“Hello, Megan. It’s Dr. Singer.”

“Oh, thank God! Thank you for calling me back so fast!”

“I was in a meeting, or I would’ve called sooner. You sounded upset in your message. What’s going on?”

I’m in the ladies’ room at the church, where I fled without saying a word of farewell to poor Coop, who must think I’m a lunatic. I chew my thumbnail as I pace back and forth in front of the row of sinks. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror because I’m frightened of what I might find lurking behind my eyes.

“I need your honest, professional opinion about something.”

“Of course. What is it?”

I stop pacing, close my eyes, and take a deep breath to calm my thundering heart. “Am I insane?”

Dr. Singer’s silence is almost as loud as one of Theo’s. It makes me nervous.

“Like, on a scale of one to ten, with one being a fully healthy, functional person and ten being the writer who tries to murder his family in The Shining, where do I fall?”

“In my professional opinion, I’d say you’re at two and a quarter. Perhaps two point five.”

Clammy with relief, I sag against the sink. “Really? I’m not even a three? That’s good, right?”

“There’s no such scale in clinical psychiatry, but I answered that way because you’re an accountant. I knew you’d appreciate my being exact.”

“Was an accountant. In my former life. Which no longer exists. Like most of the reasoning capacity of my brain.”

I laugh. It sounds crazy. I know it does, because in his most gentle I’m-dealing-with-a-cuckoo voice, Dr. Singer says, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

I start to pace again because it feels productive. Like I might be in control of at least this one little thing. I can’t control my thought processes, my fantasies, or the psychotic little voice in my head whispering impossible things in my ear about Theo Valentine, but I can march back and forth over this terrifically ugly brown tile.

“Um. God. Where to start?” This time, my laugh is nervous.

“Start at the beginning.”

“Okay.” I blow out a hard breath. “There’s this man.”

“Ah.”

I stop pacing. “What do you mean, ‘Ah?’ That sounds important.”

“May I ask you a few questions about this man?”

“Yes. Ask away.”

“Are you attracted to him?”

Oh fuck. “I’m…I’m…”

After it becomes clear I won’t add anything more, Dr. Singer says, “It’s all right to admit it, Megan. You’re not betraying Cass’s memory if you find another man attractive.”

I start pacing with renewed vigor. Back and forth I go, my heels clacking on the tile, my hands shaking, my armpits damp. “Let’s just say he affects me.”

“Go on.”

“He…we…I keep running into him everywhere. Everywhere. And, uh, there are a lot of things about him…many, many things…that sort of…remind me…” I suck in a breath and blurt it out. “Of Cass.”

“That’s normal.”

Dr. Singer sounds completely blasé. Meanwhile, I’m about to collapse onto the hideous brown tile and never get up. “Normal?” I shout. “It’s normal that a stranger reminds me of my dead husband?”

“Do you recall our talks about what might happen when you started dating?”

“I recall I told you I’d rather be fed limb by limb to a pack of wolves than start dating.”

Dr. Singer is unfazed by my snappy tone. “Indeed. And for five years, during the prime of your life, you refused to even look at another man. I counseled you that not allowing yourself the possibility of happiness again was unhealthy. I believe your response was ‘There is no happiness for me without Cass.’ So without knowing anything other than this new man ‘affects’ you, I can surmise from what I know of you, Megan, that you’re now paralyzed by guilt.”

Cold blasts over me, as if I’ve been doused with a bucket of ice water.

I whisper, “Guilt?”

“We’ve already established that you suffer from survivor’s guilt. Guilt for living when someone you loved so deeply is gone. Now it seems we can add guilt for feeling a normal, natural attraction to a man who isn’t Cass. Honestly, I’m surprised this didn’t come up sooner.”

No. No, this is too easy. Too simple. Guilt can’t be the explanation for everything I’m thinking and feeling, all this madness running rampant through my veins.

“But…there are all these things that can’t be explained…like the bear claw, and the sweet peas planted along the porch, and he knows how I like my coffee! And there was this painting of lightning that had his initials, and he put out a fire at my house—and the Denver omelets! The note that was Cass’s tattoo! May seventeenth!”

I’m not making sense. I’m also starting to worry Dr. Singer, because his tone changes to the stern one he used to use when he was insisting, for the nth time, that I get on antidepressants.

“Let’s talk about your panic attacks. Have you had any since you moved to Seaside?”

It feels like I’ve been utterly defeated when I mumble my answer. “Yes.”

“I see. And the nightmares? Insomnia?”

He sounds smug, the prick. I grind my back teeth together. “Hmm.”

“I’ll take that as an affirmative. And from what I gather from your mention of things that can’t be explained, you’re still having episodes of magical thinking?”

Ah, yes. The infamous magical thinking, at which my brain is especially adept.

“This is different,” I plead, sounding pathetic. “This man, he’s… There are too many things that have happened. It can’t all be coincidental. It can’t all be meaningless. Can it?”

“Megan, I want you to listen to me carefully. You survived an incredibly violent car accident that killed your husband. He died in your arms. The day of his funeral, you miscarried your child—a child you’d been trying desperately to conceive—and almost died yourself from blood loss. Subsequently, you were told the chances of conceiving again were virtually none.

“You were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression but refused medication that would help you cope. You dealt with your suffering like no other patient I’ve ever seen, with a combination of stoicism and plain old stubbornness I was unable, in two years of weekly sessions, to make even the smallest inroads toward healing. You embraced your pain because the alternative was to let it go…and in your mind, letting go of your pain meant letting go of Cass, the baby, and everything you’d lost.

“Now you’ve moved to a new town. You have a new home, a new life. There’s a new man you’re drawn to. And because you never worked through your grief, the only way your mind can cope with what it perceives as a betrayal of the bond you had with your husband is to try to convince you that this new man is your husband.”

Dr. Singer pauses, and it lends his next words more weight. “Subconsciously, you believe that somehow, through some magical combination of events, Cass has returned to you in the body of another man.”

There it is. The ugly truth, dragged out from the rock I’ve been hiding it under.

I’m breathless with the utter foolishness of it.

In a voice as dead as my heart, I say, “Tell me what to do.”

“For starters, make an appointment with Dr. Anders as soon as we get off the phone. I spoke with him earlier in the week, and he said he hadn’t heard from you.”

As if from far away, I hear myself say yes.

“And please—I’d like you to start Lexapro. It’s not a cure for depression, but it will help manage the symptoms. I can also prescribe something to help you sleep. You need help, Megan. There’s no shame in getting it.”

He waits patiently until I give him the name of the local pharmacy so he can call in the prescriptions. Then I listen with half an ear as he talks about possible side effects, dosage instructions, levels of serotonin, blah, blah, blah. By the time he stops talking, I’m exhausted.

“Thanks, Dr. Singer. I appreciate you calling me back.”

“You’re going to be all right, Megan. I promise. It’s a positive sign that you’re willing to start medication. Commit to your therapy with Dr. Anders, please. You’re a wonderful woman. You have so much life ahead of you. So much to offer. And remember, whenever you feel the need to talk, I’ll always be here.”

I’ll always be here.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I say flatly, “Thanks again. Bye.” I hang up and turn to stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are wild, my face is pale, and I’m still shaking. I think Dr. Singer wasn’t being honest when he said I was only a two point five on the nutso scale.

I’m a full-on ten. Maybe even an eleven.

“Megan?”

A gentle knock on the ladies’ room door makes me spin away from the mirror, my heart lurching. “Yes?”

“You okay in there?”

It’s Coop. Pull yourself together. Go face him. Try to act normal.

I smooth a hand over my hair, straighten my sweater, then plaster a fake smile on my face as I head to the door. I open it and find Coop standing there awkwardly, looking worried.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to disturb. Just makin’ sure you’re okay.”

“You should tell her how you feel,” I blurt, and instantly want to smack myself on the forehead.

Coop wrinkles his brow, confused. “Who? What?”

Well, the pitch has already been thrown. Might as well swing for the rafters. “Suzanne. You should tell her how you feel about her.”

Coop wears all his expressions the same way I do, like laundry hung out on a line for the whole neighborhood to see. Right now, his face registers astonishment and pain.

“Shit, Coop. I’m sorry. I’m not myself today. Ignore me.”

“You think she might…?” He leaves it hanging there, his eyes hopeful.

“I think she’d be a fool if she didn’t.”

That makes him look bashful. He shoves his hands into his pockets and contemplates his shoes. He says softly, “I’ve always…she’s just so…she’s outta my league, is what she is.” His small laugh sounds embarrassed. “I never worked up the nerve to ask her out in high school. I started datin’ my wife our senior year, got married pretty quick after that. The kids came.”

Coop squints into the distance. He shrugs. “Y’know. Life happened.”

“It keeps on happening too,” I say softly. “It’s never too late to start over.”

Until it is.

Coop shifts his gaze to me. His eyes take on a look of worry. “Theo told me to watch out for you. Said to make sure you were okay. Somehow I don’t think you’re okay.”

“Oh, Coop,” I say softly, touched by his concern. “I’m not even in the same universe as okay, but I’m surviving.”

“You gonna call him?”

Now it’s my turn to look into the distance. “I’m probably the last person he wants to hear from right now.”

“Trust me, you’re the only person he wants to hear from.”

Surprised by the vehemence in his voice, I shift my gaze back to Coop.

He says, “Look. I don’t know what the hell the root of all this is, this problem he has with you. All I know is that the thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.”

If that’s true, all the antidepressants in the world can’t help me.

I’m overwhelmed with sadness. “I told him to stay away from me, Coop. And I called him a coward.”

“Did you mean it?”

My throat tightens. The hot sting of tears prickles the corners of my eyes. “No. I was just…afraid, I guess. Afraid and confused.”

Coop settles his hand on my shoulder. “Call him. Leave him a message. Write him an email. Tell him what you just told me. Please, do it as a personal favor. I think it would help.”

Music swells inside the sanctuary. People begin to sing, their voices carrying past the closed doors. It’s a hymn, one I recognize well.

When I start to laugh—softly, brokenly—Coop asks, “What’s funny?”

“This song.”

“‘Amazing Grace’ is funny?”

“My mother sang it at my wedding.”

Coop frowns. “I don’t get it.”

I sigh, shaking my head. “That makes two of us. C’mon, let’s go inside before Suzanne sends out a search party.”

I link my arm through his, and we walk through a pair of double doors into the sanctuary. It’s packed with people. Everyone is standing, singing “Amazing Grace” so robustly, it’s like a group audition for a reality show about church choirs. I find Suzanne in the front row and give her a quick smile as I slip in beside her.

Standing behind a wood podium on a large, carpeted dais, the pastor is a woman in her mid-fifties with beautiful silvery-white hair. When the hymn ends and everyone takes their seats, she surveys the crowd with an air of serenity. Then she speaks in a voice that carries to the last row.

“Love isn’t born of the flesh. It’s born of the spirit, and so can transcend the bonds of flesh, and life, and time. The poet Rumi said, ‘Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form.’”

It isn’t until every head in the room turns toward me and two hundred pairs of startled eyes fix on my face that I realize I’ve begun maniacally laughing.