In other words, I love it.

It wasn’t easy, getting back to this place. Three days ago, I finally marshaled the courage to call Gil Gasko. I explained in detail why I’d missed my evaluation, which led to a lengthy discussion about my mental state. The concern in his voice was loud as a circus parade. He made me describe what he called my constellation of kin, their psychiatric history, the quality of those relationships, the events in which we’d been involved, and the impact they had—and were still having—on my life. After close to two hours on the phone, when he was satisfied I could recite the traumatic stressors I needed to avoid from memory, he sent me to Oneida.

There, it was much of the same—but thanks to Gil, I knew the answers to my supervisor’s questions, and understood what the psychologist assigned to my case was looking for. Delusions. Hallucinations. Impaired communication. Short- and long-term memory loss. Did I engage in any obsessive behavior that interfered with my daily life? Was I experiencing problems with impulse control, or ongoing panic attacks? How would I rate their intensity, and what did I do to sate them? My responses were recorded in my file, already overflowing with psychometric data. I was a rat in a lab, but the torment was necessary, and I found I could muster the strength to weather it.

All of this resulted in a PTSD score and a mental competency rating that distilled my intellect and psychosocial functional status into a few key terms, and a diagnosis. It included the two best sentences I’d ever heard.

PTSD symptoms are not persistent enough to require medication.

PTSD symptoms are not sufficient to interfere with occupational functioning.

So here I sit, with a full inbox and a lot more to catch up on once Tim and the others arrive. For the moment, the station is quiet, and before I can reconsider, I pick up the phone on my desk and dial Suze.

I don’t expect her to take my call, am surprised when she answers after the first ring.

“Hey,” I mumble. “Hi. It’s Shana.” Already I’m questioning the wisdom of approaching her so soon. After decades of lost time we somehow managed to rekindle our friendship, and now her husband is going to prison in large part because of me.

“Oh,” she says, and there’s a sluggishness to her voice I can only attribute to hours spent in tears. Mom told me Suze closed the dance studio, at least until Robbie’s case goes to trial. “I didn’t expect to hear from you,” she says.

“Yeah. I wanted to . . . I don’t know.” Grovel. Beg your forgiveness. “Apologize, although that’s nowhere near the right word for it. I am sorry, though, that things worked out this way. That it was me who had to do it.”

“Oh.” In the background I hear the sounds of a child at play. Little Erynn, whose daddy is gone now. “How is she?” I ask.