“I got up at six A.M. and I took her out for a long walk, all around the neighborhood. It was still dark, dark and colder than I’d expected. She was walking more slowly than usual, as if she knew she was leaving that day and was taking it all in for the last time. I took her down to a park near the house, and I let her off her leash and she just stood there, looking at me, with a let’s-get-it-over look on her face. Do you say ‘face’ for dogs? Anyway, we went home and she watched as I packed up her leftover cans of dog food, the bag of treats. She watched me the whole time, didn’t even go to the dish of food I’d put down for her or get her usual drink of water. And then, when Thomas left for work, she followed him out to the car and got in the back seat, all without prompting. She just went along with him, didn’t fuss. But as she was getting into the car, she turned and looked at the house, almost as if she knew I was up in the window. She seemed to be saying, ‘How can you do this to me?’ I could barely watch.”

“You told me the dog missed her owner.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Her owner was released from the hospital and she was going back to her.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible you’re the one feeling the loss? Aren’t you talking about your sadness, Jane, not hers?”

Her sadness, her loss. Her sadness about Helen, which wasn’t even about Helen but about everything else she’d lost in the past several months, a list that seemed to be growing by the hour. Her face began to feel uncomfortably hot and, before she knew what was happening and had a chance to apply the brakes, she began to weep.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this.” She pulled a handful of tissues out of the box sitting on the table by her chair and mopped at her face. In addition to whatever else she was feeling, she was panicked that Berman might get out of his chair and try to comfort her. What would she do if he came over and put his hand on her shoulder? All the time she’d been seeing him, off and on all these years, she’d maintained a perfectly poised demeanor, had never once shed a tear, and now she knew why. It was this awful fear that he’d console her. Except she’d been sobbing for a good few minutes and he didn’t seem to be doing anything.