She’d spent days lying in the crawl space thinking of nothing but her growing suspicions. While her body throbbed around her, she withdrew into thoughts, accumulating theories into an overflowing bin in her brain. It wasn’t good when she got like this; she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on anything else. She ate aspirin (it was aspirin these days), chewing it to a paste and swallowing with a slight gag. She’d taken some of Winnie’s marijuana, too, from a little Altoids tin she kept in her toiletries bag under the sink. Juno had laughed out loud when she saw the six little joints rolled to perfection. She’d taken one without even thinking about it. Her pain these days superseded her caution. With the aspirin still coating her throat, she slipped into a haze of dull pain and unwelcome remembering.
Kregger was telling her that enough was enough. He was angry and he rarely got angry. Juno was fighting back, defending herself. This was her job, she insisted; everyone took their job home to some degree. Kregger looked at her in bewilderment. You cannot be serious, Juno, you cannot...
The vibrations from the door slamming roused her slightly. The alarm was beep-beep-beeping as it prepared to arm. She breathed deeply, the smell of the marijuana mercifully covering the other smells in the crawl space. She lit the joint again, dragging on it heavily, the paper sizzling. It hit her where it mattered—all around her pain, body and brain. Leaning back, she edged the joint out on a Coke can to her right, then propped it inside the pull tab.
As the pain abated, Kregger came back, his voice so clear it was like he was down here with her. She laughed at that: Kregger living in someone’s crawl space like a rat! Her laughter was short-lived, though; the rawness in her throat from the pot sent her into a fit of coughing that brought up blood.
It’s your career or me and the boys.
She spat into the dirt, out of breath, and leaned back. Her career or her family—that was the ultimatum her husband had given her. Entirely unfair, since Kregger got to have both. She’d said it, too, and he’d given her that look that said, you are crazy, and I don’t know who I married. You’re obsessed, Juno, can’t you see what this is doing to us? You’re sicker than your clients, you know that? You’re the one who needs help!
She hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t been able to spot in herself what she could so easily spot in others.
She’d known he’d wanted to leave her for years, in the same way she knew Nigel wanted to leave Winnie. When they began, they were in love, but problematic partners had a way of dissolving love faster than it could regrow. One step forward, two steps back. And then one day there wasn’t enough love left to cover the sins. He’d taken their boys and left. Juno didn’t feel as if she deserved that part. Sure, she’d fucked up her marriage, fucked up her career. She’d gone to prison for it, too, paid her dues. But they hadn’t visited her once, and there had been no one there to greet her on the day she left those prison walls, a little bag of her things clutched to her chest. She’d stumbled into the bright sunlight, her new reality hers alone to face. She’d tried to find them for a while, living in a halfway house. She’d called every single one of their friends, people who’d eaten her food, babysat her children. None of them would talk to her. Kregger was gone and so were her sons.
A few months after getting out of prison, Juno had once taken a bus to her old neighborhood and knocked on a neighbor’s door. The surprise on the woman’s face when she saw Juno standing there, wearing too-big blue jeans and a Reebok sweatshirt from Goodwill, had been so painful, Juno had recoiled, ashamed. Her hair was now a wiry burst of gray that she’d tried to wind into a bun with no luck. From her temples and crown, Juno’s hair burst forward in unruly coils. Did she look as alien to this woman as this woman looked to her?
“Juno, I’m not going to tell you anything.” Her old friend wouldn’t meet her eyes. Juno wasn’t surprised by this; she’d once had a client who’d come to her because she had a