“She can help you better than I,” the bespectacled counselor said. “Don’t be afraid. You can do this.”

I told myself that I’ve never been afraid a day in my life.

It was a lie, of course.

I open the windows and pour some iced tea that I’d made that morning before work.

The box is where I left it. How I left it. It sits in the back of the closet, taped shut.

“You’ll want these someday,” Dr. Albright had said.

I refused it at first. “I can’t see that happening.”

She smiled. “Trust me. You will. The day will come and listening to the tapes will make you even stronger.”

She put her arms around me. We both cried. We held each other for a long time. I knew it wasn’t goodbye forever, but it was the end of therapy that had spanned a year and a half. I was graduating from the university with a degree in criminology and had enrolled in the police academy in suburban Seattle.

I carry the small black box from the back of the closet and set it on the kitchen table. I take a kitchen knife—the irony of my action gives me pause—from the drawer and slit it open.

I draw a breath and peer inside.

More than two dozen mini cassettes, each numbered with the dates on which they were recorded. Dr. Albright had also, quite thoughtfully, enclosed a tape recorder.

I switch to wine.

My hand wobbles again as I insert a tape. Damn! My finger hovers and I push PLAY. I hear Dr. Albright’s soft, kind voice. She addresses me by a name that I no longer use, a name that I hope has been forgotten by everyone who ever knew it.