Sing You Home

ZOE

Lucy is drawing a mermaid: her hair long and twisted, her tail curled into the corner of the thick manila paper. As I finish singing “Angel,” I put down my guitar, but Lucy keeps adding little touches-a ribbon of seaweed, the reflection of the sun. “You’re a good artist,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “I design my own tattoos.”

“Do you have any?”

“If I did, I’d be thrown out of my house,” Lucy says. “One year, six months, four days.”

“That’s when you’re getting your tattoo?”

She looks up at me. “That’s the minute I turn eighteen.”

After our drumming session, I had vowed never to make Lucy meet in the special needs classroom again. Instead, Vanessa tells me which spaces are unoccupied (the French class that’s on a field trip; the art class that has gone to the auditorium to watch a film). Today, for example, we are meeting in the health classroom. We’re surrounded by inspirational posters: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS. And CHOOSE BOOZE? YOU LOSE. And a pregnant teen in profile: NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN.

We have been working on lyric analysis. It’s something I’ve done before with the nursing home groups, because it gets people interacting with each other. Usually I start by telling them the name of a song-often one they don’t know-and ask them to guess what it will be about. Then I sing it, and ask for the words and phrases that stood out. We talk about their personal reactions to the lyrics, and, finally, I ask what emotions the song produced in them.

Because I didn’t think Lucy would want to verbally open up, I started having her draw her reactions to the lyrics. “It’s interesting that you drew a mermaid,” I said. “Angels aren’t usually pictured underwater.”

Immediately, Lucy bristles. “You said there wasn’t a right and a wrong way to do this.”

“There’s not.”

“I guess I could have drawn some of those totally depressing animals on the ASPCA commercial…”

It has been running a few years now: a montage of sad-eyed puppies and kittens, with this song playing in the background.

“You know, Sarah McLachlan said the song was about the keyboard player for the Smashing Pumpkins, who OD’d on heroin,” I say. I’d picked this song because I was hoping to get her talking about her previous suicide attempts.

“Duh. That’s why I drew a mermaid. She’s floating and drowning at the same time.”

Sometimes Lucy says things that just leave me speechless. I wonder how Vanessa and all the other school counselors could have ever thought she was distancing herself from the world. She’d drawn a bead on it, better than any of us.

“Have you ever felt like that?” I ask.

Lucy looks up. “Like OD’ing on heroin?”

“Among other things.”

She colors in the mermaid’s hair, ignoring the question. “If you could pick, how would you want to die?”

“In my sleep.”

“Everyone says that.” Lucy rolls her eyes. “If that wasn’t an option, then what?”

“This is a pretty morbid conversation-”

“So is talking about suicide.”

I nod, giving her that much. “Fast. Like an execution by firing squad. I wouldn’t want to feel anything.”

“A plane crash,” Lucy says. “You practically get vaporized.”

“Yeah, but imagine what it’s like the few minutes before, when you know you’re going down.” I used to actually have nightmares about plane crashes. That I wouldn’t be able to turn on my phone fast enough or get a signal so that I could leave Max a message telling him I loved him. I used to picture him sitting at the answering machine after my funeral, listening to the dead air and wondering what I was trying to say.

“I’ve heard drowning’s not so bad. You pass out from holding your breath before all the really awful stuff happens.” She looks down at the paper, at her mermaid. “With my luck, I’d be able to breathe water.”

I look at her. “Why would that be so bad?”

“How do mermaids commit suicide?” Lucy muses. “Death by oxygen?”

“Lucy,” I say, waiting for her to meet my gaze, “do you still think about killing yourself?”

She doesn’t make a joke out of the question. But she doesn’t answer, either. She begins to draw patterns on the mermaid’s tail, a flourish of scales. “You know how I get angry sometimes?” she says. “That’s because it’s the only thing I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I’m really here.”

Music therapy is a hybrid profession. Sometimes I’m an entertainer, sometimes I am a healer. Sometimes I am a psychologist, and sometimes I’m just a confidante. The art of my job is knowing when to be each of these things. “Maybe there are other ways to test yourself,” I suggest. “To make you feel.”

“Like what?”

“You could write some music,” I say. “For a lot of musicians, songs become the way to talk about really hard things they’re going through.”

“I can’t even play the kazoo.”

“I could teach you. And it doesn’t have to be the kazoo, either. It could be guitar, drums, piano. Anything you want.”

She shakes her head, already retreating. “Let’s play Russian roulette,” she says, and she grabs my iPod. “Let’s draw the next song that comes up on Shuffle.” She pushes the picture of the mermaid toward me and reaches for a fresh piece of paper.

“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” starts playing.

We both look up and start laughing. “Seriously?” Lucy says. “This is on one of your playlists?”

“I work with little kids. This is a big favorite.”

She bends over the paper and starts drawing again. “Every year, my sisters watch this on TV. And every year, it scares the hell out of me.”

“Rudolph scares you?”

“Not Rudolph. The place he goes.”

She is drawing a train with square wheels, a spotted elephant. “The Island of Misfit Toys?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Lucy says, looking up. “They creep me out.”

“I never really understood what was wrong with them,” I admit. “Like the Charlie-in-the-Box? Big deal. Tickle Me Elmo would have still been a hit if it were called Tickle Me Gertrude. And I always thought a water pistol that shot jelly could be the next Transformer.”

“What about the polka-dotted elephant?” Lucy says, a smile playing over her lips. “Total freak of nature.”

“On the contrary-sticking him on the island was a blatantly racist move. For all we know his mother had an affair with a cheetah.”

“The doll is the scariest…”

“What’s her issue?”

“She’s depressed,” Lucy says. “Because none of the kids want her.”

“Do they ever actually tell you that?”

“No, but what else could her problem be?” Suddenly, she grins. “Unless she’s a he…”

“Cross-dressing,” we say, at the same time.

We both laugh, and then Lucy bends down over her artwork again. She draws in silence for a few moments, adding spots to that poor misunderstood elephant. “I’d probably fit right in on that stupid island,” Lucy says. “Because I’m supposed to be invisible, but everyone can still see me.”

“Maybe you’re not supposed to be invisible. Maybe you’re just supposed to be different.”

As I say the words, I think of Angela Moretti, and Vanessa, and those frozen embryos. I think of Wade Preston, with his Hong Kong tailored suit and slicked-back hair, looking at me as if I am a total aberration, a crime against the species.

If I remember correctly, those toys all jump into Santa’s sleigh and get redistributed beneath Christmas trees everywhere. I hope that, if this is true, I wind up under Wade Preston’s.

I turn to find Lucy staring at me. “The other time I feel things,” she confesses, “is when I’m here with you.”

Usually after Lucy’s therapy session, I go to Vanessa’s office and we have lunch in the cafeteria-Tater Tots, let me tell you, are vastly underrated-but today, she’s off at a college admissions fair in Boston, so I head to my car instead. On the way I check my phone messages. There’s one from Vanessa, telling me about an admissions officer from Emerson with an orange beehive hairdo who looks like she fell off a B-52’s album cover, and another just telling me she loves me. There’s one from my mother, asking me if I can help her move furniture this afternoon.

As I get closer to my yellow Jeep in the parking lot, I see Angela Moretti leaning against it. “Is something wrong?” I say immediately. It can’t be a good thing when your attorney travels an hour to tell you something.

“I was in the neighborhood. Well, Fall River, anyway. So I figured I’d swing by to tell you the latest.”

“That doesn’t sound very good…”

“I got another motion on my desk this morning, courtesy of Wade Preston,” Angela explains. “He wants to appoint a guardian ad litem to the case.”

“A what?”

“They’re common in custody cases. It’s someone whose job it is to determine the best interests of the child, and to communicate that to the court.” She shakes her head. “Preston wants one appointed for the pre-born children.”

“How could he…” My voice trails off.

“This is posturing,” Angela explains. “It’s his way of setting forth a political agenda, that’s all. It’s going to be knocked out of court before you even sit down in your chair.” She glances up at me. “There’s more. Preston was on Joe Hoffman last night.”

“Who’s Joe Hoffman?”

“A conservative who runs the Voice of Liberty Broadcasting. A mecca for the closed-minded, if you ask me.”

“What did he talk about?”

Angela looks at me squarely. “The destruction of family values. He specifically named you and Vanessa as being at the forefront of the homosexual movement to ruin America. Do you two receive mail at your house? Because I’d strongly recommend a post office box. And I assume you have an alarm system…”

“Are you saying we’re in danger?”

“I don’t know,” Angela says. “Better safe than sorry. Hoffman’s small potatoes, compared to where Preston’s headed. O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh. He didn’t take this case because he cares so deeply for Max. He took it because it gives him a platform to stand on while he’s preaching, and because it’s a current hook that gets him booked on these shows. By the time we go to trial, Preston’s going to make sure you can’t turn on the TV without seeing his face.”

Angela had warned us that this would be an uphill battle, that we had to be prepared. I’d assumed that what was at stake was my chance to be a mother; I hadn’t realized that I’d also lose my privacy, my anonymity.

“When you think about the lengths he’s going to, it’s laughable,” Angela says.

But I don’t find it funny. When I start crying, Angela hugs me. “Is it all going to be like this?” I ask.

“Worse,” she promises. “But imagine the stories you’ll have to tell your baby one day.”

She waits until I’ve pulled myself together, and then tells me to be at court tomorrow to fight the motion. As I’m getting into my car again, my cell phone rings.

“Why aren’t you home yet?” Vanessa says.

I should tell her about Angela’s visit; I should tell her about Wade Preston. But when you love someone, you protect her. I may stand to lose my credibility, my reputation, my career, but then again, it’s my battle. This is my ex-husband, my former marriage’s embryos. The only reason Vanessa is even involved is because she had the misfortune of falling for me.

“I got tied up,” I say. “Tell me about the beehive lady.”

But Vanessa is having none of it. “What’s the matter? You sound like you’re crying.”

I close my eyes. “I’m getting a cold.”

It is the first time, I realize, I’ve ever lied to her.

It takes my mother and me two hours to swap all the furniture in my old bedroom and hers. She’s decided that she needs a new perspective, and what better way to start each day than to see something different when she opens her eyes?

“Plus,” she says, “your window opens to the west. I’m tired of waking up with the sun in my eyes.”

I glance around at the same bedding, the same bedroom set. “So basically you’re your own life coach?”

“How can I expect my clients to follow my advice if I don’t follow it myself?”

“And you really believe that relocating ten feet down the hall is going to revolutionize your life?”

“Beliefs are the roads we take to reach our dreams. Believe you can do something-or believe you can’t-and you’ll be right every time.”

I roll my eyes at her. I am pretty sure there was a self-help movement not too long ago that followed that mantra. I remember seeing a high school student on a newsmagazine who subscribed to the philosophy and then didn’t study for her SATs because, after all, she could visualize that perfect 2400. Needless to say, she wound up going to a community college and complaining on television about how it was really all a load of BS.

I look around the room at my mother’s same old bedding, same furniture. “Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of starting over when you’re doing it with stuff you’ve had forever?”

“Honestly, Zoe, you are such a downer sometimes.” My mother sighs. “I’m more than happy to give you a little life coaching, free of charge.”

“I’ll take a rain check, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” She slides down, her back pressed to the wall, while I collapse across the mattress. When I look up, I see a freckling of glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling.

“I’d forgotten about those,” I say.

After my father died, I became obsessed with ghosts. I desperately wanted my father to be one, in the hope that I might find him sitting on the edge of my bed when I woke up in the middle of the night, or feel him whisper a shiver across the nape of my neck. To this end, I borrowed books from the library on paranormal activity; I tried to conduct séances in my bedroom; I sneaked downstairs late at night and watched horror movies when I should have been sleeping. My teacher noticed, and told my mother I might need help. The psychiatrist I’d been seeing sporadically after my father’s death agreed it could be an issue to address.

My mother didn’t. She figured if I wanted my father to be a spirit, I must have had a valid reason.

One night at dinner she said, “I don’t think he’s a ghost. I think he’s a star, looking down on us.”

“That’s dumb. A star’s just a ball of gas,” I scoffed.

“And a ghost is…?” my mother pointed out. “Ask any scientist-they’ll tell you that new stars are born every minute.”

“People who die don’t become stars.”

“Some Native Americans would disagree with you, there.”

I considered this. “Where do stars go during the day?”

“That’s the thing,” my mother said, “they’re still there. They’re watching us, even when we’re too busy to be watching them.”

While I was at school the next day, my mother hot-glued little plastic stars on my ceiling. That night, we both lay down on the bed and covered ourselves with my blanket. I didn’t sneak out of bed to watch a scary movie. Instead, I fell asleep with my mother’s arms around me.

Now, I look at her. “Do you think I would have turned out differently if Dad had been around when I was growing up?”

“Well, sure,” my mother says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “But I think he’d be pretty proud of the outcome all the same.”

After Angela left, I’d stopped off at my house. I’d gotten on the Internet and downloaded the podcast of Joe Hoffman’s radio program, where I listened to him and Wade Preston rattle off statistics: children raised by homosexual parents were more likely to try a homosexual relationship themselves; children of homosexual parents were embarrassed to let their friends find out about their home lives; lesbian mothers feminized their sons and masculinized their daughters.

“My lawsuit was on Joe Hoffman’s radio show,” I say.

“I know,” my mother says. “I heard it.”

“You listen to him?”

“Religiously… pun intended. I tune in when I’m on the treadmill. I’ve found that, when I’m angry, I walk faster.” She laughs. “I save Rush for my abdominal crunches.”

“But what if he has a point? What if we have a boy? I don’t know anything about raising one. I don’t know about dinosaurs or construction equipment or how to play catch…”

“Honey, babies don’t come with instruction booklets. You’d learn the same way we all do-you’d read up on dinosaurs; you’d Google backhoes and skidders. And you don’t need a penis to go buy a baseball glove.” My mother shakes her head. “Don’t you dare let anyone tell you what you can and cannot be, Zoe.”

“You have to admit, things would have been easier if Dad was here,” I say.

“Yes. I actually agree with Wade Preston in one respect: every child should be raised by a married couple.” She smiles broadly. “That’s why same-sex marriage should be legal.”

“When did you become such a gay activist?”

“I’m not. I’m a Zoe activist. If you’d told me you were vegan, I can’t say I’d stop eating meat, but I’d fight for your right to not eat it. If you’d told me you were becoming a nun, I can’t promise you I’d convert, but I’d read the Bible so I could talk to you about it. But you’re gay, so instead I know that the American Psychological Association says children raised by gay parents describe themselves as straight in the same proportion as those raised in heterosexual households. I know there’s no scientific basis for saying gay people are any less capable than straight parents. As a matter of fact, there are certain bonuses that come with being raised by two mommies or two daddies: compassion, for one. Plus, girls play and dress in ways that break gender stereotypes, and boys tend to be more affectionate, more nurturing, and less promiscuous. And probably because they’ve dealt with questions all their lives, kids raised by gay parents are better at adjusting in general.”

My jaw drops. “Where did you learn all that?”

“On the Internet. Because when I’m not listening to Joe Hoffman, I’m researching what I’m going to say when I finally back Wade Preston into a corner.”

No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it’s not gender that makes a family; it’s love. You don’t need a mother and a father; you don’t necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who’s got your back.

I imagine my mother going after Wade Preston, and I smile. “I hope I’m around to watch that.”

My mother squeezes my hand. She looks up at the stars on the ceiling. “Where else would you be?” she asks.

I lean over Lucy from behind and place the guitar in her arms. “Cradle it like a baby,” I say, “with your left hand supporting the neck.”

“Like this?” She turns in her seat, so that she is looking up at me.

“Let’s hope when you babysit you don’t strangle the kids quite like that…”

She lets up on her choke hold on the neck of the guitar. “Oh.”

“Now put your left index finger on the fifth string, second fret. Put your left middle finger on the fourth string, second fret.”

“My fingers are getting all tangled-”

“Playing the guitar’s like Twister for your hands. Take your pick between your right thumb and forefinger. Press down on the strings with your left hand, and with your right, gently drag that pick over the sound hole.”

A chord fills the small confines of the nurse’s office, the space we are occupying for our session today. Lucy looks up, glowing. “I did it!”

“That’s an E minor. It’s the first chord I learned, too.” I watch her play it a few more times. “You’ve got a really good sense of music,” I say.

Lucy bends over my guitar. “Must be genetic. My family’s really big on making a ‘joyful noise.’”

I forget, most of the time, that Lucy’s family attends Max’s church. Vanessa had told me months ago, when Lucy and I started working together. Most likely, they know Max and Wade Preston. They just haven’t done the math yet to realize their precious daughter is spending time with the Devil Incarnate.

“Can I play a song?” Lucy asks, excited.

“Well, with one more chord you can learn ‘A Horse with No Name.’” I take the guitar from her and settle it in my lap, then play the E minor, followed by a D add6 add9.

“Wait,” Lucy says. She covers my hand with her own, so that her fingers match the places where mine sit on the guitar. Then she lifts my hand off the neck of the instrument, and spins my wedding band. “That’s really pretty,” Lucy says.

“Thanks.”

“I never noticed it before. Is it your wedding ring?”

I wrap my arms around the guitar. Why is a question that should be so simple to answer not simple at all? “We’re not here to talk about me.”

“But I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know if you’re married or if you’ve got kids or if you’re a serial killer…”

When she says the word kids, my stomach does a flip. “I’m not a serial killer.”

“Well, that’s a comfort.”

“Look, Lucy. I don’t want to waste our time together by-”

“It’s not wasting time if I’m the one who asks, is it?”

This much I know about Lucy: she is unstoppable. Once she gets an idea in her head, she won’t let go. It’s why she picks up so quickly on any musical challenge I toss her, from lyric analysis to learning how to play an instrument. I’ve often thought that this was why she was so disconnected from the world when we first met-not because she didn’t care but because she cared too much; whenever she engaged, it was bound to exhaust her.

This I also know about Lucy: Although I don’t think she’s particularly conservative, her family is. And in this case, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. If she accidentally reveals to her mother that I’m married to Vanessa, I have no doubt our therapy sessions will come to a grinding halt. I couldn’t stand knowing that my own situation in some way negatively affected hers.

“I don’t understand why this is such a state secret,” she says.

I shrug. “You wouldn’t ask the school psychologist about her personal life, would you?”

“The school psychologist isn’t my friend.”

“I’m not your friend,” I correct. “I’m your music therapist.”

Immediately, she pulls away from me. Her eyes shutter.

“Lucy, you don’t understand-”

“Oh, believe me, I understand,” she says. “I’m your fucking dissertation. Your little Frankenstein experiment. You walk out of here and go home and you don’t give a shit about me. I’m just business, to you. It’s okay. I totally get it.”

I sigh. “I know it feels hurtful to you, but my job, Lucy, is to talk about you. To focus on you. Of course I care about you, and of course I think about you when we’re not meeting. But ultimately I need you to see me as your music therapist, not your buddy.”

Lucy pivots her seat, staring blankly out the window. For the next forty minutes, she doesn’t react when I play, sing, or ask her what she wants to listen to on my iPod. When the bell finally rings, she bolts like a mustang who’s chewed through her tethers. She’s halfway out the door when I tell her I will see her Friday, but I am not sure she hears me at all.

“Stop fidgeting,” Vanessa whispers as I sit beside Angela Moretti, waiting for the judge to walk into the courtroom and rule on Wade Preston’s motion to appoint a guardian ad litem.

“I can’t help it,” I mutter.

Vanessa is sitting directly behind our table. My mother, beside her, pipes up. “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”

Vanessa looks at her. “Who said that?”

“I just did.”

“But were you quoting anyone?”

“Myself,” she says proudly.

“I’m going to tell it to one of my AP students. He actually had his car detailed to read HARVARD OR BUST.”

I am distracted by the arrival of Max and his attorneys. Wade Preston walks down the aisle of the courtroom first, followed by Ben Benjamin, and then Reid. A few steps behind is Max, wearing another new suit that his brother must have purchased for him. His hair is too long, curling over his ears. I used to make fun of him when it got like that, used to say he was rocking a Carol Brady look.

If there’s a physical component to falling in love-the butterflies in your stomach, the roller coaster of your soul-then there’s an equal physical component to falling out of love. It feels like your lungs are sieves, so you can’t get enough air. Your insides freeze solid. Your heart becomes a tiny, bitter pearl, a chemical reaction to one irritating grain of truth.

The last person in the entourage is Liddy. She’s channeling Jackie Kennedy today. “Is she OCD?” Vanessa whispers. “Or are the gloves a fashion statement?”

Before I can respond, a harried paralegal rushes down the aisle with a hand truck and begins to stack reference books in front of Wade Preston, just like the other day. Even if it’s all for show, it’s working. I’m totally intimidated.

“Hey, Zoe,” Angela says, not looking up from the notes she’s writing down. “Did you know that the postal service almost put Wade Preston’s face on a stamp? But they gave up when people couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.”

In a flurry of black robes, Judge O’Neill enters. “You know, Mr. Preston, you don’t earn rewards mileage for coming to court more often.” He flips through the motion before him. “Am I misreading this, Counselor, or are you asking for a guardian ad litem to be appointed for a child that does not and may never exist?”

“Your Honor,” Preston says, getting to his feet, “the important thing is that we’re talking about a child. You even just said so, yourself. And once this pre-born child comes into being, the outcome of your decision is going to determine where he or she is raised. To that end, I think you should have some input from a qualified professional who can interview the potential families and prospective parents and give you the tools to make that decision.”

The judge peers over his glasses at Angela. “Ms. Moretti, something tells me you might have a different point of view.”

“Your Honor, a guardian ad litem’s responsibilities include interviewing the child at the center of the disagreement. How do you interview an embryo?”

Wade Preston shakes his head. “No one’s suggesting that the GAL talk to a petri dish, Judge. But we feel that talking to the potential parents will give a good indication of which lifestyle might be more fitting for a child.”

“Straw,” I whisper.

Distracted, Angela leans closer to me. “What?”

I shake my head, silent. The embryos are kept in straws, not petri dishes. If Preston had done his homework, he would have known that. But this isn’t about being thorough, or accurate, for him. It’s about being the ringmaster of a circus.

“With all due respect, Your Honor, the law in Rhode Island is clear,” Angela counters. “When we discuss what’s in the best interests of children during a custody battle, we are talking about children that are already alive. What Mr. Preston is trying to do is elevate the status of frozen embryos to something they’re not in this state-namely, humans.”

The judge turns to Wade Preston. “You raise an interesting point, Mr. Preston. I’m not sure I wouldn’t appreciate exploring that concept further, but Ms. Moretti is right on the law. The appointment of a guardian ad litem presumes the existence of a minor child, so I am going to have to deny your motion. However, as concerns this court, it’s in our best interests to protect innocent victims. To that end, I will hear from all the witnesses and take on the role of a guardian ad litem myself.” He glances up. “Are we ready to set a date for trial?”

“Your Honor,” Angela says, “my client is forty-one years old, her spouse is nearly thirty-five. The embryos have been cryo-preserved for over a year now. We’d like this resolved as soon as possible to ensure the best chances for a viable pregnancy.”

“It seems that Ms. Moretti and I actually agree for once,” Wade Preston adds. “Although the reason we want this brought to trial quickly is because these children deserve to be put into a loving, traditional Christian home as soon as possible.”

“There’s a third reason for this to be scheduled in a timely fashion,” Judge O’Neill says. “I’m retiring at the end of June, and I damn well don’t intend to leave this mess for someone else to clean up. We’ll set the trial date for fifteen days from now. I trust both sides will be fully prepared?”

After the judge leaves for chambers, I turn to Angela. “That’s good, right? We won the motion?”

But she is less enthusiastic than I would have expected. “Technically,” she admits. “But I don’t like what he said about ‘innocent victims.’ Feels slanted to me.”

We stop speaking as Wade Preston approaches and hands a piece of paper to Angela. “Your witness list,” she says, looking it over. “Aren’t you proactive?”

He grins, like a shark. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, sugar,” he says.

On Friday, Lucy is fifteen minutes late for our session. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt, since we have been moved to the photography studio on the third floor-a room that I didn’t even know existed. “Hi,” I say, when she walks in. “You had trouble finding it, too?”

Lucy doesn’t answer. She sits down at a desk, takes out a book, and buries her nose in it.

“Okay, you’re still mad at me. That’s coming through loud and clear. So let’s talk about it.” I lean forward, my hands clasped between my knees. “It’s perfectly normal for a client to misinterpret a relationship with her therapist-Freud even talked about it being a key to finding out something from your past that’s still upsetting to you. So maybe we can look constructively at why you want me to be your friend. What does that say about who you are, and what you need right now?”

Stone-faced, she flips a page.

The book is a collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov. “You’re taking Russian lit,” I surmise. “Impressive.”

Lucy ignores me.

“I never took Russian lit. Too much of a wimp. I have enough trouble understanding all that stuff when it’s in English.” I reach for my guitar and pluck out a Slavic, minor run of notes. “If I were going to play Russian literature, I think it would sound like this,” I muse. “Except I really need a violin.”

Lucy slams the book shut, shoots me a look of death, and puts her head down on the desk.

I pull my chair closer to her. “Maybe you don’t want to tell me what’s on your mind. Maybe you’d like to play it, instead.”

No response.

I reach for my djembe and put it between my knees, tilted so that she can drum on it. “Are you this angry,” I ask, striking it lightly, “or this angry?” I smack it, hard, with my palm.

Lucy continues facing in the opposite direction. I begin to play a beat, thump-thump-thump-THUMP, thump-thump-thump-THUMP.

Eventually, I stop. “If you don’t want to talk, maybe we’ll just listen today.”

I set my iPod on the portable speaker system and begin to play some of the music that Lucy has reacted to before-either positively or negatively. At this point, I just want to get a rise out of her. I think I’ve finally cracked her shell when she sits up, twists in her chair, and digs in her backpack. A moment later, she comes up with a ratty, crushed tissue.

Lucy tears off two tiny scraps of the tissue. She balls them up and sticks them in her ears.

I shut off the music.

When I first started working with Lucy and she behaved like this, I saw it as a challenge I had to overcome, the same way I faced challenges with all my other patients. But after months of progress… this feels like a personal affront.

Freud would call that countertransference. Or in other words, what happens when the therapist’s emotions get tangled up with a patient’s. I am supposed to step back and wonder why Lucy might try to elicit this anger in me. That way, I regain control of the emotions in our therapeutic relationship again… and, more important, I discover another missing piece of the puzzle that is Lucy.

The thing is, Freud got it all wrong.

When Max and I first met, he took me fishing. I’d never been, and I didn’t understand how people could spend entire days bobbing around on the ocean waiting for a bite that never came. It seemed silly, an utter waste of time. But that day, the striped bass were running. He baited my hook and cast the line and showed me how to hold the fishing rod. After about fifteen minutes, I felt a tug on the line. I’ve got one, I said, excited and nervous. I listened to Max carefully as he told me what to do-move rhythmically and slowly, never let up on the pull of the line-but then, suddenly, it went slack. When I reeled in, the bait was gone, and so was the striper. I was utterly deflated, and in that moment I understood why fishermen would wait all day to catch something: you have to understand what you’re missing before you can really feel a loss.

That’s why Lucy’s boycott of this session hurts so much more than it did at the beginning. I know her now. I’ve connected with her. So her withdrawal isn’t a challenge; it’s a setback.

After a few minutes, I turn off the music, and we sit out the rest of the session in silence.

When Max and I were trying to have a baby, we had to see a social worker at the IVF clinic-but I don’t remember the questions being anything like the ones that Vanessa and I are hearing now.

The social worker’s name is Felicity Grimes, and she looks like she didn’t get the memo that the eighties are over. Her red suit jacket is asymmetrical, with enormous shoulder pads. Her hair is piled so high it could function as a sail in the wind. “Do you really think you’ll stay together?” she asks.

“We’re married,” I say. “I think that’s a pretty good indicator of our commitment.”

“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” Felicity says.

I am nearly certain that, when Max and I met with the social worker, she didn’t question whether or not our relationship would stand the test of time.

“That’s true of opposite-sex marriages,” Vanessa says. “But gay marriage hasn’t been around long enough to really have any statistics. Then again, considering the lengths we had to go to to get married, you could argue we’re even more committed than the average straight couple.”

I squeeze Vanessa’s hand, a warning. I’ve tried to explain to her that, no matter how stupid the questions get, we have to just stay calm and answer them. The objective here is not to wave a rainbow banner. It’s to get a social worker’s check mark, so that we can move on to the next step. “What she means is that we’re in this for the long haul,” I say, and smile tentatively.

We had to fight the clinic director to begin the process of in vitro-in spite of the fact that a court order held the frozen embryos in limbo. She agreed to allow us to get the psychological components completed, and then-if the court ruled in our favor-to start Vanessa immediately on the drug regimen. But, she pointed out, if Max wanted Reid and Liddy to have the same privilege, she would have to give it to them.

We have already explained to the counselor how we met, how long we’ve been together. “Have you considered the legal ramifications of being same-sex parents?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’ll adopt the baby, after Vanessa gives birth.”

“I assume you both have powers of attorney?”

We look at each other. Unlike straight couples, if I were in a car crash and dying, Vanessa wouldn’t have the rights as my spouse to sit by me at the hospital, to make the decision to turn off life support. Because our marriage isn’t federally recognized, we have to jump through all these extra legal hoops to get the same rights-1,138 of them-that come naturally to heterosexual couples who get married. Vanessa and I had been planning to sit down with a bottle of bourbon one night and ask each other questions no one ever wants to have to answer-about organ donation and hospice care and brain death-but then we were served with a lawsuit and, ironically, asking a lawyer to draft a power of attorney was moved to the back burner. “We’re in the process of getting that taken care of.” It’s not a lie if we meant to do it, is it?

“Why do you want to have a child?” Felicity asks.

“I won’t speak for Vanessa,” I say, “but I’ve always wanted one. I tried for almost a decade, with my ex-husband. I don’t think I’ll feel complete if I don’t have the chance to be a mother.”

The social worker turns to Vanessa. “I see kids every day at work. Some of them are shy, or funny, or complete pains in the neck. But every single one of them is living proof that, at one point, their parents believed they’d have a future together. I want to have Zoe’s baby so that she can grow up with two mothers who have moved heaven and earth to bring her into this world.”

“But how do you feel about being a parent?”

“I’m obviously fine with it,” Vanessa says.

“Yet you’ve never expressed a desire to have a child before now…”

“Because I wasn’t with a partner I’d want to have kids with.”

“Are you doing this for Zoe, then, or for yourself?”

“How can you ask me to separate those?” Vanessa says, exasperated. “Of course I’m doing it for Zoe. But I’m also doing it for me.”

Felicity writes something down on her pad. It makes me nervous. “What makes you think you’d be a good parent?”

“I’m patient,” I reply. “I have a lot of experience helping people with problems express themselves in a different way. I know how to listen.”

“And she loves harder than anyone I’ve ever known,” Vanessa adds. “She’d do anything for her child. And I-well, I’m a school counselor. I have to believe that will come in handy eventually with my own kid.”

“She’s also smart, confident, and empathetic,” I say. “An amazing role model.”

“So Ms. Shaw-you work with teenagers. Did you ever babysit when you were younger? Have any younger siblings you helped raise?”

“No,” Vanessa says, “but I’m pretty sure I can Google how to change a diaper if I get stumped.”

“She’s also funny,” I interject. “Great sense of humor!”

“You know, I’ve come across a few teen mothers during my career,” Vanessa points out. “They’re close enough to childhood to remember it intimately, but I wouldn’t say that makes them better equipped for parenting…”

Felicity looks up at her. “Are you always this sensitive?”

“Only when I’m talking to someone who’s a-”

“What else?” I say brightly. “You must have some other questions for us.”

“How are you going to explain to your child why she has two moms, and no dad?” Felicity asks.

I was expecting this question. “I’d start by telling her that there are lots of different kinds of families, and that one isn’t any better than another.”

“Children, as you know, can be cruel. What if a classmate makes fun of her for having two mothers?”

Vanessa crosses her legs. “I’d go and beat up the kid who teased her.”

I stare at her. “You did not just say that.”

“Oh, fine. We’d deal with it. We’d talk our kid through it,” Vanessa says. “And then I’d go beat up the bully.”

I grit my teeth. “What she means is that we would speak to the bully’s parents and try to explain a way to get their child to be a little more tolerant-”

The phone rings, and the social worker answers it. “I’m sorry,” she says to us. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

As soon as Felicity Grimes steps out of her office, I turn to Vanessa. “Really? Did you really just say that to a social worker who is going to decide whether or not we get to use these embryos?”

“She’s not deciding. Judge O’Neill is. And besides-these questions are ludicrous! There are plenty of deadbeat dads in the world who are reason enough to glorify lesbian parents.”

“But the social worker has to give us the green light before the clinic will start any procedure,” I point out. “You don’t know how to play this game, Vanessa, but I do. You say anything and do anything you have to in order to get her to sign off on us.”

“I’m not going to let someone judge me just because I’m gay. Isn’t it bad enough that our relationship is being dragged through the court system? Do I really have to sit here and smile while Pam Ewing here tells me I can’t be both a lesbian and a good parent?”

“She never said that,” I argue. “That’s just what you heard.”

I imagine Felicity Grimes listening in on the other side of the door, and putting a big red X through our file. Couple can’t even see eye to eye during an hour-long interview. Unfit to parent.

Vanessa shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I won’t play this game like Max did. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not, Zoe. I spent half my life doing that.”

In that moment, the anger I feel toward Max bubbles up like blisters on my tongue. It is one thing for him to take away my right to use these embryos. It’s another thing to take away what makes me happy.

“Vanessa,” I say, “I want a baby. But not if it means losing you.”

She looks up at me as the social worker sails through the door again. “My apologies, again. Everything looks good on my end.”

Vanessa and I look at each other. “You mean we’re done?” I ask. “We passed?”

She smiles. “It’s not a test. We don’t expect you to have the right answers. We just want you to have answers, period.”

Vanessa stands up and shakes the social worker’s hand. “Thank you.”

“Good luck.”

I gather my coat and purse, and we walk out of the office. For a moment, we just stand in the hallway, and then Vanessa grabs me and hugs me so hard I am lifted off my feet. “I feel like I just won the Super Bowl.”

“More like the first game of the season,” I point out.

“Still. It feels good to have someone say yes instead of no.”

Her arm is draped over my shoulders as we walk down the hall. “For the record,” I say, “when you went to beat up that hypothetical bully? I may not have wanted to tell the social worker, but I would have been right behind you.”

“That’s why I love you.”

We’ve reached the elevator, and I press the button. When the bell sounds, Vanessa and I step away from each other.

It’s second nature.

It’s so that the people inside have nothing to stare at.

On Tuesday mornings I go to a hospice and do music therapy with people who are dying by degrees. It is brutal, soul-draining work. And yet, I’d far rather be there than sitting next to Angela Moretti again, this time for a hearing on an emergency motion that was filed by Wade Preston just before the close of business last night. Angela is so angry, in fact, she’s not even making lawyer jokes at Preston’s expense.

Judge O’Neill stares daggers at Preston. “I have before me an emergency motion filed by you asking to disqualify Angela Moretti as Zoe Baxter’s attorney, and a Rule Eleven motion to strike this motion, filed by Ms. Moretti. Or, as I like to call it, a whole bottle of Excedrin before noon. What’s going on, Counselor?”

“Judge, I take no pleasure in bringing this information to the court. But as you can see from the attached photograph, which I’d like to enter as Exhibit A, Ms. Moretti is not only a lesbian sympathizer… she is engaged in this deviant lifestyle herself.”

He holds up a grainy eight-by-ten that shows Angela and me, embracing. I have to squint to figure out where on earth this was taken. Then I see the chain-link fence and the lamppost and realize it is the high school parking lot.

Angela and I didn’t have a scheduled meeting that day.

Which means Preston has had someone following me.

Wade Preston shrugs. “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

“He’s right,” Angela says. “And this fallacious photo speaks for itself.”

“If this is what they’re willing to do in public, imagine what they do in private…”

“Oh, my God,” Angela mutters.

“It’s a little late to start praying now, darlin’. Clearly the defendant and her attorney are embroiled in an improper relationship that’s in violation of the ethical rules governing attorneys in the state of Rhode Island,” Preston says.

Ben Benjamin slowly comes out of his seat. “Um, actually, Wade? In Rhode Island, you can have sex with your client.”

Preston whips around and looks at him. “You can?”

I blink at Angela. “You can?”

Benjamin nods. “As long as it’s not in lieu of legal fees.”

Undaunted, Preston faces the judge again. “Your Honor, Rhode Island notwithstanding, we all know there are ethical standards in the practice of law, and a counselor would have to be morally bereft to have a relationship with a client that crosses the boundaries of propriety as indicated by Exhibit A. Clearly, Ms. Moretti is not fit to represent her client impartially in this matter.”

The judge turns to Angela. “I assume you have something to add here?”

“I absolutely, unequivocally deny that I am having an affair with my client, whose wife is sitting behind me even now. What Mr. Preston’s paparazzi witnessed was an innocent embrace that followed a meeting with my client, when she became distraught after learning about Wade Preston’s attempt to distort justice by filing a motion to appoint a guardian ad litem for zygotes. Although I completely understand why Mr. Preston would not recognize common human kindness when he sees it-since that presumes he is indeed human-he has completely misinterpreted the situation. In addition, Your Honor, this begs the question why there was someone taking a photograph of my client in the first place.”

“She was in a public place, in a parking lot, in plain view,” Preston argues.

“Is that a wedding ring you’re wearing?” the judge asks Angela.

“Yes.”

“Are you married, Ms. Moretti?”

She narrows her eyes. “Yes.”

“To a man or a woman?” Wade Preston interrupts.

Angela rounds on him. “Objection! This is completely unsupportable, Your Honor. This is slander and defamation-”

“Enough,” Judge O’Neill roars. “Motion denied. I’m not awarding counsel fees or sanctions to either party. Both of you, stop wasting my time.”

The minute he is off the bench, Angela crosses to the plaintiff’s table and shouts up at Wade Preston, who is at least eight inches taller than she is. “I swear, you malign my character like that again and I’m going to slap a civil lawsuit on you so fast you’ll be knocked into next week.”

“Malign your character? Why, Ms. Moretti, are you suggesting that being homosexual is an insult?” He tsks. “Shame, shame. GLAAD may have to revoke your lifetime membership card.”

She jabs a finger into his skinny lapel and looks like she’s going to breathe fire but, suddenly steps away and holds up her palms, a concession. “You know what? I was going to say fuck you, but then I decided I’d just wait for the trial to start, so you can go fuck yourself.”

She spins on her heel and marches through the gate, up the aisle, and out of the courtroom. Vanessa looks at me. “I’ll make sure she’s not setting his car on fire,” she says, and she hurries after Angela. Meanwhile, Wade Preston turns to his entourage. “Mission accomplished, my friends. When they’re running defense, they can’t mount an offense.”

He and Ben Benjamin walk off together, speaking in muted whispers. They leave behind the stack of books that shows up every time Wade Preston does, and Max, who sits with his head bowed in his hands.

When I stand up, Max does, too. There is a clerk somewhere in the courtroom, and a pair of bailiffs, but for that moment, everyone else falls away and it is just us. I notice the first gray glints in the stubble of his beard. His eyes are the color of a bruise. “Zoe. About that. I’m sorry.”

I try to remember what Max said to me the day we lost our son. Maybe I was on sedatives, maybe I wasn’t myself, but I cannot remember a single word of comfort. In fact, I cannot remember one concrete thing he ever said to me, not even I love you. It’s as if every conversation in our past has grown mummified, an ancient relic that crumbles into thin air if you get too close.

“You know, Max,” I say, “I don’t think you really are.”

For two more music therapy sessions, Lucy arrives late, ignores me, and leaves. At the third, I decide I’ve had it. We are in a math classroom, and there are symbols on the board that are making me dizzy and slightly nauseated. When Lucy arrives, I ask her how her day’s been, like usual, and, like usual, she doesn’t answer. But this time, I take out my guitar and play Air Supply, “All Out of Love.”

I follow that with an encore performance of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”

I play anything that I think will either put Lucy into a diabetic coma or make her rip the instrument out of my hands. At this point, I’d consider that a successful interaction. But Lucy won’t break.

“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “But you’ve left me no other resort than to pull out the big guns.”

I place my guitar back in its case and take out a ukulele instead. Then I begin to strum the theme song to Barney & Friends.

For the first three choruses, Lucy ignores me. And then finally, in one swift move, she grabs the neck of the ukulele and clamps down with her fingers so that I can’t play it. “Just leave me alone,” she cries. “It’s what you want anyway.”

“If you’re going to put words in my mouth, then I’m going to put some in yours,” I say. “I know what you’re doing, and I know why you’re doing it. I realize you’re mad.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Lucy mutters.

“But you’re not mad at me. You’re mad at yourself. Because against all odds, in spite of the fact that you were so damn sure that you would hate working with me and going to music therapy sessions, they started to work. And you like coming.” I put the ukulele down on a desk beside me and stare at Lucy. “You like being around me.”

She glances up, her face so raw and open that, for a moment, I forget what I was saying.

“So what do you do? You sabotage the therapeutic relationship we’ve built, because that way, you get to tell yourself you were right. That this is a load of bullshit. That it would never work. It doesn’t matter how you do it or what you tell yourself is the reason we’re in a fight. You ruin the one good thing you’ve got going because if you ruin it, then you don’t have to deal with being disappointed later on.”

Lucy stands abruptly. Her fists are clenched at her sides, and her mouth is a livid red slash. “Why can’t you just take a hint? Why the fuck are you still here?”

“Because there’s nothing you can do or say or any way you can act that will drive me away, Lucy. I am not leaving you.”

She freezes. “Never?” The word is like tempered glass, broken and full of beauty.

I know how hard it is for her to lay herself bare, to expose the soft center under that hard shell. So I promise. I’m not surprised when the tears come, when she collapses against me. I do what anyone else would do, in that situation: I hold Lucy until she can hold herself.

The bell rings, but Lucy makes no move to go to class. It crosses my mind that someone may need to use this space, but when a teacher comes in-her prep period finished-she sees Lucy sitting with her head down on the desk, my hand lightly rubbing her back. We make eye contact, and the teacher slips out of the room.

“Zoe?” Lucy’s voice is slow and round, as if she’s spinning underwater. “Promise me?”

“I already did.”

“That you won’t ever play Barney again.”

She looks at me sideways. Her eyes are red and swollen, her nose running, but there’s her smile. I brought that back for her, I think.

I pretend to consider her demand. “You drive such a hard bargain,” I say.