‘Hello?’ Still nothing. I stay on the line for a while, listening to the faint, raspy breathing. This kind of thing doesn’t frighten or unsettle me; it has happened quite a few times, and when I’ve looked up the caller ID on 1881.no it is almost always some client or another, struggling late at night or on a weekend, who couldn’t resist calling to just hear the sound of my voice. It comes with the territory, and I never bring the calls up in the subsequent session. They actually make me feel especially empathetic toward a client, and besides, I know the feeling myself, of just needing to hear your therapist’s voice when everything feels impossible and pitch black. Tonight, I wonder if it could be Leah Iverson calling. I stay on the line, sitting on the side of the bathtub and watching bubbles pop on the water’s surface, for four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, until the line goes dead.

4

Leah, two weeks before

In the small hours, when the sky is still dense with darkness, Leah is jolted from fretful dreams by the sound of a door slamming shut somewhere in the building. There’s a doctor on the second floor – he comes and goes at odd hours; it might be him. Or it might be the young girls sharing an apartment on the ground floor – they often come home when others start to wake. There’s a cello player across the landing from Leah’s own flat, a quiet and skinny man in his forties. She doubts it was him; the only sounds she ever hears from that apartment are mournful rising and falling concertos.

Or… Or it could be Anton. She feels the little hairs on her forearm prickle and stand up at the thought of Anton coming up the stairs and makes herself take several long, deep breaths. He doesn’t know where you live, Leah. She imagines Kristina’s calm, soothing voice speaking the words directly into her ear.

She turns over in bed, wishes she wasn’t alone, though she usually is. She flicks the radio switch and the buzz of voices fills the bedroom. Two men, discussing the situation in the Crimea. She turns the faux-ancient dial on her brand-new radio until soft music fills the room. Cello, in fact – Bach. She closes her eyes but knows she won’t sleep again, not tonight.