But now Berman was merely staring at her, not nodding, not encouraging her with his usual, subtle head movements. A numeral clicked over on the digital clock. Five more minutes.

2.

The morning air, damp and with a trace of Canadian cool in it, woke her up as soon as she stepped outside. The entire session had been like one of those brief, intense naps that leave you drooling and disoriented. It was over, that was the best you could say about it. She could cancel her next appointment, just to show him . . . something. She turned right and walked along the sidewalk, buoyed up by the sudden appearance of autumn and the cancellation plan, then realized she hadn’t left her car in this direction. She turned around and walked back, past Berman’s building. But after walking another half block, she couldn’t be sure she’d left it in this direction either. A light changed on the corner and traffic roared up Commonwealth Avenue. The trolley through the center of the street screeched along the tracks. She looked across the trolley tracks, hoping she’d left the car there. She was edging toward panic. She’d find the car eventually, but it troubled her that there was such a wide, dark hole in her memory.

She looked down the street, vaguely in the direction of Back Bay. Somewhere in that tangle of buildings was Desmond’s small, quiet room with its circular windows and pretty, obstructed views. What a joy it would be to live in that kind of stripped-down, uncomplicated arrangement, one in which there wasn’t room to hide anything. So what if you had to walk down the hall to reach the toilet. Her throat tightened, and her breathing became more strained.

If Berman looked out one of his windows, he’d be able to see her, spinning in circles, muddled, pacing back and forth like a lunatic. He wouldn’t look out one of his windows; he lined up his patients with barely a minute between appointments. A truly crazy person who didn’t have control over herself would grab one of the passersby and beg for help. She wrapped her jacket around her more tightly and it came to her at once: she’d left her car on a side street just steps away.