I know it’s supposed to be healthy to talk about trauma, to make it part of the narrative of your life. It’s what I tell my patients. But I have trouble doing it myself. I have trouble integrating that experience with who I am now.

Instead, it’s a knot in a necklace that I won’t let anyone see. Not even Ezra. Not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t trust me. Once I start trying to untangle that last bit of the knot, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work through it completely, which means even if I start talking about it, I’ll end up just having to pull the knot back tighter in the end.

Dr. West and I fixed almost the whole chain. And it’s easier just to wear the necklace the way it is.

45

When Emily got home with Zoe, she was surprised to find Ezra sitting on the couch in the living room, his phone to his ear. But the minute she saw him, she was able to breathe easier. He was here. He was home. She looked at her watch. It was six a.m.

“Good morning,” she said as she dropped her keys on the entry hall table. “I didn’t know you were coming home today.”

He looked up. His face went from concerned to relieved to confused.

“Em, where have you been? You asked me to come home. I just got here and you were gone. I was starting to get worr—” He saw Zoe. “Whose baby is that?”

“This is Zoe,” she said, bringing the baby to Ezra. “She belongs to one of my patients, who just checked herself into the psychiatric unit at NYU. It’s been a long night. I . . . hadn’t heard differently, so I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow night.”

He looked at her. She was sure he was thinking about the fact that she should not have her patient’s baby, but he didn’t say anything about that. Instead he said, “You called me. You asked me to come home and it sounded like you’d been crying. When I woke up to use the bathroom and heard your message I called you back, but your phone went straight to voice mail, so I figured you’d gone to sleep. I couldn’t fall back asleep, though, so I took my mom’s car and drove into the city. And then you weren’t here. And your phone still wasn’t ringing. What’s going on?”