as long as I thought. What are you doing in my office?” I say. “Whose file is that?”
“I’m …” She looks down.
I close the space between us with wide steps and snatch the file, enjoying her slight recoil. It belongs to a former patient, Kerry Wallace, who committed suicide several years ago.
“Why were you looking at this?” I say. Ellie’s perfume is cloyingly sweet, and I want her out of my office. But I also want an explanation.
“I wasn’t. I was putting away another file and dropped that one, so I had to pick it all up and reorganize it. It was easier to just sit down.” Inching her way toward the door, she wipes at her reddened eyes. “Sorry, my allergies are acting up.”
Is that what I saw? Something doesn’t feel right. “Wait, please,” I say, stopping her in the doorway.
She turns slowly.
“What file were you putting away?” I say. She toes the carpet. She knows I know she’s lying. “Just tell me the truth.”
Her shoulders slump as she exhales. “There wasn’t a file. I came in to look at Kerry’s, to read the notes. I was hoping I’d be done before you got here. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but I just wanted a quick look.”
I frown, my top lip curling. “I don’t understand. Why would you want to read my notes?”
“Because Kerry is—was—my cousin,” she says.
Confusion gives way to a bit of clarity. “Your cousin was my patient?”
“Yes,” she says. “I wanted to ask you about her, but I was afraid. And I knew you couldn’t legally tell me anything.”
“Is that why you took the job here?”
She shakes her head hard enough to pendulum her ponytail. “No, uh-uh. I promise. I swear I didn’t know at first you were her doctor. My aunt never said your name. A few weeks ago I was at her house and I saw an old calendar. Your name was there, and so I …”
I gesture to the chair and she takes it, gaze down at her folded hands. When I unlock my desk, the half-heart is in the top drawer, chain coiled around it, as I left it. “So you decided to sneak in here this morning and read her file,” I say.
Her chin jerks up. She swallows. “I … yes.” The tip of her shoes makes another small circle on the floor. “I tried to look a couple other times, too,” she says, emotion thickening her words. “I thought you knew—I left dirt on the rug because I knocked my plant over like you did that one time and stepped in the mess—but then you didn’t say anything, so I … I know it was wrong, but Kerry’s parents, my aunt and uncle, it tore them apart. I thought if I could find something, anything, maybe it would help. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, not really. I just—”
“Take a deep breath,” I say. “Now take another. Good.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to do something.” She holds out her arms, lets them fall back down.
“Sometimes there isn’t anything anyone can do,” I say, as kindly as I can.
“The kids at her school were cruel, and nothing ever happened to them. Nothing.” Ellie’s words dissolve into tears.
The kids were cruel. I remember the hurt in Kerry’s eyes when we spoke of them. A hurt she couldn’t escape. I remember hating the kids who’d wounded her so. I also remember reminding myself they were children, too. I offer Ellie a tissue and close my office door. Twenty minutes later, I have her smiling through her pain. Stories about her cousin in happier days. Stories that can’t erase what happened but remind her Kerry’s life hadn’t always been terrible. By this point, Ellie’s gone through half a box of tissue, and she surprises me with a hug. I stand with stick-figure arms, then embrace her back.
“Thank you so much, Dr. Cole, and I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
When she leaves, I sit cradling my wrist. Maybe I should still be mad at her for sneaking in, but I’m more relieved that I helped her. A sudden wash of sorrow fogs my vision. How long has it been since I felt this way?
* * *
When I come back from lunch, sitting in the middle of my desk is a small package the size of a trade paperback, wrapped in brown paper. Generic brown paper. Black ink. Now-familiar handwriting. Inside the box, beneath a