Therapy

“What are you doing here?” Edward said. He was so stunned and let down at once that he might have added, And what have you done with Ellen?

“I came to talk to you. You wouldn’t listen to me on the phone.”

“God, Laurel, I told you there’s nothing to talk about.”

Her shoulders, all of her, seemed to droop. If she melted into a little puddle right there on the step, he wouldn’t have been surprised. “Edward, I’m dying,” she said.

“What!”

“I mean inside, I mean emotionally.” He sighed in exasperation and she said, “Look, could I just come in?”

He saw then that there was a car parked behind his in the driveway—a dusty red Fiesta, too scruffy to be a rental. She must have taken the Woods Hole ferry. Well, she could turn right around and take the next one back.

“I have to use your bathroom, anyway,” she said. “Please.”

He hesitated and then stepped aside, letting her go past him into the house.

She glanced around. “What a dump,” she said, Bette Davis–style.

He looked at her coldly. “The bathroom’s down the hall on the right. Second door.”

The water in the lobster pot was boiling, and he turned off the jet. The telephone rang and rang, but he didn’t answer it. He could hear the toilet flushing, and then the water in the bathroom sink run, and screech as it was turned off. The plumbing in the cottage was particularly noisy, as exaggerated as the sound effects in a school play.

When Laurel came out of the bathroom, he was waiting by the front door, with Bingo beside him, to usher her out. The dog, almost completely deaf now, had been asleep in the kitchen when Laurel had knocked on the door and come into the house. But he’d probably been awakened by the raucous plumbing, and had loped in to see what was happening.

When Laurel saw him, she stepped back, and Edward remembered that she was afraid of dogs. She had been bitten by a stray when she was a little girl, or had claimed to have been, anyway. He held on to the dog’s collar and said, loudly, “Bingo, stay.”

Laurel, somewhat emboldened now, said, “Bingo? Edward, really!”

“My daughter named him,” he said. “She was just a child.” Why was he offering her an explanation? Why was he talking to her at all? “He won’t hurt you,” he said, in an affectless tone. “You can leave.”

She still stood a few feet from him with her hands clasped at her waist, like a nervous student about to recite in class. “I know what I did,” she said. “It was terrible, it was worse than terrible. It was criminal. Over the years, whenever I let myself think about it, I wanted to die.”

“But you’re still here, I see,” he said.

“I’m a coward, too,” she said, and attempted to smile.

“I told you that I’m over it. It was ages ago.”

“After I left Joe, I actually got married.”

“Congratulations.”

“Edward, don’t,” she said. “It was spur-of-the-moment—a justice of the peace—or I wouldn’t have gone through with it. Allen Parrish, a nice enough guy. I stayed for about a month.”

“I don’t want to hear the story of your life,” he said. He looked at his watch. “And I’m expecting somebody.”

“I did try to kill myself. But I screwed that up, too.”

He was silent and she said, “I took pills and put a plastic bag over my head. The kind that’s stamped THIS IS NOT A TOY? Maybe I didn’t take enough pills, but I began to suffocate and I pulled the bag off.” Her hand went to her throat. Despite all the lies she had told him, he knew she was telling the truth about this.

“I went into therapy with this shrink in Phoenix, Aaron Steinman. He wanted to put me into the hospital, but I promised I wouldn’t do anything to myself and that I would show up every day. And I did—at seven AM, five days a week. Do you want to hear his diagnosis?”

Edward shook his head; he already knew that, or at least the gist of it. “How long did you see him?” he asked.

“For six years straight. And then on and off for booster sessions. I had a teaching job out there, decent health insurance. It strapped me anyway. But I finally found out why I was the way I was. Why I had to leave everybody before they left me. Starting with my parents, but they got the last word.”

“They always do,” he said.

“I’ve changed, Edward,” she said. “And I don’t just mean physically. I’ve finally grown up.”

When he didn’t answer, she took a deep, shuddering breath and swayed a little. “Do you think I could sit down?” she asked.

He ushered her into the living room, where she dropped into one of the two overstuffed chairs. He took the dog down the hallway to his bedroom and closed the door. Then he went into the kitchen and brought her a glass of water. Her hand shook a little when she took it from him. The cuckoo popped out and marked the hour, startling both of them. Seven o’clock. Edward sat down opposite her, on the other chair.

Laurel sipped the water and said, “I was going to write to you, but it seemed inadequate—pitiful, really. Hateful. I kept looking you up on those people-search sites, relieved that you were still alive, hoping that you were happy.”

“I was,” he said. “I am. I married a wonderful woman. I lost her, but I have children, a family.”

“Edward, I’m glad! I mean about you being happy, about your family.”

“You knew about them, though. I told you everything in that first phone call, when you were calling yourself Ann.”

“I started using my middle name. I guess I didn’t want to be Laurel anymore.”

“But you didn’t tell me who you really were.”

“You’d never have agreed to see me if you’d known.”

“You’re damned right about that. But you couldn’t drop it. Why couldn’t you just drop it? You even called Julie, my stepdaughter.”

“I did. I felt like some deranged stalker. And she was so sweet on the phone, as if she wanted to hook us up.”

The phone rang again, and again he didn’t answer it. “Laurel, do you want me to say that I forgive you?”

“Yes, but only if you really mean it.”

Everything she’d ever consented to had been conditional. “All right,” he said, “I forgive you. I was angry as hell, but I recovered. Okay?”

“You still sound a little angry.”

He clutched his head. “Jesus, what do you want from me?” he said.

“I guess I want you to believe how truly grieved I am, and to know that I ruined my own life when I walked out on you.”

For the first time he looked directly into her eyes. They were still that arresting gray-green color, her gaze as intense as he remembered. Why hadn’t he recognized her at the museum? “You were sick,” he said. “You don’t need forgiveness for something you couldn’t help. And I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad life.”

“But I’m better now. I mean right now, being here with you and hearing you say that.”

“Good,” he said, “so that’s settled,” realizing that he meant it, and that he felt relaxed for the first time since her arrival. “What time is your reservation?”

“What reservation?” she said.

“For the ferry going back.” That line from Edna St. Vincent Millay ran through his head: We were very tired, we were very merry—We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry … Bee and Julie sometimes recited, almost sang, it together as they sailed across the water to or from the Vineyard.

“I didn’t make one, I kind of left it open-ended. I didn’t know if you’d be home, if I’d have to wait for you …”

He knew it was hopeless, but he called, anyway, and of course the ferry was solidly booked. There was a cancellation for the noon trip the next day, though, and Edward took it in her name. “We’ll have to find you a bed-and-breakfast for tonight,” he said.

“All right,” Laurel said. “But could I take you to dinner first? I’m pretty hungry—famished, actually. I feel as if I left the city in another lifetime. Or are you still expecting someone?”

“Not anymore,” he said. She was always given to hyperbole—famished instead of hungry, freezing when she was merely chilled, half dead rather than tired. It used to amuse him.

“Do you still like lobster?” he asked.