Her living room was twice the size of Alex Shimoff’s but ten times as many toys piled in the center gave it the same cramped feel.

Walking three steps to the nearest couch winded her. She stopped to reinsert the air line.

She eased herself down on the sofa. I pulled a facing chair three feet away.

“House call from a shrink, this has to be a first. Or maybe I’m being my old narcissistic self and you do this for everyone.”

I smiled.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “Give that blank, neutral shrink smile and make me sweat for every damn sentence. I’m working against a bit of a deadline.” A sharp, white knuckle rapped the side of the tank. “Pun intended.”

I said, “No, I don’t do it for everyone.”

She clapped her hands. “So I yam special!”

Where the room wasn’t snowed by toys it was bland furniture, generic rugs, floral prints on the walls where crayon drawings weren’t taped. Drawn drapes turned the space a gray one shade darker than Gretchen’s complexion.

“Chad’s artistic,” she said. “Smart, too, I lucked out in the sperm department. They used to use med students as donors, now, who knows? All I learned about my personal masturbator is that he’s of English-German descent, taller than average, and free of genetic diseases. For the first year I kept imagining him—different hims, actually, the images started flipping like cards. What I ended up with was Brad Pitt mixed with Albert Einstein. Then Chad started talking and became a real person and it was just the two of us, I stopped thinking about my silent partner.”

She scanned a couple of drawings. “What do you think of Chad’s artwork? I’ll put money you don’t find anything neurotic or psychotic in them.”

The drawings were age-appropriate for a six-year-old boy. Many bore Mommy I love yous.

“Brilliant, huh?” said Gretchen.

“Excellent.”

“We started with crayons, then he was too good for crayons so I got him these incredible pencils from Japan. That’s what he used on that peacock—over in the corner. Go look.”

Searching for that drawing put her kitchenette in view. Cans of spaghetti, boxes of cookies, bags of chips. The refrigerator was veneered with photos of her and a round-faced, dark-haired boy. In the early ones, Gretchen still looked like Gretchen.

The peacock battled with a dinosaur. From the blood and the feathers, score one for the reptile team.

“Vivid,” I said.

“You messed up your line. You were supposed to say, What an excellent mom you are, Gretchen, to produce the next Michelangelo.”

“You’re doing great as a mom, Gretch—”

“Because it’s all about me me me,” she said. “I’m a me-ist, that’s always been my diagnosis. ‘Narcissistic personality disorder with histrionic elements.’ Oh, yeah, ‘exacerbated by substance abuse.’ You agree?”

“I’m not here to diagnose you.”