Mr. Newman shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Whenever I’m in the house, I’m either treated like the handyman or an unwanted guest. We never talk about anything interesting anymore. I wouldn’t even know why she’d want me home.”

“Why would you feel like an unwanted guest?” Mrs. Newman asks.

“You’re always busy running after the kids, and never pay me any attention—”

“That’s not true—”

“All right,” I say. “Let’s put a pin in the discussion. The issue is clear, and the good news is, it’s fixable. To start, I want you both to think about an activity you enjoyed doing together when you first met.”

The troubled couple considers my request for a few moments, until Mrs. Newman says, “Art. We could spend hours talking about an exhibition when we were in college.”

“Art, great.” I smile. “That’s fantastic. Starting this week, I want you to institute an artistic date night. Visit the Met, pick a floor, a time period, and go to dinner afterward. Just the two of you, phones off.”

“What if something happens to the kids?” Mrs. Newman asks.

“If you prefer not to turn off your phone, then put it on ‘do not disturb.’ Set your home number or the babysitter’s as the only calls that can get through.”

“I can do that?” Mrs. Newman mustn’t be very techy. “How?”

“I can show you,” I offer.

“No need, Doctor, I can teach her later,” her husband says. Look at them—already working together, and they haven’t even left my office yet.

“Great,” I say, and peek at the clock mounted on the wall behind the Newmans. “I’m afraid our time has run out.”

We all stand up, and I escort them to the door.

At the landing, I stop on the threshold while they call the elevator.

“Art date night,” I repeat. “Let’s try it out, and next week we can discuss how it went.”

We say our goodbyes, and I go back to my desk to write a few notes while the session is still fresh in my mind.

But I haven’t sat down for five minutes when a riot starts outside.

“Diana! DIANA!” a man is shouting. “Let me see her!”

I get up again and poke my head out on the landing to find a bald guy with a flourishing mustache, dressed in a tweed suit, knocking desperately on the corner office’s door.

“Excuse me,” I say. “What is all this racket?”

The man points at the door. “She’s forbidding me to see my wife.”

As if he’d used the magic summoning words, the door flies open and The Wicked Witch of the West Office emerges in the flesh. “I’m not preventing anyone from doing anything, Mr. Cavendish,” she says coldly. “Your wife doesn’t want to see you.”