They’re all sitting in a circle. Mom, Dad, and Natasha are on one side of Dr. Eze; Suhani, Anuj, and Zack are on the other. Mom is judging the room’s appearance, which, to be fair, is hard not to judge. The wall décor hasn’t been changed in at least two decades, from the threatening don’t do drugs poster to the picture of a man at the top of a mountain that reads persistence pays off. A faded rug with pink and purple flowers covers most of the dusty floor.

Dr. Eze passes around copies of the genogram they helped fill out during the intake appointment. Natasha stares at the pictorial representation of their family’s lineage, made up of circles and squares, starting with her grandparents and ending at everyone in the room. She used to see similar-looking charts in high school biology class when they learned about dominant and recessive traits.

“Where do we start?” Natasha asks after Dr. Eze is finished.

“How about with you?” Dr. Eze crosses her legs. She’s wearing a leopard-print blouse with a bow, red pencil skirt, and black high-heeled, pointy-toed boots that remind Natasha of Catwoman.

“Well, obviously I’ve had quite the past few weeks.” Natasha flashes a shaky smile that disappears once she makes eye contact with Mom, Dad, Anuj, Suhani, and Zack. They all seem to be in a bit of a daze. Or maybe she’s the one who’s dazed. Is this really a good idea? What if they all just end up arguing or, worse, being awkward and not saying anything? Natasha wants to tell Dr. Eze that her family never sits around and talks like this. They prefer to communicate the normal way, by bottling up their true feelings until one of them explodes.

“Of course,” Dr. Eze says. “How do you feel now that it’s been several days since you were discharged from the hospital?”

Natasha shrugs. “Better, I guess. It’s still really weird to know I got to a point so low. But I had a lot of time there to think and learn about myself.”

Dr. Eze nods and jots something down in a sky-blue notebook. “Is there anything from your experience that you would be open to sharing with us?”

Natasha mentally scans the blur of things that happened during her week on the unit: the conversations with Alexis, medication, group therapy, the visit from her friends, and, of course, everything Mom told her. She hasn’t even been able to fully process all of it. Sometimes, when she pictures the stiff bed or the nurse handing her Prozac in a tiny plastic cup or Mom waiting at the wooden lunch table, it still feels like a dream.