“Nice place,” George said, wanting to be positive. He was nervous but determined. After months of calling Pia and leaving unreturned voice messages and sending countless pleading emails and texts with barely a reply, George had talked himself into coming out to see Pia, using her birthday as the excuse for a surprise visit.

Since they had last seen each other almost twenty-four months previously in New York, George had tried to change his persona, even dating a couple of attractive and personable women at the UCLA Medical Center, where he was a second-year resident in radiology. George thought he was stronger now, but now that he was in Pia’s company, he realized he was no less in love with her, if that was what it was. Love sounded better than obsession. His attraction for her had become part of his life and would probably remain so, as simple as that. It was as if he were addicted. Ultimately George didn’t totally understand his own behavior, he just accepted it.

George approached the couch, trying to to make eye contact. As usual, Pia looked away. George was able to take that in stride. Over four years of medical school he’d grown accustomed to her inability to make eye contact. George had also done a lot of reading about reactive attachment disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder since he and Pia had graduated and parted ways. Earlier in their relationship, at Pia’s suggestion, George had contacted her former social worker, Sheila Brown, who had hinted without exactly saying that Pia was contending with these disorders. For George, knowledge was power, and the doctor in him wanted to help Pia and cure her, or so he had told himself. Such information was a great source of support for him and allowed him over the years to medicalize her inability to reciprocate his passion. This way he could weather what others might have found challenging, even devastating, to their self-esteem.

Reaching the coffee table, George held out the flowers. Pia sighed, and as her shoulders sank, George’s heart fell with them. He’d hoped for a much more propitious reception.

“Happy birthday . . .”

“George, you know I don’t care about my birthday,” Pia commented, keeping her arms clasped together around her knees. “And that happens to be the sorriest-looking bouquet I’ve seen in a long time.” Her voice had lost a degree of its hardness.

George glanced at the flowers. She was right. The blossoms were all wilted. He laughed at the flowers and at himself. “They have had a hard journey. I bought them at the L.A. airport on a whim; we had a middle seat on the red-eye to Denver, jammed between two people who must weigh three hundred pounds each. I held them the whole time, unwilling to consign them to the overhead bin. Then we stood all the way from Denver on a bus for ninety minutes before catching a cab here to your apartment.”

“Why didn’t you run the idea of coming here by me first?” Pia asked, shaking her head in disbelief that George would fly all the way from L.A. on a whim, trusting she’d be receptive. It was something she would never do in a million years.