“Come in,” said my mother.

“Actually…” I said. I cleared my throat, preparing myself: Actually, I’m leaving. Actually, I’m tired, I’m going to go. I think I’m going to call it a night. I had made it an hour, and that was what I had promised myself. I had done it, and now I could go. “Where did you put my jacket?” I blurted out, too abruptly.

“You’re leaving?” she said. “Already? You’ve hardly been here.”

The familiar tension overtook me—the desperation to leave, stopped by the knowledge that I could not. The anxiety that rose in me at these moments was almost unbearable, clouding my vision. I wanted to throw myself on my mother, to beg her to give me her blessing to leave, her promise she would still love me.

But now I had Freud. I saw in my mind his face, looking out over the bar, those thick eyebrows, the thin mouth, exactly as they were on the cover of the book and then in my memory all these years. His strong hand, gripping the knife, slicing lemons. I saw you, he’d said, and Who said it was gross? and Did you want to be seen? His face, beaming out toward me in my childhood fantasies, bad girl, looking into my eyes. Freud would understand. He was my teammate, my partner, my protector, my savior, my hero, my guardian, my God. Freud loved me. Freud would never leave me. Studies, data, efficacy, my parents had said. Sem-i-nal! my mother had sung. But now Freud was here, he had come for me, we were one.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “I have to go. Can you tell me where my jacket is?” My jacket; the napkin.

“I understand,” my mother said, pronouncing the statement with finality. It meant: You are hurting me. I stood inert. She got up and brushed her palms along her pants, smoothing them, then retrieved my jacket from the closet by the front door and handed it to me. My father did not rise.

“You’ll come for dinner next weekend, won’t you?” she said.

Next weekend. The cycle would begin again: the indecision, the dread, the guilt, the despair.

But that was for later. Now was for Freud. I slipped my hand into my pocket. Come back.

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

My mother nodded, her expression disappointed but resolute, as if she could expect no better from me than ingratitude and pain. My throat tightened.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She put her hand on my arm. “Get home safe,” she said, and leaned in to hug me, her shoulders delicate in my embrace.

“I love you,” I said, squeezing her tightly, wanting to melt into her, but when she pulled away her lips were taut. Mommy. “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” she said, in a tone that meant she was very angry indeed, “we just miss you.” I glanced at my father, but he was looking down, away from me.

And I left.