I considered returning to the party, finding Cricket and Wallis, stuffing some cheese straws into my pockets and making a mad dash for the exit. But Ari was still in there, and the thought of having to see her beautiful face again, hear more about the wonderful life she was building for herself and Atlas, destroyed my appetite. Coming here, to this party filled with accomplished people, people not under investigation by the IRS, people without crooked fathers, people who’d found love and kept it, had been a mistake. Knowing Cricket would absolutely chastise me later, I left without saying goodbye.

Twenty

My psychologist, Patricia, works out of a garden-level suite in an old brick house in Georgetown. The irony isn’t lost on me that I seek refuge so close to the house on P. But she understands me, I like her voice, and she does not have a waiting room, which I appreciate. If you aren’t sad and lonely already, a therapist’s waiting room filled with other haunted souls and back issues of The New Yorker will make you so.

I was telling Patricia the very uplifting story of how, after the book party, I went home to my apartment and sat in my closet for about an hour. This will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who’s been in therapy, but before long I was talking about my childhood. “When I was young,” I said, glad to have her willing ear and comfortable, feathery pillows to lean against, “I built forts in my closet on P Street. It’s funny, how it happened, but around the time I grew breasts that closet fort became a fortress.”

She told me that made sense. She reminded me that children often seek out quiet, dark spaces.

Patricia sits serenely in her leather club chair and is usually always wearing cashmere. She favors blue blazers and takes notes in a black jotter. She is always drinking cold sparkling water. She has one teenage son. That’s the extent of my knowledge of Patricia. Although I hadn’t seen her since my father’s death for reasons that included lack of time and money, I knew I could count on her professional distance and impartiality, even though it had become nearly impossible to find someone in this town who hadn’t already made up their mind about me.

“That childhood closet,” I said, “was my sacred space. Until my father tore the door off its brackets one night I refused to come down for dinner.”

She asked me how old I was when this happened.

“Fourteen. It was a cheap bifold that never ran smoothly on its tracks. He ordered me to come downstairs, so I yelled that I hated him and wouldn’t eat with him even if he paid me.”

I must’ve been scared, she observed.