ANNASOPHIA
Taking that tissue box from Rachel Hamilton’s outstretched hand feels unnatural. I cross my ankles and sink down to the floor again. I want to yank the box out of her hand. Rip out every tissue. Tear them to shreds. Toss the strips in her smug face. Stuff them up her nose. Down her throat. But. Adrenaline shakes my hand so hard I have to concentrate—hard, really hard—to wipe my disgusting nose. Behind me, Soshanna remains silent. I blow my nose until my head rings.
Rachel Hamilton sits in her chair, her feet hanging down like dead birds, and gives me no tells or signs or body language that reveals her thoughts or emotions.
My tongue—a foreign object—slurs my speech. “Are you thinking you should find another empty bed? One far away from other patients since I’m in a unique category of crazy?”
This is not going to work, I telegraph Soshanna. She gives me the saddest smile I have ever seen. Dammit, are she and Rachel in collusion?
“This—you as Alexandra’s therapist—not going to work.” I lift my chin.
“All right.” Rachel closes her notebook, slides forward in the chair, and puts her feet on the carpet. In one fluid movement, she stands, posture perfect, hand extended. “Good luck.”
There’s not a trace of sarcasm in her words, but my face stings as if she has slapped me with her open palm. I withdraw my icy hand first and place it on my scalding cheek. “Wait.”
She keeps walking, back to me.
Lightheaded, I struggle to my feet. “What about a recommendation?”
“I don’t have one.” She doesn’t turn or slow her pace. “I believe I’m the best therapist for your daughter. It wouldn’t be fair—to her or to another doctor—to bring them together.”
“Come on.” The wire-tight anger stirs in my gut. “In all the world—”
“I don’t know all the therapists in the world. Those I know, I would not recommend for your daughter.”
“You don’t even know her.” Legs wobbly, I get between her and the door. “You—”
“My flower garden’s waiting for me to weed it.” She brushes past me.
“But—” Mind whirling, I fall to my knees. Wrap my arms around her waist. Refuse to let her pass. Admit in some dark corner of my brain that I’m half out of my mind. Acknowledge to that ghost of myself—the cowed wife of Michael Romanov—that I’m too far from shore to escape the undertow pulling me and Alexandra out to sea. We’re drowning.
The tears start again. I can’t hold them back. My nerve-endings have fused into one huge porcupine-ball in the middle of my brain. I can’t reason. The black pain blots out everything but the acute sense of my lungs struggling for air. Deep below the pit of my stomach, the searing cold gnaws at my insides.
“AnnaSophia.” The sympathy in Soshanna’s croon penetrates my panic. She throws one of my arms over her shoulders and leads me to an armchair. “C’mon, kiddo. C’mon. You can do this. You’re a survivor.”
Her phrase picks up a rap rhythm that lulls me as she rocks and croons, croons and rocks. Bit by bit, sanity returns. The taste of dirty metal still coats my tongue, and my arms and legs weigh me down like anchors. But the pounding in my head decreases, morphing into a low buzz. Repeated blinking brings Rachel Hamilton’s unreadable face into hazy focus. Bathed in noon-day sunshine, she sits opposite me in a straight-backed chair.
Compassion flicks across her face and vanishes. She says, “Adrenaline crash.”
“Crashed and burned.” My voice booms despite my determination to speak normally. “I must resemble a corpse.”
“Not quite.” She smiles—or at least her lips twitch.
“You’re being shrinky.”
“You’re not very good at flattery.”
She’s right. I swallow. “I’m not—from all indications—very good at mothering, either.”
“Oh, m’dear.” She drops her notebook and pen, leans across the distance between us, and takes my hand. “I am sure you love your daughter. But it’s killing you to think someone else will take control.”
It’s not a question, and I resist the impulse to agree. Fifteen years with Michael taught me about control.
“Therapy’s not about control.” She lets that hang for a minute, but I press my lips together, waiting. She continues. “I work as your guide. I take the lead—in the beginning. But just for a little while. Until we find a path for the rest of your family, for your daughter, and for you.”
Despite my skepticism of charisma, hers draws me. As much as her words, her soothing tone pulls me like a small planet toward the sun. “What if Alexandra won’t work with you?”
“We shall see.” She releases my hands. “First, you and I must decide how to work together. We will both find that a challenge.”