I stand in the hall and try desperately to will myself into action but by the time I turn in she’s asleep. I strip down to my underwear and slide in beside her. From somewhere deep in the house the sound of running water continues unabated. I listen to it and feel an anger stirring inside of me. A great weight pressing on my skull.

I see Simone’s shape in the darkness, her body rising and falling, and I know that I am losing her. That our relationship will one day be packed away, much like our keepsakes. A box in a basement somewhere.

Phineas’s death was instantaneous, but ours would happen slowly, in gradual increments. Its stone foundation eroded over time by the gentlest of forces.

I imagine a tepid stream running like a vein beneath the house. I see thousands of microscopic cracks forming beneath our feet. A great sinkhole opening beneath us, the ground yawning to swallow the house. I see myself in the car, watching Simone from the rear-view mirror. She waves meekly as the walls fold round her and the smoke rises like steam to take her away.

XIV

We convene at the therapist’s house once a week. Simone always manages to arrive before me. I see her standing against the black mass of the house. She looks thin, the lines of her face drawn, yet when I kiss her on the cheek I tell her otherwise. She has accused me in the past of sheltering her from truths, and perhaps that is why I feel such a sense of trepidation during our sessions. The house seems almost to demand honesty.

From her porthole window the therapist watches over us. We pass beneath the wooden beams of the veranda and we wait before the red door. I stare at the lion door knocker, running my finger along its bronze mane, the curvature of its face. I imagine for a moment that the rest of its body exists on the other side of the door. Its legs withered. The musculature of its back strained from carrying the weight of that ring in its mouth for the rest of eternity.

We are led through the house. We pass many doors. Some are open and I try desperately to peek inside. The house is full of art. A truly enormous collection. In almost every room there are canvases hanging from walls, frames resting against bookcases, great stacks piled beneath dust sheets.

In one room I spot an enormous painting resting above a large marble fireplace. A pale blue gradient that runs down the length of the canvas and ends in the darkest colour I have ever seen. It is scarcely a colour at all but rather a total absence of light. My eyes follow its descent. It stops me in my tracks. I stand in the hallway and stare at it. I feel the darkness pulling at the edges of my mind. It’s only when the therapist takes me gently by the shoulder that I allow myself to carry on.