“Yes, brainwashing also leaves symptoms that are hard to manage.” Lotty gave a wry smile. “I saw Karen Lennon at a staff meeting this afternoon. She’s worried that she might have made a mistake in introducing you to her patient—her ‘client,’ I suppose I should say.”

“It’s a little late for Karen to be second-guessing herself, not when I’ve spent a day stirring the pot and getting the phone tree shaking among all the women at Pastor Hebert’s church.”

Lotty laughed. “I think that’s what has her worried. Karen’s very young. She doesn’t know how much excitement a detective can bring to a closed community.”

“She should call me, not try to get you to do it for her. But I’ll talk to her in the morning,” I grumbled.

“Don’t take her head off as well as mine,” Lotty said. “If you worked with other people all day long instead of in a hole by yourself, you’d understand how natural it was for her to talk to me during a meeting.”

“After spending a day with people who twitch when they see me coming, I’d be happier in a hole by myself. As long as it had a cappuccino machine.”

“Yes, we’ll decorate it and make it gemütlich, a cozy hole. I’ll send a courier in every day with a fresh bottle of milk and a basket of fruit and cheese.” She squeezed my hand. “You’re still in mourning for Morrell, aren’t you?”

“Not mourning, exactly.” I fiddled with the heavy silver. “More questioning myself, to be my age and not able to keep a stable relationship going. In the back of my mind, I always imagined a child, a family, at this point in my life.”

Lotty raised her brows. “I’m not criticizing you, Victoria—God knows, I have no right—but you haven’t lived like someone who wanted a child.”

“No, I’ve lived like the pepperpot my father always called me, throwing dust up the nose of any man who came close to me … Is that what you mean?”

“No, my dear. So you’re irascible, well, so am I, so are many people. But you put the community ahead of yourself. It’s a different form of the female disease, the one you just lamented in Rose Hebert. Your clients need you, the women at the shelter need you, even I need you. Men can put the community first and come home to domestic life, but women, we’re still like nuns in a way: if we have a strong vocation, it’s hard to meet our private needs.”

Her words made me feel unbearably lonely. “So I’m a noncelibate nun.” I tried to turn it into a joke, but my voice cracked. “You’ve worked things out without Max, though.”

She smiled sadly. “After many years as lonely as yours, my dear.”