” Jody finally asked, after the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant had come and gone, after they’d showered and feasted and fucked again.

Peter shrugged. He pulled on his underwear, fished his chinos out of the tangle of sheets, and buttoned his shirt.

“Come on,” Jody said. “People don’t just change.”

“I’ve been seeing someone who’s helped me a lot,” he said, sliding his foot into a loafer.

“A therapist?”

“No, a woman. She’s out of town this week on location. She’s a TV producer.”

Jody pushed him out the door. She practically picked him up and carried him. She stood there for a moment, watched him flounder, then slammed and locked the door.

“My shoe,” he called. “My other loafer.” He banged on the door. “Hey, come on! That’s a Banfi. They cost four hundred and fifty dollars.”

34

Claire couldn’t sleep. Listening to Sam’s even breathing, she lay awake and worried about losing everything. Ever since the afternoon at the cafe Jody had been acting withdrawn, paranoid — though at least she hadn’t brought the video camera with her. And then, a few days before, they’d fought over a shirt in Bloomingdale’s.

“Look at this,” Claire had said, holding it up on its hanger. The shirt was softer, more fitted than what Jody usually wore; she would have looked beautiful in it.

Jody wrinkled her nose. “Not for me.”

“Go ahead, try it on.”

“No,” Jody said.

Claire still held the shirt out, swinging it back and forth to entice her; annoyed, Jody had grabbed it and stuffed it back onto the rack. A woman passing by smiled, put her hands on Claire’s shoulder, and said, “My daughter and I argue like this all the time.”

“She’s not my mother,” Jody announced. “She’s my shrink.”

The woman averted her eyes and quickly slipped away.

And that afternoon, Claire had come in late and Sam was standing in the front hall, furious.

“Why are you home?” she asked.

“Your son had a doctor’s appointment!” he bellowed.

Claire didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Jake was supposed to go to the pediatrician at three-thirty. They called me at the office. You forgot. Don’t even try and tell me where you were. You were with her. I know, Claire. I’m not an idiot. This has gone too far. It’s out of control. Why are you letting her—”

“She’s not doing it, Sam — I am.” Claire paused. “I must have forgotten about Jake’s appointment. It was probably just for shots. I’ll take him tomorrow, I’ll call over there right now and make a time.”

When she reached for the phone, Sam blocked her. “It was for shots,” he said, pressing his face close into hers. “I took him. They said he might have a reaction, run a fever, to give him Tylenol. I looked and there’s none in the house. There’s not even any fucking Tylenol in this house, Claire! We’re falling apart. You’re ignoring us. I won’t let you do it to this family. I won’t let you.”

Adam, Jake, and Frecia stood there gaping. Jake’s sleeve was rolled up, and Claire watched him run his fingers back and forth unconsciously over the injection spot.

The phone rang, and both Sam and Claire grabbed for the receiver.

“Hello,” Sam said, snatching it away from Claire.

Claire pushed the speakerphone button.

“Hi, this is Tom Miller, the architect. I came to look at your apartment several weeks ago.”

“Yes,” Sam said.

“It turns out that my sister is moving to New York, and I’d like to have her see the place, if you’re still interested in selling.”

“We’re considering the possibility,” Sam said.

“She’ll be in from Boston first thing in the morning, so could I bring her by at eight? I realize it’s early, but she’s only in for the day and has meetings straight through.”

“Eight’s fine. See you then,” Sam said, hanging up.

“This is ridiculous,” Claire said.

“No it’s not,” Sam said, “but these are. They came today, for you.” He picked two boxes — one big, one small — up off the living room table and hurled them toward her. Mugs flew out of each; SAM, JAKE, ADAM, and JODY, all printed in bold red letters on white ceramic. Lillian Vernon had screwed up and sent everything directly to Claire. Sam’s broke in half, Adam’s lost the handle, Jody’s split into three, and only Jake’s was intact. “What the hell are you buying her a monogrammed mug for?”

“Belated Christmas,” Claire said.

Frecia pushed the children out of the room and then moved in to clean up the mess.

“We’re going to the beach this weekend,” Sam said. “You, me, and the boys. No girls. No one else. Us, that’s it. We rented the fucking house and we’ll fucking use it. It’s been almost a month since we were there.”

“Fine,” Claire said.

“Tomorrow morning I’ll meet that guy at eight,” Sam said, picking up his briefcase. “I’ll sell this place so fucking fast you won’t know what hit you.” Then he turned and stormed out of the apartment.

A few minutes later Gloria Owens called. “Sorry to bother you at home,” she said, “but I didn’t think you’d mind. Jim and I are in trouble. We’re fighting constantly. I was hoping we could come in for an extra session this week.”

“Hold on,” Claire said. “Let me check my book.” She put the receiver on the table, rustled the newspaper around, and picked up the phone again. “I’m looking,” she said, flipping through the Home section of the Times. “But I’m booked up until Wednesday, which is your regular time anyway.”

“Oh, well, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

“I’m glad you called,” Claire said. “If something opens up, I’ll let you know. Or if it’s an emergency you can always leave a message on the machine and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” Gloria said.

“Anytime,” Claire said, hanging up and dialing Bea’s number.

Claire hadn’t told anyone, but last week — after having told Claire how happy she was — Bea swallowed all of Herbert’s sleeping pills, then took a cab over to St. Luke’s and confessed. They’d pumped out her stomach, kept her for a couple of days, and, in conjunction with Claire, arranged for a psychiatrist to prescribe antidepressants. Claire felt guilty as hell.

“Bea?” she said when Bea’s answering machine picked up. “It’s Claire Roth, just calling to see how you’re doing. I’ll be home all evening if you want to call, otherwise I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

“You’re in trouble,” Sam had said later that night when he slipped into the bed. “Big trouble.”

As if she didn’t already know. Once Sam had said he liked the house, the second he’d rolled off of her after making love in their would-be bedroom and said: “I want it,” Claire had started hoping it wouldn’t work out. She couldn’t move, not now. Too much was happening. Everything she’d worked so hard for seemed on the verge of being destroyed. She’d made a mess of her career, her marriage, her life. She couldn’t be a shrink anymore, she knew that. Look at Bea. Thanks to Claire she’d ended up in the emergency room. Claire should have known better than to believe her when she said she was happy. How could anyone be happy?

A few fitful hours later, Sam was shaking her awake. “The architect and his sister,” he said. “They’ll be here before you know it.”

“What time is it?” Claire asked.

“Six-forty-five. If we want to sell, we have to clean up. You can start by making the bed.”

Claire rolled over and pulled the blanket over her head.

Sam went out of the bedroom and came back with the vacuum cleaner. “Get up,” he said, plugging it in. “And pull the sheets up with you.”

“I can’t be late,” Claire said, crawling out of bed. “I have a patient at eight-fifteen.”

“Cancel it,” he snapped.

Claire stood groggy and confused in the center of the room and watched him use a white crew sock to dust the top of the dresser. “Cancel the fucking appointment,” he said again.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You’re not seeing that Jody girl anymore. It has to stop.”

“Sam,” Claire said.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking, Claire, and it’s wrong. You’re wrong. Give it up. She’s not yours. You can’t be doing her any good by acting like she is. Think about somebody else for a minute.”

“You mean, think about you.”

“Cancel the appointment.”

“No,” Claire paused. “She’s special. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t care. I’m talking about you, Claire, about us. I don’t even know her.”

“Well, you certainly acted like you did at the skating rink.”

Sam shook his head in disgust. “We’re leaving, Claire. We’re getting out of here.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” Claire said.

“We’re having it. This has been going on far too long.”

“You’re not my boss. I’m the therapist. I should know what I’m doing without your help.”

“Do you, Claire? Do you even have a clue?”

She went into the bathroom, slamming the door. She brushed her teeth, flossed, then opened the door and shook her finger at Sam. “I’m seeing her, and will continue to see her until either she or I decide that it’s no longer necessary. You,” she said, pointing, “are fucking jealous.” She slammed the bathroom door again and got into the shower. “P.S.,” she said when she was out, sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her pantyhose. “My eight-fifteen is a fifty-five-year-old woman who tried to kill herself last week.”

In the lobby, at ten after eight, Claire ran into the architect and his sister. “My sister, Joan,” he said, introducing them. “She’s a social worker, so she has no sense of geometry, of how things should be. I thought she might like your place.” Claire nodded. Joan laughed.

“My husband’s upstairs, he’ll show you around. I have a patient.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“Therapist,” Claire said, pushing herself against the front door.

“How interesting,” Joan said.

Claire waved goodbye and stepped out. Bea was always early and would be waiting for her in the hallway outside the office. On a corner, at a red light, Claire tried to put up her hair; it was still damp, hanging in wet noodles, tickling her neck. Without a mirror, she had no idea of how she looked. It made her more nervous.

“Good morning, Bea,” Claire said as she stepped off the elevator. She slipped her key into the lock and opened the office door. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m all right,” Bea said, closing the door behind her.

“Are there any side effects from the antidepressants?” Claire asked, glancing at her answering machine. The counter flashed two messages; she was curious to know who they were from.

“My mouth is dry,” Bea said, her lips smacking together with the soft clicking sound one attributes to the heavily medicated. “But the doctor told me it’s normal. The body adjusts. Herbert called last night. He wants to take me out on a date. I do something stupid and all of a sudden he’s sorry.”

“Will you go?”

“Don’t know. I spent time in a mental ward because of him. A nice dinner out won’t fix that.”

She seemed less sure of herself than before. As she talked about Herbert, Claire considered whether it was a loss of confidence that made her seem emotionally absent or if it was the medication. That sometimes happened with psychotropics — people just disappeared. She wondered if she should be taking some herself.

When the session was nearly over, Claire asked, “How would you feel about you and Herbert coming to see me together in addition to our regular meetings?”

“You’d do that?”

Claire nodded.

“Oh, thank you,” Bea said. “I know I’m not supposed to say anything personal, but I bet your family is so proud of you. What I’d give to have such a smart, talented daughter.”

A fucking idiot, Claire thought. If Bea had any sense, she’d be angry with Claire; she’d blame Claire for the suicide attempt and get a new shrink. Instead she was taking the passive route, praising the devil.

“Tuesday evening at six,” Claire said, ignoring Bea’s compliments. The buzzer went off and Claire pushed the button to let Jody into the waiting room.

“I’ll have him here.” Standing up, Bea swayed a little on her feet. “A little dizzy,” she said. “The drugs.”

“See you Tuesday,” Claire said, walking her to the door.

“I didn’t know you did geriatric work,” Jody said after Bea was gone. “What happened to your hair — you start radiation or something?”

Claire raised her hand to the falling bun. “Not funny,” she said, trying to push things back in place. She closed the office door and took her usual seat. Jody looked sicker and thinner; her jeans puckered at the waist, gathered tightly by a thick brown belt. On her forearms was something that looked like a thick, raw rash.

“We have to have a serious talk,” Claire said. “I’ve been thinking that it might be best if you saw someone else. I don’t seem to be helping you anymore.” By now Claire was looking at the carpet. “Things have gotten beyond the point where I’m being useful.”

When Claire looked up, Jody was white, wordless, grinding her teeth against the inside of her cheek.

“We could still be involved in some way. We’d have to work it out. But I won’t abandon you.”

Claire fought the urge to confess that it was all her fault, that she’d done a terrible, crazy thing.

“I do think it might be useful for you to discuss the situation with someone else. I’ve made some calls,” Claire added, lying.

“How dare you,” Jody said.

“I’m trying to help. You need help.”

“You need help,” Jody said.

Claire didn’t answer. She was trying to pull back, to maintain some composure.

Jody pulled her video camera out of a bag, trained it on Claire, and started taping.

“Put the camera down,” Claire said.

Jody kept filming.

“Please put the camera down. It’s an intrusion. I don’t know why you’re doing this. Why are you doing this?” Claire waved her hand in front of the camera. “Is this an attempt to gain control?”

Jody still didn’t respond. Claire sat back in her chair, her left knee over her right and her arms in front of her chest.

“We’re not going to be able to continue until you put the camera away,” Claire said and then was silent, staring into the lens.

Jody continued to film her for a few minutes. Though acutely uncomfortable, Claire tried not to move or give any indication of her misery.

Finally, Jody lowered the camera. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she said.

“I want to do what’s best for you, Jody. I’m not helping you. Another therapist might be better equipped.”

“Something’s wrong,” Jody said, shaking her head. “Something’s very wrong. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but you’re driving me crazy. You’re killing me. Why don’t you just take a fucking gun, shoot me, and get it over with?”

In all her thoughts, in all her fantasies, it had never occurred to Claire that a daughter could turn on a mother, that a daughter could become a woman’s worst enemy.

The phone rang and Claire grabbed it. “Hello,” she said. “Hello.”

“It’s me,” Sam said excitedly. “We’re selling the apartment. They offered two-ninety-five, and I said yes. The realtor’s not in on the deal, so it’s all ours. You call the agent in Connecticut and offer two-eighty-five and call me back.”

“I’m with a patient,” Claire said flatly, trying not to give anything away, not to Sam, not to Jody.

“I’m here,” Sam said. “Call me when it’s over.”

“I will,” Claire said, hanging up.

Jody was standing.

“We’re not out of time,” Claire said. “The session isn’t over.”

“I’m done,” Jody said.

“Please sit down. Let’s make a time for tomorrow.”

Jody didn’t respond.

“Twelve o’clock. I have a break afterwards, so we can go out for lunch.”

“Bye,” Jody said, opening the door.

“See you tomorrow, then,” Claire said. Waiting until Jody was gone, she frantically flipped through her address book for the real estate agent’s number.

35

Pots and pans. In January Jody had made a trip to Macy’s, a rare outing. She’d bought pots and pans, thinking that eating properly was part of getting well. For months they sat shiny and unused on top of the stove. Now Jody stood in the center of her apartment and banged the eight-inch frying pan against her body with all the vim and vigor of a bell ringer. Slam for wanting, and slam for now expecting, slam, Claire to help her; for being stupid enough to let down her defenses, the punishment would be severe; she’d have to suffer. She smashed the pan into her ribs, testing the depth of her anger. She fixed the video camera to a tripod, turned the camera on herself, and recorded the howling and wailing, the clash of aluminum and copper against skin and bone. Only when her chest made a strange thin whistle as she breathed and her skin was too tender to touch, only when she was stupid with pain, did she quit. She played the tape back; it came off like a PBS documentary on upper-middle-class white women’s tribal dancing. She watched herself beating herself and was sick. The pots and pans left deep bruises, injury, but no marks of their own. Jody liked that. No one could argue that she was doing it to be noticed.

“She’s taking over my life,” Jody told her mother. “Invading my privacy, driving me over the edge.”

“You’re afraid to let her really know you,” her mother said. “You don’t like anyone to know anything about you. Your father and I always used to wonder what in the world you were thinking.”

“Mom!” Jody bellowed.

“You always were very private. Remember how nervous you used to get before I’d go in for those parent/teacher conferences? You hated anyone talking about you.”

“I caught her coming out of my building,” Jody said. “I have it on tape.”

“It was probably someone who looks like her. You always think you’re seeing people. In the hospital you kept saying Aunt Sally was in the room next door — and she’d been dead for seven years.”

“I had a fever of one hundred and four, Mom. I’m here now, feverless, in New York, and I’m telling you Claire Roth was in my building doing strange things. I told you — I have it on tape!”

Jody started crying. She didn’t mean to, it just happened.

“You know,” her mother said, “sometimes when people don’t feel well, it makes them a little crabby, a little suspicious.”

“I’m not paranoid. This is real!” Jody howled, sure the neighbors could hear her.

“Well, no one ever said you had to see her. It was your choice, Jody.”

“You’re not hearing me. She’s going to kill me. One way or another I’m going to end up dead.”

“Come on, honey, I really don’t—”

Jody slammed the phone down and tried to remember Harry Birenbaum’s number. Harry would understand. She dialed his number and got his machine. “It’s Jody. Jody Goodman.” She stopped. “Are you there?” She paused again. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Call me.”

At the newsstand on the corner a headline announced an article called “Firing Your Shrink: Sixteen Steps to Getting Out Alive.” She bought the magazine, ran home to read the piece, then noticed that according to the bio it had been written by a “prominent psychotherapist and NYU professor.”

Going to a therapist to talk about therapy. No one would believe.

“Come in, come in,” the shrink said the next afternoon as Jody stepped into his office.

He had a beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and a hooked nose. His office was cold, dark, and small, with one chair — the doctor’s — and a sofa that smelled moist. Jody perched uneasily on the edge.

“On the telephone,” he said, “you mentioned having some questions about therapy.”

“I’ve been seeing this woman. She used to be amazing, but now she’s driving me crazy. She’s making me want to kill myself.”

“Ah, you’re a lesbian.”

“No. My shrink. I’m talking about my shrink.”

“So you’re seeing another therapist,” he said. “Does he know you’re here?”

“It’s a she, and no — she doesn’t.” Jody thought maybe he needed a hearing aid.

“Well, you’ll have to tell him.”

“The reason I came to see you is that I need to get some distance, perspective. As I mentioned on the phone, I read your article and thought maybe you could help. The woman I’m seeing — my shrink — she calls me all the time, invites me to dinner, makes me go ice skating with her family.” Jody took a breath. “She came into into my building and stole my mail.”

“So, your fantasy is that she invites you … and then what happens?”

“It’s not my fantasy. It’s real.”

“I can assure you that I would never invite you anywhere or call you at home except to change an appointment.”

The session had hardly begun and already Jody wanted out. Claire was a genius compared to this guy, so what if she was torturing Jody? At least it wasn’t like being in a Three Stooges movie.

“It’s becoming very destructive. I feel like I’m being forced to do something drastic.”

“Do you dream about her?”

When Jody didn’t answer, he started in on a long discussion, more like a presentation, on the peculiar and sometimes perverse ways in which women relate. It was all too interesting to him — something that would make a great paper, another article for the magazine, or maybe even a book. As the clock ticked, Jody became more and more alarmed, convinced that she was sinking into something that she’d never be able to escape. She felt as though she were in a room where insanity divided exponentially and suddenly there was nothing left.

A bell went off, startling her. The shrink pointed to an egg timer on his desk and Jody realized that for the past twenty-five minutes she’d just been sitting there, daydreaming. “We’re out of time,” the shrink said. “I suggest you come back on Thursday.”

“I’ll check my schedule,” Jody said, going for the door. “I’ll call you.”

• • •

“Okay, you really want to know why you won’t help yourself?” Ellen asked. “It’s because you don’t think you’re worth it. You think you’re shit because some people have failed you. You’re looking for the perfect this, the perfect that — family, mother, whatever. The thing is, you’re never going to find it. It doesn’t exist.”

Jody didn’t respond. She gazed out the window and thought about hanging up the phone.

“You’re unrealistic. Instead of being happy with what you’ve got, you go to someone else, a substitute, a shrink. Fine, except your shrink’s crazy.” Ellen paused. “You have to learn to be what you need; to love yourself more than anyone else would ever love you. You’re the only one who really knows what you want.”

“And you’ve been reading too many new-age books. Discover your inner self and blah, blah, blah.”

“I’m telling you the truth and you don’t like it.”

“So, what if you’re right?”

“I have to put you on hold,” Ellen said.

Jody heard the week in weather, the forecast for Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Eagles song “Hotel California.” She fingered the pack of matches on her desk. Self-punishment. As if the whole thing were her fault from beginning to end. Every time Jody went to Claire’s office, she wore the marks of a new self-inflicted injury. It had taken Claire an unbelievably long time to catch on. The other day, when Jody went in with her face, arms, and neck covered with thin, bloody razor lines, Claire innocently asked what had happened.

“Nothing happened,” Jody said flatly. She knew it was crazy. It made no sense and still she did it. She did it again and again, as if externalizing her pain, literally painting it across her body, would either make it go away or get someone to notice.

“I don’t get it,” Claire said.

“Obviously.”

There was no way she could demonstrate her need any louder without sawing herself in half.

“You’re an idiot,” she had told Claire near the end of the session. “A total fucking idiot.” She rolled up her sleeves and flashed a thick, fleshy burn. “How do you think this happened? You did it. You did it to me and I did it to myself. I wish I’d never met you.”

Then she had pulled a pack of matches out of her pocket, lit one, and pressed it into her arm, extinguishing the flame on her flesh. She felt like a bad actress in a bad movie.

“Stop it,” Claire had said, slapping at the matches. “Stop it!”

There’s millions of matches in this world, millions of fires to set, Jody had thought as she slipped the matches back into her pocket.

“What you need,” Ellen said, coming back on the line, “is to get away from her, extricate. You didn’t come all this way to kill yourself, that’s for sure. Gotta go, I’ll talk to you later.”

The war escalated — over the phone, in Claire’s office, on the streets of New York. “How could you act like this after all I’ve done?” Claire screamed at Jody. “How could you even think of hurting yourself when someone cares about you as much as I do?” She threw her hands up in the air as if raising the question to the gods.

It was as simple and complicated as falling in and out of love. It was like the moment ten years into a marriage when you realize it’s over — but in a marriage you might stay, you might develop outside interests, build an addition to the house, take a leisurely trip around the world, have an affair. In therapy there was nothing except fifty minutes in that room.

“What do you want from me? Tell me,” Jody said when Claire called her for the third time in a single morning. “What do you want, blood?” Before Claire could answer, Jody hurled a glass against the wall and watched it splinter across the room. She had the urge to dance on the fragments, to roll in the shards.

“You need something I can’t give you,” Claire said.

“You made me need it — I gave myself to you.”

“And I to you,” Claire said.

“But I’m paying for this,” Jody said. “It’s costing me.”

“My twelve o’clock’s here,” Claire said. “I’ll speak to you later.”

“Yeah,” Jody said. “The highlight of my fucking day.”

Jody took the bus across town to Radio Shack. She bought a tape recorder, a dozen cassettes, and a little device that hooked up to the phone and recorded conversations. Video wasn’t enough. She had to start documenting everything Claire was saying and doing to her. This way, if something horrible happened, there would be proof that she’d been herded to the edge.

“You say she follows you around, lures you out skating, telephones you incessantly, and makes you feel as though you’re losing your mind?” Harry asked when the round of phone tag was finally over. In the background she could hear a zydeco band playing and, again and again, the clink of ice cubes against glass.

“Yes,” Jody said, excited that for once someone was going to understand. Though drunk, Harry listened patiently while she spilled the whole story.

“Has she got you good and gaslighted?” Harry asked when she finished. “Has she twisted you round and round like limp cherry licorice?”

“You could say that.”

“Have some sympathy, darling. Don’t be so critical of your elders. All she wants is what everybody wants — to get between some lovely young thighs.” Harry sighed, then belched.

If Jody had more energy, or if it had come from anyone but Harry himself, she would have hung up.

Harry wheezed a thick wheeze. “I’m too old to be so drunk. Forgive me, young one, forgive me. You said you had a story to tell. I am in a frame of mind to hear a story.”

“I just told it to you,” Jody said, depressed. “The shrink, the girl, my life.”

“Have you got another one?”

“No,” Jody said. “You’re plastered, Harry. It’s not like you to be completely incoherent.”

“It’s the gin. Bombay. And the heat. I’ve died and gone to hell.”

“Call me if you get to New York,” Jody said, and hung up.

Late that night, while she was sleeping, the phone rang. Jody heard it through her dream, as a bell or a buzzer. It continued to ring and finally Jody woke up, heart racing. As soon as she picked up, the new recording equipment clicked on, and somehow the even hum of the spinning tape cleared her mind instantly. “Hello,” she said.

“I was thinking about you,” Claire said.

“It’s one-thirty in the morning,” Jody said, looking at the glow-in-the-dark numbers on her travel clock.

“I feel very badly about what’s happening.”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“I’m trying to help you. Can you come in tomorrow morning? There’s something I want to talk to you about, something I have to tell you.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Nine-thirty. See you then.”

Jody fell back asleep and dreamt that Claire kidnapped her and took her to a high-class nuthouse somewhere in the Berkshires. At the last minute, at the entrance gates, everything turned around, and in the end it was Claire who they locked up and Jody who drove the car back to New York, exhilarated.

At nine-twenty-five she was in Claire’s office.

“I’m moving,” Claire said as soon as Jody sat down. “I thought you should know. I’m buying a house in Connecticut. I’ll keep the office here, but I’ll be less available. I’m not leaving you, just the city. I should’ve said something sooner, but it all happened very fast. I’m sorry.” She drew a breath. “I hope you won’t make this difficult.”

In her darkest, wildest, most depressing dreams, this was something Jody had never imagined. She felt her face change. She didn’t know if it turned red, white, or blue, there was no way of knowing. She just felt it change; the features caved in on themselves, mouth pulled tight, eyes narrowed.

“I hope you won’t make this difficult,” Claire had said. What did she think Jody would do — block the exits from Claire’s building, stop the movers from loading their trucks, hold the family hostage until Claire agreed not to go?

“It’ll be okay. I’ll be in the office three days a week. We’ll talk over the phone. It’ll be better, in fact. I’ll be more relaxed, more able to help.”

Jody continued to implode, her whole body drawing in on itself.

“Are you all right?” Claire asked. “Talk to me. I want you to say something.”

Jody lifted her shriveled face, her lips feeling as if they were glued together by thoughts unspoken, and stared at Claire. There was nothing to say.

“Now,” Claire said, “unfortunately, I have to see someone else, but I hope we can get together tomorrow. By then maybe you’ll be a bit more communicative.”

In a trance, Jody lifted herself from the chair and went home. She envisioned going into the drugstore and asking where to find the razor blades as innocently as she’d ask about toothpaste. She saw herself examining the razor blades, picking up a package of every kind to see where they were made, what the special features were, and how much they cost. What did it mean, what was the difference if you killed yourself with cheap ones instead of the fancy brands? Either way it would be over.

I’m going to kill myself, going to kill … It was like having people over for dinner — you had to shop for it. Jody went into a hardware store. “Can I get some help here?” she asked the pack of salesmen picking their teeth at the back of the store. “I want a rope.” One of them stepped forward, led her down an aisle, and handed her a small coil.

“What can you tell me about this rope?” she asked.

The man didn’t answer; he must have been working for the other side.

“How strong is it?”

“What do you need it to hold?”

A body, she thought. “A hundred and thirty pounds,” she said, but didn’t tell him that she hadn’t eaten a real meal in months, and didn’t weigh even a hundred and eighteen anymore, that it was probably closer to a hundred and five.

“This’ll do you,” he said, holding up a package that looked like twine.

“I’ll take nine feet of that one,” she said, pointing to a rope thick enough to hoist a piano. “Better safe than sorry.”

At the register, she waited for the guy to flip through a mystery list of people who weren’t allowed to buy rope. She expected him to ask for a permission slip.

“Four-fifty,” he said, putting the rope into a bag.

On the way home, she stopped in the local erotic emporium and bought handcuffs. She could pick up a clear plastic bag from the supermarket produce department, slide it over her head, and tape it around her neck with thick layers of duct tape. She could pour a gallon of gasoline into the tub, wrap the rope around the shower nozzle and her neck, slip the plastic bag over her head, and light a match. She imagined a loud whoosh, a hot flash, a kind of choking, and then nothing.

Why? Everyone would ask. There had to be a beginning to this end. Los Angeles, when Claire had called for no good reason. That was the marker, the sign of crossing over. But now, it was like being woken up to see yourself spread out on an operating table, your guts warming the surgeon’s hands. “By the way,” he’d whisper as he fingered your liver, your kidneys, “you know, I’m not really a doctor.”

“Do you want us to come up there?” her mother asked. “I could take a day off work. Your father and I would be happy to bring you back. You could live here. We’ll fix up your old room. You seem so unhappy up there anyway. Why don’t you come home?”

“No thanks,” Jody said.

“We love you very much. Why isn’t that enough?”

She didn’t answer.

“Claire Roth called. She’s worried about you hurting yourself. Is that something we have to think about?”

“You shouldn’t even be talking to her. You should be protecting me from her, not acting like you’re on her side.”

“There are no sides.”

“There are now.”

“We want to help you. You’re not acting like yourself.” Her mother stopped for a minute. “I think you’re still angry with me for not racing out to California the second you said you didn’t feel well. You have to realize that I’ve done the best I could, the very best I know how.”

“I can’t talk to you,” Jody said.

“All right then, call me when you’re feeling better.”

“Mother.” What a word, what a concept. There were secretaries, doctors, nurses, and housekeepers, but Jody wasn’t really sure there was any such thing as a mother. She slipped the tape of Claire at Patisserie Lanciani into the VCR, hoping to figure out exactly what had happened that afternoon. A close-up of Claire’s face filled the screen; you could see the pores, the features distorted by nearness. She watched Claire’s eyes — dead-on, intent — the face that sometimes seemed more than familiar, as if it were her own.

Jody but not Jody. A stranger yet as familiar as anyone had ever been. Ellen was right: it was up to Jody; her life was her responsibility, no one else’s. She fast-forwarded. Claire went by, streaking blue lines across the TV screen.

The telephone rang again and the machine clicked on.

“Jody?” her mother’s voice said softly. “Are you there? It’s Mom, can you pick up? … Jody.” The voice that had taught her the sound of her own name, that had called her every night of her life. “I’ve been thinking. If you don’t want to come home, maybe you’d like me to come there for a few days. We could do some things — buy you a few new clothes. You’ve lost so much weight I’m sure nothing fits. Would you like that? I’m here. I’m home. Daddy and I only want what you want.”

This was the woman who had loved her to the best of her abilities, however limited they might have been. She’d loved Jody to the limits of her fear. She’d taken a stranger’s child and claimed it as her own. How could Jody hope that her mother would magically become someone else? If Jody wanted someone else, she’d have to become that person herself. She thought of what the doctor had said when she was sick — that she wouldn’t be able to carry a child to term. She was at term now. She was her own.

She picked up the phone. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I’m here.”

“Sweetie, I’m climbing the walls. You know how much you mean to us, how important you are. We’re beside ourselves. Have you had dinner? Is there any food in your house?”

“Chinese,” Jody said, lying. “Chicken with broccoli and brown rice. Very healthy. Sauce on the side.”

“What am I supposed to think? What about Claire?”

“She’s overreacting,” Jody said. “I just need some rest. I’m very tired. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Well, take two aspirin and crawl into bed.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s good for you.”

“Mom, I’m fine. I don’t need to take anything. Go watch TV. Isn’t the ten o’clock news on?”

“If you need us, you’ll call?”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sleep well. Sweet dreams,” Jody said, hanging up.

It was time to be reasonable. Forgive and forget. Jody did it in her head; she said thank you and goodbye. She had listened to her mother’s voice, looked at Claire’s image on the TV screen, and felt herself moving past them. Finished, Jody turned down the volume on the answering machine, aimed the remote at the television, and pressed the Off button. The room dropped into silent darkness.

36

It began in Balducci’s. Claire bought crackers and cheese, sliced meats, cold vegetable salads, miniature éclairs and raspberry tarts. She envisioned a picnic, romantic and grand. She saw herself spreading a checkered tablecloth across the floor of her new living room, unpacking the green-and-white shopping bags, handing Jody a bottle of good wine and an opener, then leaning back against the wall and letting whatever was going to happen, happen.

Things had been going all wrong. What she’d hoped would pull Jody closer had actually pushed her further away. She would fix that now, once and for all. She would make everything all right. It would be the most wonderful moment, the moment she’d been waiting for.

Claire would pick Jody up at her apartment and they’d drive to Connecticut in the last light of a spring afternoon. They wouldn’t say much. The steadiness and calm of their silence would dissolve her own anxiety as well as Jody’s anger. Once they arrived at the house, they would be comfortable, pleased with themselves. Jody would think the house was great. She would realize there was still a place for her and that for Claire, Sam, and the boys the move was necessary. Soon she would understand that it was necessary for her as well.

Claire would carry in the supplies just before dark. The electricity had been turned on, but there were very few bulbs, so Claire would show Jody the house by candlelight. Then she would spread out the picnic as they talked — a conversation that didn’t lapse into accusations and failure. Night would come to Connecticut. They would be alone in the house. There would be no history outside the moment.

When Claire pulled up in front of 63 Perry Street, Jody was sitting on the front stoop, video camera in hand.

“Am I crazy to be getting in a car with you?” Jody asked as she pulled the door closed. “Why are you so dressed up?”

“Special occasion,” Claire said. “I’m taking you to see the house.”

“So, it’s like an S and M thing.”

In Claire’s fantasy Jody was less resistant, more willing to go along with things. “I’ve brought a picnic,” she said, looking at Jody. “Fasten your seat belt.”

“I didn’t know you had a car phone.”

“It was Sam’s idea. You know, guys and their gadgets.”

A steady rain started to fall as they headed up the West Side Highway. The tape deck was playing and they were mostly silent. Along the parkway the trees were green, thick with new leaves. Claire, not yet familiar with the route, turned on the headlights and drove slowly, leaning slightly forward in the seat. “What was the name of the street we just passed?” she asked.

“Thorn something,” Jody said. “You know, it’d be fine with me if we just went back now. This doesn’t exactly thrill me.”

“We’re here,” Claire said twenty minutes later, making one right turn and then another. She pulled close to the house and switched off the engine. “Can you get the bags out of the back?”

Claire fit her key into the lock. Besides the electricity, that was the one thing they’d done so far — changed the locks. The locksmith had insisted on dead bolts, a key on both sides. “Better with little kids,” he said. “You can control the traffic.”

Inside, Claire used her key again and locked the door behind them.

“Flashlight?” Jody asked.

“Candles,” Claire said, going through the bags, pulling out candles and the silver candlesticks that had been a wedding gift from Sam’s aunt.

Jody raised the video camera to her eye.

“You can’t hide,” Claire said. “I see you, I know you’re there. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“Not enough light,” Jody said, putting the camera down.

Claire smiled. “Take a look around.” She handed Jody a lit candle. “Four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a lot of work to be done.”

Jody wandered off through the house. “This is totally creepy,” she called from upstairs. “Don’t you believe in light bulbs?”

“It’s an adventure,” Claire said. “Besides, we obviously haven’t moved in yet. It’ll be really great once we’re all together.”

Jody came back into the living room, where Claire was unpacking things. “I hope you’re hungry,” Claire said, handing Jody the bottle of wine and the corkscrew.

“What are we supposed to be celebrating?” Jody asked.

Claire didn’t answer. She watched the candlelight play on Jody’s face, strange shadows dancing, and finished laying out the meal. Her throat was filled with a ball of words wanting to come out all at once. Claire swallowed, then handed Jody two wineglasses. “Pour,” she said.

They sat on opposite sides of the room, the picnic spread out on the floor between them. They ate in bits and pieces and spoke in fragments about the house, the city, anything but themselves.

The rain plunked against the windows.

“Jody,” Claire said softly, about an hour later, when the first bottle of wine was nearly gone, when all that was simple and easy had already been said. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

Jody sat motionless on the other side of the room. “I’m tired of talking.”

“Then just listen.” Claire pushed the tablecloth away, slid closer to Jody, and put her hand on Jody’s ankle. “In December 1966, in Washington, D.C., I gave birth to a baby girl. Three days later I handed that baby to a stranger and then went home. For nearly twenty-five years I’ve tried to go about my life, to forget that I’m the mother of that child. But I can’t.” Claire looked at Jody, checking for a reaction, but she was motionless. “Jody,” Claire said, squeezing her ankle, “you are that child.”

Jody pulled her leg away, drew her knees to her chest, and put her hand over her eyes.

“I am your mother,” Claire said, wrapping her arms around Jody.

Jody raised up the wineglass in her hand and brought it down hard on the floor, smashing the bowl, then dug the broken stem into Claire’s arm. “Don’t touch me,” she said, “or I’ll kill you.”

“I can understand that you might be angry,” Claire said, wincing as she fingered the gash on her arm. “Your whole life you’ve been waiting, and now I’m here, just like that.” Claire blotted the wound and again moved toward her.

“You’re not my mother,” Jody said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sweetie,” Claire said, kneeling in front of her, “it’s true. You and I both know it. That’s what these last few months have been about. I wouldn’t be surprised if on some level you’ve known all along. Maybe you got sick so I’d come back to you. It explains so many things. That’s why everything has been so confusing. But now the mystery’s solved. We can go on.” Claire paused and smiled. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

“You’re crazy,” Jody said, springing up, running to the door. “Why the fuck can’t I open the door!” she screamed, pulling at it.

“I have the key,” Claire said, coming up behind her.

“Let me out! Let me out of here!”

“Calm down. I want you to calm down. You can’t go racing out like a maniac.” Claire put her hand on Jody’s shoulder. “Stop,” she said. “Just stop.”

Jody whirled around, waving the stem of the wineglass in Claire’s face. “Leave me alone! This is your problem, not mine.”

She ran up the stairs, Claire chasing after her, and ended up locked in the bathroom with the broken tub.

Claire banged on the door. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. Come out, Jody. I’ll give you the key. Here, I’ll side it under.” Claire took the house key off her ring and tried to fit it under the door. “It won’t fit,” Claire said. “But it’s here, right outside the door.” She paused. “You’re free — you can go.”

Jody didn’t answer.

Claire rattled the knob. “I want you to open this door.”

“Just go away.”

“Sweetie, don’t do this. We can be happy now.” Claire sat down on the floor outside the bathroom door. The hall was narrow and dark. “When you were five,” she said, “on your first day of school, when your mother put you in a Florence Eiseman dress and walked you to your classroom, do you know what I did?” Claire paused. “Well, I went out the night before and bought you a pencil box, crayons, paper, Elmer’s glue, and a lunch box, all the things I thought you’d need. I stopped on my way home, bought a loaf of white bread, a jar of smooth peanut butter, grape jelly, strawberry jam, and then I made twelve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, trying to get it right, to make the one you’d really want — crust, cut in half, no crust, cut in quarters. A whole loaf of sandwiches. I wrapped them in wax paper and put them into the fridge, and in the morning, when your mother was getting you ready for school, I didn’t know what to do. So I ate them, all of them, one at a time.”

“I hate peanut butter,” Jody said.

“I’ve loved you so much for so long. Every year I’d buy you a present for your birthday; I’d wonder what you were doing and if you were happy. For twenty-five years I’ve thought about you and worried about you. How can you do this to me? Don’t you realize nothing can keep me from you? Not your resistance, and certainly not this door.”

Jody didn’t answer.

“What are you doing in there? I want you to tell me what you’re doing.”

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything. Leave me alone. You have to go away and leave me alone.”

“Come out and let’s talk. Can we do that?”

“Shut up, Claire, just shut up.”

Claire poked at her bloody arm, and thought about the broken glass in Jody’s hand. “What are you doing in there?”

Jody didn’t answer.

“Please, tell me what you’re doing.”

Claire imagined Jody working the stem back and forth against her wrists, her neck, sawing at her skin, splitting the veins. She imagined blood spilling onto the floor, traveling in thin rivers down the grouted paths between the tiles.

“Jody?”

There was no answer.

She pictured blood pooling in the sunken spots under the sink, in front of the toilet, and Jody slumped against the tub.

Claire stood up and threw herself against the door. “Say something!” she screamed. “If you don’t open this door I’ll have to call the police and they’ll break it down.” Claire waited for a response. “Jody, don’t make me do it.” She conjured the pulse slowing, the heart stopping.

She picked up her keys, ran down the steps, out the door, and to the car. Breathless, she picked up the car phone and dialed information. “Stamford,” she said. “Greenspan, Bert.” A classmate from Columbia, a guy she’d dated, head of a private hospital in the hills of Stamford.

“Hi, Bert, it’s Claire Roth.”

“Claire, hi. It’s been a while. Where are you? The connection’s terrible.”

“It’s my car phone. Listen, it’s an emergency, I’m in Glenville. I bought this house. It’s a long story, but a patient of mine is out here. She’s locked herself in the bathroom and—” Claire paused—“she may be suicidal.”

“You want to have her admitted to Seven Trees?”

“She’s not crazy,” Claire said. “But she’s very upset.”

“I’ll call and arrange it. Do you know how to get to us?”

“I can’t even get her to open the door.”

“Well,” Bert said, “we don’t have a livery service.”

They didn’t speak for a minute.

“Call the cops,” he said. “They’ll take her to the local hospital and we’ll get her transferred out in the morning.”

Claire didn’t respond.

“You’re wasting time. If she does something, you’ll be responsible. Call the police. It’s not like in the city — they’ll be there in a couple of minutes and they’re very good about these things.”

“You think?”

“I know,” Bert said. “Call the cops. We’ll talk later.”

“Thanks,” Claire said, hanging up and immediately dialing for help, knowing that if she stopped to think, she might not be able to do it.

“Police, fire, or rescue?”

“Police,” Claire said, looking up at the house through the wet windshield. “I’m a therapist. I’m calling about a patient.”

“An emotionally disturbed person?”

“Upset,” Claire said.

“Is there a crime in progress?”

“No,” Claire said, then gave the operator the address.

“Is it dangerous to enter the premises?”

“No.”

“Is the person armed?”

“She’s locked herself in the bathroom,”

“A danger to herself?”

“Possibly,” Claire said.

“Please identify yourself when the officers arrive.”

“Of course,” Claire said. “I’ll wait in the house.”

Claire ran back up the steps, ducking her head against the weather. The remains of the picnic were scattered all over the living room. Claire quickly packed up as much as possible. In the distance, she heard sirens. Soon lights were swabbing the front of the house through the low, uneven fog — red, white, blue. Claire hurried toward the door, thinking about the neighbors, embarrassed that she hadn’t even moved in yet and already there was this display. Her foot accidentally kicked a piece of glass, hurling it like a hockey puck into the fireplace.

“I’m Claire Roth,” she said, standing in the driveway, in front of the police cars. “I’m the woman who called.” A cop sat in his car, radio in hand, talking. Claire came closer. “Hurry,” she said. “Please hurry.”

The police, four of them, in foul-weather gear, stomped into the house and up the stairs to the bathroom. One of the cops banged on the door. “Police,” he said. “Open up.”

No response.

“If you’re able to open the door, I suggest you do it now. We’ll give you to the count of ten.”

“I think something’s blocking the door,” Claire said, wiping rainwater off her forehead, pulling her damp blouse away from her skin. “I tried to open it before and it felt like there was something there.”

“One … two …” the cop began.

“They do that,” one of the cops said. “They get this superhuman strength and they do things like rip the sink out and wedge it against the door.”

“… Eight … Nine …”

“There was one lady threw a refrigerator down the steps, aiming for her husband. Missed him, but got the poodle.”

The cops gestured back and forth among themselves, deciding who would knock down the door. One cop pointed to his back, shaking his head, and another stepped forward.

“Stand back, please,” he said, warning Claire out of the way. He handed his gun and his raincoat to the one with the bad back and then hurled himself against the door. He rammed it three times before the wood frame cracked and the door popped open.

Claire stood down the hall, her hand over her mouth.

Two cops charged into the bathroom and Claire rushed forward. She watched them tackle Jody, slamming her face into the floor. One cop sat on her legs, another on her back.

“Let me go, you’re making a mistake!” Jody screamed, her voice muffled. They pulled her hands behind her back and snapped the cuffs on.

“Stop!” Claire said, held back by the two cops just outside the doorway. “You’re hurting her.”

They lifted Jody to standing. Her arms were intact; no slit wrists, no punctured jugular. But blood was streaming out of her nose, down her chin, dripping onto her shirt.

“Your nose,” Claire said, “I think they’ve broken your nose.”

“Are you happy now?” Jody screamed. “Look at me! Who am I, Claire, who the fuck am I now? I don’t believe you, Claire. I never will. I have a mother. I don’t want you.” Jody drew in a breath. “You went into my building. I saw you. I have it on tape. You stole my mail. That’s a federal offense. And what did I do?” she asked, her voice escalating. “I locked myself in a fucking bathroom!”

Jody choked and blood splashed onto the floor.

“Why are you coughing up blood?” Claire asked, hysterical.

“Where were you? Did you miss something? They knocked the fucking door down. They smashed my fucking face into the floor.”

“Get her out of here,” one of the cops said. “There’s no point.”

“You should’ve opened the door,” Claire said.

“Why? I was just sitting there minding my own fucking business. I didn’t know it was against the law.”

There was blood in her hair, mucus on her face. She looked wild, crazy. Claire went into the bathroom, got some toilet paper, and moved to wipe Jody’s face. Jody turned her head away and the cops pulled her toward the steps. Going down, she tripped, and the cop behind her tugged on her arms. Jody howled. They led her out into the cold, wet night, shoved her into the back of a police car, and slammed the door. An officer started the engine as Claire stood watching. The lights went on, the car edged backwards.

Claire tapped on the glass. “Jody,” she said. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Everything will be all right.”

37

It was a warm Saturday in late May. Jody pulled a battered cardboard bankers box from under her bed and carefully unpacked the old reels of film and her father’s Super Eight projector.

The windows were open; she could hear people talking as they strolled down Perry Street. “You forget how big a city is, how much variety. Anything goes.”

The white space between posters from The 400 Blows and Apocalypse Now filled with images from Jody’s childhood. Eighth Birthday Party — Congressional Roller Rink, Rockville, Maryland. First Slumber Party — the Goodmans’ pine-paneled recreation room, bathed in the eerie, uneven glow of the Bell & Howell movie lamp, twelve little girls in sleeping bags arranged in a circle around the room. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus — the Greatest Show on Earth, Jody chosen by the clown to ride in his wheelbarrow. A reaction shot of her mother laughing, hands over her mouth.

Jody flipped through the film reels, trying to read the dates, the titles. With everything there was a story, a memory, a moment, fluid like the stuff of lava lamps, stretching and pulling, constantly reconfiguring itself. She threaded the film through the projector; the sprockets grabbed the leader, drawing it in; the bulb flickered.

Family Vacation — Rehoboth Beach. An orange bathing suit, a yellow flower cut out around her belly button. Every day the sun would brown the stencil; every night she would see the darkening of the flower, coming up on her belly, like a photograph developing.

Jody riding the waves for hours and hours on end, waving at her father, standing at the water’s edge, camera in hand. Jody coming up for air, her hair long, wet, and salty, calling, “Mom, Dad, watch me, watch me — I’m doing a somersault.” The three of them a triangle, two in love with the third.

The telephone rang, and she let the machine answer it. “Hi, I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number after the beep …” Silence. Not a hang-up, but silence. The caller was there, waiting. After thirty seconds, the machine turned itself off. It happened again later, and then again, and again, and always there was someone there on the line, waiting.

38

In the kitchen, taking down glasses, wrapping them one at a time in brown paper and fitting them into a box, Claire shook, not so much a tremor as a shiver.

“It’s the house,” Sam said. “You’re nervous about moving.”

It was the house. She never wanted to go there again. If Sam knew the extent of things, the extreme to which she’d gone, he might be forced to take some action.

Jody. She wanted to talk to Jody, but there was nothing casual, nothing easy in what she would say.

The movers came, wrapped the furniture in heavy blankets, and carried cardboard boxes marked FRAGILE/KITCHEN or JAKE/BEDROOM out of the building and down to their truck. From the tenth-floor window Claire watched her life being loaded into a moving van. And when the time came, she swept through the empty rooms, opened all the closets, took one last look around, and then closed the door. As in a funeral cortege, they followed the moving van slowly, steadily up East River Drive, over the Triborough Bridge, onto the thruway, and out to Glenville. At the house, Sam unloaded her, carried her in like a piece of antique furniture. The children laughed. She kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see where she was, where she had been. From now on there would be an impenetrable layer between inner and outer. Fixed in this pose, she would wait. Jody knew where the house was. When she was ready, she would come.

“Where do you want the sofa?” the movers asked.

“Here,” Sam said, leading them into the living room.

Inside, they began the process of laying on hands, touching each of the brown cardboard boxes and divining where it should go. Throughout the afternoon and on into the evening there was the thick sound of packing tape being torn away. As Sam struggled to find a place for everything, to make order out of nothing, Claire hovered nervously, moving from room to room gathering trash, wads of tape, newspaper, jamming empty boxes one inside the other.

Late that night, as Sam, Jake, and Adam slept, Claire lifted tomorrow’s clothes off their hangers and slid into them, gliding from room to room like a ghost, taking inventory, counting her possessions, her children, and then let herself out of the house, taking care to lock the door behind her.

In the country night, the roar of the cicada circus swelled. Claire hurried to the car and quickly backed down the drive. Headlights on high, she navigated the twists and turns of the dark and narrow Hutchinson River Parkway with determination, hugging the middle line, more than once catching the bright eye of a wild animal in her beam. Hutch to Cross County, Saw Mill to Henry Hudson; the lights of Manhattan and the G.W. Bridge, a warm and romantic welcome home.

The office was still, the air unmoved. She turned on a lamp, checked her appointment book, sorted the magazines in the waiting room, refilled the Kleenex supply, plumped the pillows on her sofa, and then sat down in her chair, ready.