I tensed. I didn’t want him angry with me. I said, No, no, of course he’ll calm down. Of course you know what you’re doing! My foot played with a piece of broken sidewalk.
But he stared at me, his eyebrows too dignified for failure. His blue shirt seemed to be sticking to him. I turned protective. If you can’t talk about Gavin, I said, aren’t there others?
He shrugged and turned away, opened his car door, and got in.
It will work out! I called lamely.
I didn’t hear from him after that. At work we barely spoke.
One Friday — maybe two weeks after that conversation and a week or so before the picnic — the day was chilly, so I wore a jacket to work. When I left that evening, Frank’s door was open and I called, Goodnight! as I passed, but he didn’t answer. I went downstairs, left the building, and was almost at my car when I remembered the jacket. I had left it in my office. I would want it over the weekend. I turned back.
Now Frank’s door was closed, and I heard voices as I neared it. The sound of crying. In a rough, sarcastic voice, Frank was saying something I couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like break. Break, sure, the break, of course, the break! It was the tone that stopped me, a kind of wild rage. I didn’t know what he actually said — still don’t. Then I heard something more clearly. I guess the crying was quieter. You really are worthless, Frank said. I don’t care what happens to you.
I didn’t decide to open the door and walk in, I just walked in. Gavin was crying but standing up, his arms tensed, ready to strike; Frank was sitting at his desk. Gavin was small for his age, I realized, but he moved like a man as he faced Frank.
Frank looked up, startled. You don’t believe in knocking?
You scared me, I said.
So knocking isn’t required when you’re scared? His voice was heavy with sarcasm. Sorry, I didn’t know about that rule!
Gavin turned and dropped his arms. He looked embarrassed.
Gavin, I said, do you want to come with me?
He glanced from one of us to the other. No.
We can go now and tell Diane what just happened. Dr. Frank shouldn’t talk to you that way. She could assign you to a different therapist.
No, Gavin said.
I think you should mind your fucking business, Frank said. You have no idea what’s going on in here.
I know it’s not all right, I said.
Frank said, Gavin has made it clear that he doesn’t need your help. Right, Gavin?
Gavin nodded. I didn’t know what to do. I went downstairs, but Diane had gone for the day. I left the building, again without my jacket, and drove home. All weekend I tried to decide what to do. Finally I phoned Frank. I’m sorry I walked in on you, I said.
No, he said. I’m the one who should apologize. I understand why you did. I sounded insane. But I wasn’t — truthfully, I wasn’t.
Can we get coffee? I said. What he’d told me was a relief. I wanted to hear his explanation. I wanted to get back to what we’d had before. Somehow. I wanted what had happened to go away, and maybe he could tell me why I didn’t have to keep thinking about it, why I didn’t have to act on it.
I pointed out to myself that I had no way of knowing what went on between Frank and his patients. Maybe this was some kind of role-play, some kind of exercise. I knew it was harmful, but surely, I told myself, it would be better to persuade Frank that what he had done was not appropriate than it would be to tell Diane what I’d heard. He’d lose his job. Anyway, I’d heard clearly only part of what he said.
We met at a coffee shop. I suppose he knew that whatever else I wanted, I still wished to go to bed with him. When he came in, he leaned over to kiss me on the lips, then bought himself coffee and pulled his chair around to the side of the table, so we were shoulder to shoulder.
Who have you told? he asked.
Nobody.
I knew it! he said. You’re too smart to get upset about something you don’t understand. You trusted me, on some level. I was right to sign you up for the conference — we think alike, Jen. We’ve got a good future.
Is the conference still on?
Well, Gavin didn’t want to go downstairs and tell Diane I was yelling at him, did he?
I said slowly, He was too scared of you to be honest with me.
No, Frank said. I think I understand Gavin. Anger is ordinary to him. He knows I’ll scream at him when I’m angry — he gets that. I respect him enough to tell him candidly what I think.
That he’s worthless?
At that moment, when he was saying no to me? Yes, that’s what I thought. I don’t always think that. He knows I don’t always think that.
I let myself believe him. Coffee turned into dinner and dinner turned into bed. I’m glad we’re colleagues, Frank said as we headed into my apartment. I’m glad we’re lovers, don’t get me wrong — but I’m even gladder that we’re colleagues. Which of course was the most romantic thing he could have said to me.
I phoned Frank twice in the hours after the picnic, when he and Gavin didn’t return. Leaving for the day, I stopped at Diane’s office. Her eyes were heavy and she seemed small and rumpled behind her desk. She said, I don’t even know his cell.
I gave her Frank’s number and she called him, but he didn’t pick up. She left a message asking him to phone her, as I had.
I didn’t tell Diane I intended to drive back to the park. It was still raining. There was traffic on the Q-Bridge and then it took me a long time to drive through the neighborhood that bordered the Sound. Everything seemed deserted when I parked in the lot where the bus had been. It wasn’t dark yet. Frank’s truck remained in the other parking lot, the trailer behind it, still without the boat.
I pulled up the hood of my windbreaker and set off toward the pavilion, the lighthouse, and the shore. The rain obscured the buildings across the harbor. The wind was stronger than before. As I approached the top of the slope above the water, I saw the boat rocking in the same place. I took out my phone and called Frank again, and while it was ringing, I caught sight of him. He was on the shore, at a distance, head down, in a raincoat I didn’t remember. It must have been in the truck. He made slow progress. He was dragging something — something heavy — and then he bent as if to lift it. He laid it on the ground and stopped, bending his knees in a way he sometimes did; he said it relieved the pressure in his back. I didn’t leave a voice mail. Instead I hung up, then used my phone to take a picture of him. But he was too far from me; nothing would show. I stepped back from the edge of the hill.
He had been struggling forward, I saw, for a long time. I didn’t know if the burden he dragged was Gavin. If it was Gavin, I didn’t think Frank would have shot him. Maybe he’d stuffed pills down Gavin’s throat, without water, as he stuffed them down his own, and Gavin was unconscious. Was it that hard to subdue him? And why was Frank walking on the shore, not toward his truck? He stopped again to rest, then dragged whatever it was a few more feet. He was heading toward his boat.
The next time he stopped, I phoned him again, and this time he answered. Frank, I said, what’s going on?
I can’t find him, Frank said. I don’t know why I was so sure. I feel terrible.
I took a few steps back. Should I call the police?