“Let us just finish this conversation,” Wayne said.

“It will never end,” Diane said.

“I just want to make this one point,” Phil began. “If—”

“No,” Lina interrupted, coming to her feet. “Dance with me.” She held out her hand.

As Phil pressed his body to the length of hers, leading her around the patio, their bodies swaying to the beat of the music, Lina forgot where they were, so when the song ended and there was light applause and whistling from the other couples she was momentarily surprised. And when Phil dipped her backwards and kissed her until her knees were weak she was even more surprised. “We’re in public,” she said breathlessly when he finally lifted his head.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Gina Smith said to Lina after the men disappeared to the other side of the deck to enjoy cigars. “After all these years, you still act like you’re in love.”

“We are in love.” Lina’s gaze traveled to Phil, who was laughing at something one of the other men had said.

“We are too,” Diane insisted. “But with you and Phil it’s out there on display. You just have to look at the two of you to know.”

“If Bob looked like Phil, I might still be in love too,” Gina said, eliciting laughter from the other wives.

“I just wish he wasn’t working so many long hours. And the travel—it feels like he’s gone more than he’s home lately.” Lina looked around at the other women when no one seconded her complaint. “Is Phil the only partner traveling?” When they all nodded, Lina’s eyes again traveled to Phil, her unease returning.

2

“I’ll try to keep an open mind,” Dr. Drayton was saying to Katie as they stepped out of his office and into the waiting area a few days later, “but if it’s anything like the music my son listens to, I probably won’t like it.”

“It won’t be,” Katie promised. “And you’ll get him—everyone doesn’t. He’s pretty deep. But I know you will.”

“Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you.”

Lina observed their light exchange, feeling the same mixture of awe and envy she always felt when she witnessed the easy rapport Katie shared with her psychiatrist. She wished she and Phil could experience this happier version of their daughter instead of the hostile, argumentative one they dealt with most of the time.

Lina’s eyes shifted to the man responsible for breaking through to Katie. Baltimore magazine referred to him as a leading authority on the adolescent mind and one of the premier child psychiatrists in the country. When Lina had initially called his office eight months earlier she’d been told he wasn’t taking new patients and was offered the name of one of his colleagues. Over the next eight weeks, Lina watched helplessly as the other psychiatrist failed to reach Katie and she slipped further into what he was diagnosing as adolescent depression.

Lina again called Dr. Drayton’s office, this time pleading for an appointment but was again told he wasn’t taking new patients. At that point, Lina did what any desperate mother would do. She drove to Dr. Drayton’s main office at Johns Hopkins Hospital and told the receptionist she wasn’t leaving until she spoke to him. It took three hours. He came out into the waiting area after his last morning appointment.