First night, all alone after my father’s funeral. Having consumed too much port. Finally closing my eyes . . .

And seeing the closet door suddenly swing open. Recalling the thin glow cast by a bare bulb across the tiny, cluttered bedroom. Seeing my toddler sister in the center of the room, clutching a threadbare brown teddy, as my father’s gaze cast from her to me to her.

Hearing my mother say, “Please, Harry, not the baby,” before I was plunged once more into the gloom.

Pain is not what you see and not what you feel. Pain is what you can only hear, alone in the dark.

• • •

I WOKE FOR THE FIRST TIME shortly after eleven. I’d been asleep for approximately ten minutes, and yet my heart was pounding uncontrollably, my face covered in sweat. I stared at the tray ceiling of my bedroom. Practiced the deep-breathing exercises I’d been taught so many years ago.

The noise machine in the corner of my bedroom. I’d forgotten to turn it on. Of course.

I got out of bed, hit the large button of the Brookstone unit and was rewarded with the soothing sound of crashing ocean waves and crying seagulls. Back to bed. I assumed the position, on my back, lying coffin straight, arms by my sides. I closed my eyes, focused on the sound of some exotic, salty shore.

Eight minutes, to judge by the glowing red numbers of my bedside clock. Then I bolted upright, fisting the sheets while swallowing the scream and staring intently into the shadows of my expansive bedroom. Three night-lights. Oval LED plug-ins that offered pools of soft, green glow. I counted the lights five times, waiting for my heart to decelerate, my breathing to slow. Then I gave up and snapped on my bedside light.

I have a beautiful master bedroom. Expensive. Carpeted in the softest wool. Designed using only the richest silks, including custom bedding and hand-stitched window dressings, all fashioned in shades of soft blue, rich cream and sage green.

A soothing oasis of look and feel. A reminder of my adoptive father’s generosity and my own continued success.

But tonight, it wouldn’t work for me. And I knew by eleven thirty what I would do next.

Because even though I was the product of some of the finest intellectual upbringing, both a person and a case study, a doctor and a patient, I was still a member of the human race. And humanity is a messy business, where knowing what is right doesn’t necessarily preclude you from doing what is wrong.