“Not at all, Lucy.”

“Bridges make me feel like I’m going to freak out and throw myself off. I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

“I understand,” Frankie said.

Lucy’s voice was low. “Can you tell me how it works? I mean, I know that you erase people’s memories. Would you try to make me forget that I’m afraid of bridges?”

“No, it’s not quite like that. For some people, their trauma began with a triggering event—some crisis in their past. Is there anything like that with you and bridges? Did you have a bad experience?”

“Not that I remember. They just scare the crap out of me.”

“Okay. Well, if you decide to become a patient in the future, what we would do is talk a lot about your fears—and about everything else in your life, too. The more I know about you, the more I can help you find a way forward. And then we might decide to help you remember better things about bridges. Not scary things. Good things. Maybe one time you were staring over the edge of a high bridge, and then a butterfly came and landed on your hand. It was the most amazing thing. You felt as if the butterfly had chosen you. That it saw something special in you. It was liberating.”

“I could really remember something like that?”

“Maybe it already happened, and you forgot,” Frankie said, smiling.

“Would I be hypnotized?”

“Yes. Have you ever been hypnotized before?”

“In a college class once. The professor said I was very susceptible, whatever that means.”

“It means you respond well to hypnotic suggestion. That’s good. It helps the treatment work.”

“What about drugs?” Lucy asked.

“There are drugs that can help facilitate what we do, but you’re the one who says yes or no.”

Lucy was quiet. She stared around the room again. “And could something go wrong? I mean, could I wind up like those other women—”

Frankie wanted to say no. It wasn’t me! It wasn’t my fault!

But she couldn’t say that. She wasn’t even sure if she believed it anymore. They were all inside her head. Monica. Brynn. Christie. Their fears were her own now. Somehow, she’d failed them.

“The mind is a powerful thing, Lucy,” she said quietly. “A surgeon can’t give you any guarantees, and neither can I. But I can promise you one thing. If you want to take the first step—if you want to cross the bridge—you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you the whole way.”