“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.
29
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.
Melville pointed toward Federal Street.
“I love that street,” Ann said. While most of the McIntyre district had Federal period housing, Federal Street ironically had some of the earlier period homes.
“It’s actually the street behind Federal,” Melville said. “You want to come up for coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee,” she said. “But I’d love to see your place.”
He explained that it wasn’t really his place, that he was house-sitting. As they climbed the stairs, Bowditch snarled and barked and threw himself against the door.
“What the hell have you got in there?” Ann asked, having second thoughts.
“Wait till you see.” Melville smiled.
The minute he opened the door, Bowditch jumped on him and wagged his tail. Then he waddled over to Ann and sniffed her.
“Good puppy,” she said, laughing. “You’re a big faker.”
Melville walked her to the kitchen.
Old photos were spread out on the table, several of Finch and Zee in better times. An empty wine bottle sat upended in the sink.
“Yesterday was not one of my better days,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” Ann said, meaning it. It sounded as if someone had died. It was almost as sad.
“Whose place is this?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
“Someone I know at the Peabody Essex. He’s gone to China for the better part of the year.
“And you inherited Cujo here?”
“Bowditch,” he said.
“As in Salem’s famous navigator?”
“Nathaniel Bowditch. The very same.”
Bowditch raised his head as if he were being summoned.
“Sorry,” Melville said to the dog, who had started to stand up. “Stay.”
Bowditch sighed and put his head back down.
“He’s a good fellow,” Ann said.
“That he is.”
Melville went through the cabinets. “Good thing you didn’t want coffee,” he said. “I don’t have any.”
She laughed.
“Would you like some wine?”
“No thanks,” she said. “Water would be great, though.”
He poured them two glasses of water and sat down.
Ann was looking through the photos. “These are great,” she said. There were several black-and-whites that Finch had taken of Melville and Zee with his eight-by-ten camera and another, much earlier one from the same camera of Maureen and Zee. “Where did you get this one?” she asked, turning it over and noting the inscription on the back: Christmas 1986. Ann thought it was a bit odd that he would have a photo of Maureen, even if Zee was in it, too.