"Have you ever been on any medication for psychiatric problems?"
"No."
"Do you have a history of emotional breakdown triggered by stress?"
"No."
"Have you ever owned a gun before?"
I shake my head.
"Have you ever been to counseling of any kind?"
That question gives me pause. "Yes," I admit, thinking back to the confessional at St. Anne's. "It was the worst mistake of my life."
"Why?"
"When I found out my son had been sexually abused, I went to confession at my church. I talked to my priest about it. And then I found out that he was the bastard who did it."
My language makes a blush rise above the collar of his button-down shirt. "Ms. Frost-Nina-I need to ask you some questions about the day that . . . that everything happened."
I start to pull at the sleeves of my turtleneck. Not a lot, just so that fabric covers my hands. I look into my lap. "I had to do it," I whisper.
I am getting so good at this.
"How were you feeling that day?" Dr. Storrow asks. Doubt ices his voice; just moments ago, I was perfectly lucid.
"I had to do it ... you understand. I've seen this happen too many times. I couldn't lose him to this." I close my eyes, thinking of every successful insanity defense I've ever heard proposed to a court. "I didn't have a choice. I couldn't have stopped myself... it was like I was watching someone else do it, someone else reacting."
"But you knew what you were doing," Dr. Storrow replies, and I have to catch myself before my head snaps up. "You've prosecuted people who've done horrible things."
"I didn't do a horrible thing. I saved my son. Isn't that what mothers are supposed to do?"
"What do you think mothers are supposed to do?" he asks.
Stay awake all night when an infant has a cold, as if she might be able to breathe for him. Learn how to speak Pig Latin, and make a pact to talk that way for an entire day. Bake at least one cake with every ingredient in the pantry, just to see how it will taste.
Fall in love with your son a little more every day.
"Nina?" Dr. Storrow says. "Are you all right?"
I look up and nod through my tears. "I'm sorry."
"Are you?" He leans forward. "Are you truly sorry?"
We are not talking about the same thing anymore. I imagine Father Szyszynski, on his way to Hell. I think of all the ways to interpret those words, and then I meet Dr. Storrow's gaze. "Was he?"
Nina has always tasted better than any other woman, Caleb thinks, as his lips slip down the slope of one shoulder. Like honey and sun and caramel-from the roof of her mouth to the hollow behind her knee. There are times Caleb believes he could feast on his wife and never feel that he is getting enough.
Her hands come up to clutch his shoulder, and in the half dark her head falls back, making the line of her throat a landscape. Caleb buries his face there, and tries to navigate by touch. Here, in this bed, she is the woman he fell in love with a lifetime ago. He knows when she is going to touch him, and where.
He can predict each of her moves.
Her legs fall open to either side of him, and Caleb presses himself against her. He arches his back. He imagines the moment he will be inside her, how the pressure will build and build and explode like a bullet.
At that moment Nina's hand slips between their bodies to cup him, and just like that, Caleb goes soft.
He tries grinding against her. Nina's fingers play over him like a flutist's, but nothing happens.
