Erika will be hurt.

I can't help it. Anyway, it's her fault. She talked me into it.

The filled glass fell from her hand and broke. Maybe it's a sign, she thought, watching the colorless liquid spread over the clean linoleum, stooping to pick up the glass splinters. Maybe I'm not supposed to do this.

But she knew she had no choice. She put the broken glass in the garbage bag, being careful not to cut her hands. When I feel this way I'm accident-prone, she thought wisely. I'd like to die but I don't want to cut my finger. Freud used to ask his children when they hurt themselves, Why did you do that? Why are you punishing yourself? A story Dr. Liebermann had told her.

A hell of a lot he knew about punishment.

She unhooked a plastic cup and filled that. Go ahead and fall, you son of a bitch. The liquor splashed into it, the bottle rim jiggling against the plastic.

She had forgotten how bad it tasted. If you have to be an alcoholic, she thought, it would help to like the stinking stuff.

Better if it was cold.

She took the cube tray out of the refrigerator, scraping her hand in the attempt to loosen it, then held it under the hot water tap for the ice to work loose. Now that she was committed to it, she was eager to get going. There would be the remembering and the dreams. But afterward, only oblivion. She took her first drink, hoping with all her heart that Erika would come home and make her stop.

CHAPTER 18

This doctor’s name was Stewart. He was younger than Dr. Liebermann by about twenty years and much neater—Dr. Liebermann was always chewing on a cigar and there were usually nicotine stains on his fingers and a dribble of ash down the front of his shirt, where his belly bulged out. This man had an ashtray on his neat desk but it was empty and polished—probably there for the patients. He was slender, neat and cool. She didn't like the way his hair was parted—so very exactly on the left side, like a little path.

"Why do you think you stopped seeing your analyst, Miss Wood?"

She looked across the desk at him. Make him think you trust him. "I wasn't getting anywhere."

"Did you expect a cure in a year? After taking years, probably, to get into emotional trouble?"

Her voice was sullen. "I didn't expect anything."

"You don't think therapy does any good?"

"I didn't say that."

"May I ask why you came to me?" He put the tips of his fingers together, watching her.

"My roommate asked me to."

“I see.”

He turned over a stack of papers, a small frown marring the placidity of his face. She noticed how thin and clean his fingers were. Dr. Liebermann's were pudgy and warm, the nails uneven. He had once patted her on the arm, not like a doctor but like a father (a movie father, she couldn't imagine pa laying a hand on anyone except in wrath). His hands smelled of tobacco. "Do you get along all right with your room-mate?"