It was a long journey, and I was grateful. I needed my mind to stop pulsing with the exchange I’d just had; I needed all my reserves for the encounter to come. I took the 6 to Union Square to transfer to the R. I prayed, as I walked, that the platform would be free of performers. It wasn’t impossible; it was a Sunday evening. But I heard him as I walked down the stairs—not the young violinist, the better option if there had to be one, but the elderly man playing the saw.

Oh, how I loathed the saw. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears. He pulled his bow across the instrument, releasing a high-pitched wailing, the most mournful sound I’d ever heard. This was my cue to turn around, to run far away, but my legs were taking me down the stairs, and then there was the train roaring into the station, overwhelming the sound of the saw, and then it screeched to a halt. The doors opened, and I was on my way back to Freud.

Outside the bar, I stood by the window, peering through the slats. I saw Ed pouring beers for a young couple. They seemed to either have just met or be on a first date—whatever it was, it was going well. They couldn’t stop grinning and bashfully looking at each other and then away again. He leaned down to whisper something to her, and I saw her swallow hard at the feeling of his breath on her ear. In another mood it would have made me nauseated and enraged, but at this moment I felt magnanimous, even hopeful. Go ahead, I thought, have your love. I have Freud.

Until I saw him. Farther down the bar, a second bartender: bearded. Deep and piercing eyes.

But not Freud.

I felt as though I might faint. I managed to get myself inside and stood at the bar, waiting to speak to him. Ed saw me first.

“Hey, you!” he said. “The usual?”

“No,” I said. “I, um…” I didn’t know how to say it. “That guy,” I said finally, and pointed to him. “Is he new?”

“Yup,” said Ed, “started just this past week. Good guy.”

Dizzy. Need a couch. I told Ed I had to use the bathroom.

“Have at it,” he said, but I waited until he turned away and, instead of heading for the bathroom, slipped off to the thin hallway.

It was dank. There was a mop in a bucket, the handle leaning against the wall, the water clouded black. I hadn’t noticed that before. There, at the end of the hallway, was the closed door. Freud’s door.

My palms were slick. Was it Freud’s office, just as I remembered—or a storage closet, full of cleaning supplies? I drew nearer, just as I had earlier, three feet away, now two…