My father was holding court, talking about one of his clients, gesturing with a cut crystal glass. Every few lines of speech, he would raise the glass to his lips and take a small sip, but he made sure to begin the next sentence first to ensure that he would continue to be granted the floor. “So”—sip—“after a few weeks of thought tracking, she seemed to have improved…” As always, I wondered about his client, what he was like in her company, whether he was as directive with her as he could be with me. I knew there was a tenderness deep inside him—I’d seen it myself, in that first moment when he would touch the back of my neck so gently. Or that time, as a child, I’d been playing with his reading glasses. I had found them on the kitchen table while my parents were still at work next door and had put them on, checked myself out in the mirror. Inspired by my reflection—the glasses were rectangular, making me look smart and almost adult, even as they slid down my nose—I’d edged into his closet to explore his clothes. This wasn’t a strictly forbidden zone, but on any given day invading his privacy in this way might infuriate him. That day, though, since I didn’t expect them back home for a while, I’d put on one of his suit jackets, the arms dangling down around my hands. I’d sat in the armchair across from their full-length mirror and was furrowing my eyebrows at my reflection, nodding at myself, just like I imagined he must have been doing across from a patient in his office at that very moment, when he walked in. I froze, the hairs along my neck and arms standing at attention—but for some reason he started to laugh. “That’s funny,” he’d said, shaking his head. “Boy, that’s funny.”

It was this version of him that I imagined he let flourish in the office. The one who laughed. The soft one. I had ruined my chance, hadn’t I, with my fucking outfit! How could I have been so stupid? I had been too much myself. I wanted to go back—to put on his jacket again, his glasses, anything to get him to look at me that way. Like he looked at his clients, probably. I felt a flush of rage, thinking of them, the recipients of his careful attentions. Why them? Why not me? But I knew why—it was because I did things like this: Like exposing my body in such a repulsive way. Like fucking Langham. Their colleague! And there he was, kitty-corner from my father, nodding along to his speech. Everyone was, their supplicant expressions reminding me of Celeste in her coterie of admirers, even my mother, who deferred to him with almost the same quality of admiration as their colleagues. Of course they were; he was him. I watched Langham squint in performative concentration. I felt ill. Why had I come? Could I still leave? But if they didn’t know—or even if they did—wouldn’t my abrupt departure, without even speaking to their guests, be its own grave sin? I had to stay at least an hour. I could do that much, couldn’t I? I edged into the doorway. Langham didn’t look up, but I saw his posture stiffen, and I knew he knew I was there.