Brunonia Barry - The Map of True Places

“We knew that was coming,” Zee said.

“I’ve been sending anyone new over to Greta. There’s one guy who keeps asking for you and saying he’ll wait.”

“What guy?”

“He says his name is Reynaldo. He’s evidently a referral.”

Zee knew the name. She had heard it before. But she couldn’t remember where. “A referral from whom?”

“I’m not sure. I can find out.”

“No,” Zee said. “It’s not important.”

“So what do you want to talk about today?” Mattei asked. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way in here to chat about the office.”

“I want to talk about Lilly,” Zee said.

“I was expecting that you might,” Mattei said.

Zee sat for a minute but didn’t say anything. Finally, and with difficulty, she spoke up. “I still don’t think her death was a suicide,” Zee said.

“All evidence to the contrary.”

“She didn’t leave a note.”

“Not all suicides do.”

“Maybe.”

“Your own mother didn’t leave a note.”

Zee stopped. “Why did you mention my mother?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t know how it happened. Lilly was doing better.”

“As is often the case.”

“No, this was different.” Zee could feel her face getting red.

“You’re angry,” Mattei said.

Zee nodded.

“At whom?”

“Right now at you,” Zee said.

“Who else?”

“At myself.”

“Why are you angry at yourself?” Mattei said.

“Because I could have stopped it.”

“How?” Mattei asked. “How could you have stopped it if you couldn’t see it coming?”

“I could have stopped him,” Zee said.

“Adam?”

“Yes, Adam. Who do you think I’m talking about?”

“How could you have stopped him?” Mattei asked.

“I could have insisted that the police do something,” Zee said.

“I think you have to let yourself off the hook for that. You did everything that could possibly be done. More, actually.”

“You think I crossed a line,” Zee said.

“Is that what you think?”

Many lines, Zee thought. She had attended the funeral. She had treated Lilly at home. She had given unasked-for advice.

Zee had also let the line blur between Lilly and Maureen, so much so that she wondered every day if she’d been objective enough, or if her wish to make this case turn out differently from her mother’s had made her too involved with Lilly’s case and that that involvement had somehow blinded her. The day she told Lilly that she had to leave Adam had been the turning point, the day Zee crossed the first big line. And the worst part of it was that she knew she would do it again. You were supposed to let the patient find her own course of action. But if it happened now, Zee would have tried to do more to stop it, not less. Which was another reason she had recently begun to question her choice of career.

“I crossed more lines with Lilly than you know,” Zee said.

Mattei looked at her, waiting.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zee said.

They sat silently for a while. When it was clear that Zee was not going to explain, Mattei spoke. “Losing your first patient is very difficult.”

“Are you telling me there will be more?”

“Probably,” Mattei said.

“How many have you lost?”

“A few,” Mattei said.

“How many?”

“Is that important to you?”

“Yes,” Zee said.

“Why?”

Zee didn’t answer. She knew that it was an attempt to make Mattei cross the same kinds of lines she had been crossing, and she knew that Mattei was wise to her tactics.

Mattei considered for a long time before answering. “Three.”

Zee felt immediately sorry. But at the same time, she was grateful.

“How do you live with that?” It was a sincere question.

“Day by day,” Mattei said.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” Zee said.

“You’re absolutely cut out for this,” Mattei said. “I wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t.”

She looked at her computer, scribbled down a name and number on a piece of paper, and slid it across the table to Zee.

“What’s this?”

“The shrink’s shrink,” she said. “He’s very good. I go to him myself on occasion. You need to talk to someone about this, and it can no longer be me.”

“Thanks,” Zee said, meaning it. The line they’d crossed had been blurring for years, and a new one had now taken its place. At this moment they were no longer doctor and patient, or even employer and employee. They were friends.

ZEE MADE AN APPOINTMENT FOR the following week with the new therapist. It went as well as could be expected, considering that it would take a while for him to get to know her. But at least she was talking to someone, she thought. After that first appointment, she stopped by the office to pick up some of her things as well as turn over some files to the people who were covering her patients.

It was a day for cleaning things out. Once she’d finished at the office, she headed over to Michael’s condo on Beacon Hill to clean out the rest of her things. She had arranged to do it on a day he would be out of town, so there’d be no chance of running into him. Zee had hoped to be done by rush hour, but she’d gotten a late start. By the time she had emptied her closet and made three trips down to the Volvo, it was five-thirty.

Finally finished cleaning out the closet, she walked through the house, looking around, surprised by how few things in the place were actually hers. There were a few CDs that she’d picked up in college, a few more books, and the cowboy coffeepot that Melville had given her. Everything else in the house belonged to Michael. It hadn’t seemed odd to her when she lived here, particularly since she had moved into his house. Still, it seemed strange now, as if she’d never really been anything but a visitor and, on some level, had never intended to stay.

Zee left her engagement ring in Michael’s top drawer. She had planned to leave a note with it, but she couldn’t find any words that didn’t sound wrong. She let herself out through the back door, leaving her set of keys on the kitchen counter so he would see them as soon as he walked in.

ZEE DIDN’T NOTICE THE RED truck behind her as she pulled out of the driveway, just as she hadn’t noticed it follow her out of her office parking lot, where it had been parked every late afternoon for the last two weeks. She turned from Joy Street onto Pinckney. When she got to Charles Street, she stepped hard on the gas to avoid a cross light. The engine sputtered as she floored it, and she made a mental note to have it tuned. The Volvo was the last car across as the sign changed to WALK, and Zee was looking ahead toward Storrow Drive. She had wanted to head north before the rush-hour traffic got too bad, but now she found herself in the thick of it. The light turned just as she cleared the intersection, and the red truck sat stuck halfway into the crosswalk, as pedestrians crossed both in front of it and behind.

IT WAS SCRABBLE NIGHT at the Salem Athenaeum, the historic membership library where Melville had worked for the last several years. Though he wasn’t playing tonight, he had volunteered to stay. After they finished, as Melville was locking the front door, he ran into Ann Chase. She was coming from the public library across the street.

“What are you doing on my side of town?” he called out.

“Slumming,” she replied, and since the McIntyre was probably the prettiest historic district in town, they both laughed at her joke.

“Where are you living?” Ann asked. She knew about the split, but she didn’t know the details.