you?” the policeman bellows at Jimmy Stewart, at me. “Give me your hand!” Then he loses his footing, plummets from the rooftop.
Strangely soothing.
Midway through the film, I pour myself a second bowl of cereal. Ed murmurs at me when I close the refrigerator door; Olivia says something indistinct. I return to the sofa, dial up the volume on the TV.
“His wife?” asks the woman in the jade-green Jag. “The poor thing. I didn’t know her. Tell me: Is it true she really believed . . .”
I sink deeper into the cushions. Sleep overtakes me.
Sometime later, during the makeover sequence (“I don’t want to be dressed like someone dead!”), my phone shakes, a little seizure, rattling the glass of the coffee table. Dr. Fielding, I presume. I reach for it.
“Is that what I’m here for?” Kim Novak cries. “To make you feel that you’re with someone that’s dead?”
The phone screen reads Wesley Brill.
I go still for an instant.
Then I mute the film, press my thumb to the phone, and swipe. Lift it to my ear.
I find I can’t speak. But I don’t need to. After a moment’s silence, he greets me: “I hear you breathing there, Fox.”
It’s been almost eleven months, but his voice is as thunderous as ever.
“Phoebe said you called,” he goes on. “I meant to get back to you yesterday, but it’s been busy. Very busy.”
I say nothing. Nor, for a minute, does he.
“You are there, aren’t you, Fox?”
“I’m here.” I haven’t heard my own voice in days. It sounds unfamiliar, frail, as though someone else is ventriloquizing through me.
“Good. I suspected as much.” He’s chewing on his words; I know there’s a cigarette speared between his teeth. “My hypothesis was correct.” A rush of white noise. He’s blowing smoke across the mouthpiece.
“I wanted to speak to you,” I begin.
He goes quiet. I can sense him shifting gears; I can practically hear it—something in his breathing. He’s in psychologist mode.
“I wanted to tell you . . .”
A long pause. He clears his throat. He’s nervous, I realize, and it’s something of a jolt. Wesley Brilliant, on edge.
“I’ve been having a hard time.” There.
“With anything in particular?” he asks.
With the death of my husband and daughter, I want to shout. “With . . .”
“Mm-hm.” Is he stalling, or waiting for more?
“That night . . .” I don’t know how to complete the sentence. I feel like the needle on a compass, spinning, seeking someplace to settle.
“What are you thinking, Fox?” Very Brill, prompting me like this. My own practice is to let the patient proceed at her own pace; Wesley moves faster.
“That night . . .”
* * *
That night, right before our car dove off that cliff, you called me. I’m not blaming you. I’m not involving you. I just want you to know.
That night, it was already over—four months of lies: to Phoebe, who might have discovered us; to Ed, who did discover us, that December afternoon I sent him a text meant for you.
That night, I regretted every moment we spent together: the mornings in the hotel around the corner, shy light peeking through the curtains; the evenings we’d swap messages on our phones for hours. The day it all began, with that glass of wine in your office.
That night, we’d had the house on the market for a week, as the broker slotted tours and I pleaded with Ed and he struggled to look at me. I thought you were the girl next door.
That night—
* * *
But he interrupts me.
“To be very frank, Anna”—and I stiffen, because although he’s seldom anything but frank, it’s rare indeed for him to call me by my first name—“I’ve been trying to put that behind me.” He pauses. “Trying and succeeding, largely.”
Oh.
“You didn’t want to see me afterward. In the hospital. I wanted—I offered to come see you at home, remember, but you wouldn’t—you didn’t get back to me.” He’s slipping on his words, stumbling, like a man striding through snow. Like a woman circling her wrecked car.
“I didn’t—I don’t know if you’re seeing anyone. A professional, I mean. I’m happy to recommend someone.” He pauses. “Or if you’re set, then . . . well.” Another pause, longer this time.
Finally: “I’m not sure what you want from me.”
I was wrong. He isn’t playing psychologist; he’s not hoping to help me. He took two days to call me back. He’s looking for an escape.
And what do I want from him? Fair question. I don’t blame him, truly. I don’t hate him.