“The letters he left behind. He wrote many of them and handed them to his lawyer, to be mailed to me on important holidays or my birthday. As I got older, the letters became deeper and more complex. He was always guessing my height and weight, how I was doing at school, wanting me to remember how many years it had been since he departed. He even gave me reading lists, then in the next letter would ask if I’d read the books he mentioned. At the end of every letter, he’d ask me to believe that he’d never harmed me, that he’d always love and protect me. On my fourteenth birthday, I got a letter as usual. There was a pair of crystal earrings in the envelope. The sort of baubles a small child might wear. He said when I was seven we were out one day and I insisted he buy me those earrings. He refused, saying children shouldn’t wear jewelry. He’d always felt guilty about that. Now that I was fourteen and could wear jewelry, he hoped I’d enjoy these earrings.”

At this point, she hung her head.

Then she went on: “I suddenly realized that I’d been tricked by my therapist, that third-rate psychiatrist who was tricked by Freud in turn. The tragedy was, no one meant to do any harm. The psychiatrist wanted to make a breakthrough in her research, and got famous off the back of my case—at the cost of my family’s destruction. I hate my mother. She was under a spell, clutching at shadows like my therapist was. You must have seen all the newspapers saying how they brainwashed and controlled me, a girl of seven.”

The boyfriend asked, “How did your father die?”

The woman seemed startled. “You’re a reporter yet you don’t know the basic facts?”

The boyfriend was flustered but covered. “I don’t believe the media’s sensationalist news.”

“You’re right not to. If the media hadn’t twisted facts and created this atmosphere in society, my father might not have killed himself. So my father’s suicide is connected to their irresponsibility.”

“How did he do it?”

“The police found his car deep in the New Mexico desert, with an empty sleeping pill bottle in it. About a month passed between him not showing up in court and the discovery of the car.”

“And the body?”

“Anything could have happened in the desert. There are wild animals and vultures, so perhaps—”

“You live alone now?”

“After my mom remarried, I moved out on my own. The money my dad invested for me had appreciated quite a bit, so I can afford to live in San Francisco.”

Close-up: the girl’s mischievous smile, her body shrinking a little farther behind the front door.

* * *