‘I need to get home,’ I say, pushing my half-eaten plate of butterflied chicken aside. The dull ache in my stomach from thinking about Elisabeth is spreading outwards and I just want to go home and get an early night. Eirik is working late, I have the apartment to myself.

‘But… But you only arrived an hour ago. Why don’t you take the eight o’clock train? That will give us a little more time to catch up—’

‘I’m sorry, Mum. Really. The food was delicious. I’m just a little tired. It must be the weather. It’s so awful; it’s like it settles in your bones. And work is stressful at the moment.’

‘What about Idun? Aren’t you going to pop next door to see her? She’ll be expecting you.’

I swallow hard. I can’t face Elisabeth’s mother, not today. I shake my head, and stand up, avoiding my mother’s disapproving gaze.

I decline the offer of a ride to the station, and walk fast through the rain, which is falling sideways now, dragging across the street in bitter columns on a brisk wind. It beats into my face, pummeling it raw. I take the shortcut through the woods, using my special mindfulness technique of focusing purely on the sensation of my physical being in its environment to feel safe. The wet thud of my Nikes on the path scattered with brown pine needles. The sound of rain hitting the crowns of trees and dribbling down their stems. My fingertips turning rigid and red with the cold. The way distant woodsmoke from the suburban neighborhoods surrounding this little patch of woods drifts across on the moist air and settles in my nostrils. The woods give way to a huge parking lot and a gray, huddled building rising from the concrete: the train station; I made it.

On the train, I check my phone. Nothing from Eirik other than he’s working late. These days he only rarely arrives home before I go to sleep, and most mornings he’s out the door before I wake. And I’m a night owl who gets up early. There’s a message from my colleague, Alice, asking if we can share a room at the integrative therapeutic practice conference we’re both attending in Tromsø next month. And there is an email from Dr Albert.

From: [email protected]

Subject: RE Leah Iverson

Dear Dr Moss,