(This chapter was co-written with my good friend and fellow author anon004.)

January 26th

Greg left the house early that morning—well, early for him anyway-even though it's a Saturday. He'd given Roz some excuse about things to be cleaned up at the clinic, but he's pretty sure she saw through that. After he'd puttered around for a couple of hours and annoyed the hell out of McMurphy, he's back, and dreads what is about to come.

He pulls into the Goldmans driveway rather than his own out of sheer laziness, since he can't use his leg as an excuse anymore. So what? It's bad enough he has to do this; he doesn't have to get his feet and the bottom of his pants soaked in a trudge through the snow from their place on top of it. Besides, he might feel the need to get the hell out of Dodge for a while after the session.

As he parks the car in front he notices the driveway is almost clear. So apparently there are some advantages to having a yard ape. He feels a pang in his chest at the thought, which he wills to go away. It's harder to push the sadness aside as time passes, so however reluctant the knowledge, he needs this session. He also knows it will have all the seductive charm of a root canal on an infected tooth, performed sans Novocaine.

The ever-present cold that seeps into the car reminds him he's stalling. Greg forces himself to get out and walk up the driveway. Normally he'd go around to the back door and come in through the mudroom like family, but today's different. He doesn't want to examine that superstition too closely—and that's what it is, whether he wants to admit it or not.

He has a passcode for the security system. Usually he goes to the back door, but for some reason today he feels a need to come in the front entrance. As he puts in his numbers he hears someone on the other side de-activate the alarm, and then the door is unlocked. Sarah is ready for him. "Yeah, yeah, I'm here already," she says with a smile. "Gettin' all formal with me today, I see," and she gives him a quick hug. As she heads back to the kitchen, he toes off his sneakers and puts his coat on the rack.

He stands there for a moment and collects his thoughts. He knows it's ridiculous. What can Sarah possibly do to him? Just make you wrench your own guts out by forcing you to face this, he thinks, and almost turns around in a panic to escape. By sheer force of will he makes himself stop, consider his actions. He'd lived for years in serious pain with his leg; many times, in sheer agony. You're no wimp, he thinks in useless defiance. Then why is he so damn terrified? No answer is forthcoming, however. With a mental sigh he pushes himself through the house until he reaches the kitchen. Sarah is there, baking bread to last for the next few days.

"I just took the last loaf out of the oven," she tells him. "Want some?"

Greg reaches for one of the cooler loaves on the wire rack and slices it with the knife she hands him. He grabs a seat at the counter and proceeds to slather the bread with the softened butter she usually keeps on hand. There's a sort of primal satisfaction in a big chunk of saturated fat on a thick slab of fresh bread. The butter's already melted by the time he's ready to taste-test.

"Aren't you past old enough to get your cholesterol checked?" Sarah teases.

"Did, and it's fine," he informs her as he takes a huge bite and chews noisily. "Besides, there is no link between eating cholesterol and blood cholesterol rising."

She snorts in amusement. "I'm sure you'll name the coronary after me."

Greg mock-glares at her as he finishes that piece and grabs the knife to cut another slice. "Nice. Where's the rug rat and your hubby?"

"The Orange men have a home game this afternoon and Gene took Jason. They're going out to dinner afterwards and then coming home." Sarah puts the mixing bowl back in its accustomed place, the open shelf next to the oven, as Greg savors the mellow, nutty flavor of the fresh bread.

"Sounds like a late night."

"My guesstimate is they'll be back by eight or so. Not too bad."

He's not fooled by her casual tone. "But late enough for us to have a looong session."

Sarah takes the bandana off her head. Rusty curls escape in a bright halo. She's grown her hair out again, it's almost down to her shoulders now. "Whatever you're up for, son."

He rolls his eyes. "What I'm up for is a lengthy afternoon encounter with my wife."

"Hmm. I was wonderin', is it true overuse of Viagra makes everything look blue?" Sarah's tone is pure innocence. Greg gives her a withering glance.

"Hilarious. Let's just get this over with, if you don't mind."

The teasing look leaves Sarah's eyes. She unties her apron and goes to the mudroom door, tosses the stained garment on the washer. "Are you okay in the living room?"

"So that's where you're keeping the rack and the hot pokers these days," he says over his shoulder as he walks into the living room and claims what is universally considered "his" chair—by universally he means himself, of course. Sarah follows, with a fresh mug of tea in her hand. She places it on the coaster on the end table, then goes to the fireplace, drops another log on the fire, stabs at it a couple of times with the poker to get it in the right spot. With care she replaces the screen, settles into a chair opposite his and picks up her mug—a familiar routine, something he knows she does to give him a chance to relax. A few moments later a wave of warmth fills the room, sweet with the scent of seasoned applewood; no doubt it's a pruning from Annie's orchard, traded in exchange for some of Sarah's strawberry preserves. He breathes in the smell and knows in some indefinable way that this is still his first real home, a haven of safety and trust. No one in this place will hurt him or send him away, especially the woman who sits across from him.

"So, why are you here, wasting a perfectly good Saturday?" Sarah asks. Greg glances at the dining room table, where graph-paper garden plans and lists are spread out on much of the surface.

"Sorry I interrupted your weeping over a seed catalog, Farmer Brown."

She gives him a considering, thoughtful stare that makes him nervous. "That was a one-time thing and it was about James, as well you know. You also know he's doing better, so stop deflecting. Why did you want to see me?"

He shrugs. "My wife insisted."

"From my observations, I'd say she's a very perceptive woman."

"Huh," he scoffs. "That's only because she agrees with you."

Sarah chuckles. "Well, yeah. So, what's eating you?"

"Oh, you and your fancy-dancy psychological terms!" He pauses for several beats. "I don't know . . ."

"I think you do." Her reply is soft, but there's nothing sentimental or pitying in it—he's thankful for that. Empathy right now would send him in flight to the hinterlands, and Sarah understands him quite well in that regard. "You know the five stages of grief, right?" Greg rolls his eyes but says nothing. "Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance-"

"Yeah yeah yeah, and I'm already into acceptance. Do I get a gold star, Teach?" He puts plenty of sarcasm in the question.

Sarah looks down at her hands. "We both know you're nowhere near acceptance, son. You're deep in denial and depression, with an extra-large side of anger just to keep us all on our toes."

He stares down his nose at her. "Au contraire, ye who got her degree out of a box of Cracker Jack. I'm at acceptance, because I don't need to grieve."

Now she looks up. Those luminous sea-green eyes are intent, questioning. "Why not?"

Greg feels a momentary surge of frustration. Is he the only one who doesn't get this? "I'm supposed to be grief-stricken about something I didn't want. Don't be stupid."

She tilts her head just a bit—a scientist studying a particularly interesting species of insect. "Why didn't you want it?"

He knows her little ways by now, enough to make it tough for her to pitch a change-up on him. Still, he'd expected a lecture on why he should want it, not a direct question like this one. And he doesn't know how to answer it. All he knows is that it hurts to acknowledge it. Deep within he feels the weight of sadness, like a stone in his heart. He pushes the awareness away and gives her the line he's been using as an answer from the start of this mess. "We agreed to no children when we got married—"

Sarah cuts him off-a rare instance of irritation on display. "You said that I don't know how many times when Roz was pregnant, and it still doesn't explain a damn thing." She softens a bit. "Why did you make the agreement?"

Greg can't help but feel a little gratitude that she hasn't accused him of coercion. When Roz hesitated to terminate the pregnancy, he'd spent a number of sleepless nights afraid he had somehow forced her into agreement with him. Normally he wouldn't give that technique a second thought, but in this case . . . Roz's anguish about her indecision and Sarah's questions tells him now his fear was unwarranted, though he could be accused of manipulation; still, he truly hadn't meant or wanted to maneuver her into agreement with him. His stomach unclenches slightly. But Sarah still waits for an answer. He does his best to reply in the flippant tone she'll expect. "Because with my background, I never had a snowball's chance in hell of being a good parent."

Sarah's curls glitter in the firelight as she thinks about his reply. After a few moments she says "Do you think Gene and I are bad parents?"

He could say at least a dozen snarky things here, but he decides to be honest. "Not so far."

"And we certainly didn't have idyllic childhoods, to put it mildly."

Well, she has him there. But of course he's not going to give up so easily. "At least you weren't someone's bastard."

"Yeah, and bein' their natural-born child made my childhood so much happier than yours," Sarah responds with considerable sarcasm, which immediately puts him on the defensive. He knows she's deliberately provocative, but she's touched a raw nerve. He gives in to the urge to lash out at her.

"Fuck you. You don't know everything that went on with me."

She doesn't flinch from his harshness. "No, but I do know your father didn't spend his days drunk outta his mind. He didn't near-starve his wife and kids because he'd pissed all his money away on gettin' stoned. John made a decent living, he made sure you had clothes to wear and a roof over your head that wasn't leakin' every time it rained. He didn't sexually abuse you or not give a shit that someone else was."

He knows Sarah's childhood was horrific. Even so, he can't let his own pain be dismissed, though he understands it's a trap she's set deliberately to draw him out; the bait is just too tempting to pass up. So he snarls "No, he just abused me in other ways." He braces himself to hear how he was weak, that it wasn't that bad, and he should have been able to take it. Therefore he's surprised by Sarah's response.

"Agreed. Why do you think he did those things to you?"

"How the hell would I know?" he snaps. "Maybe he thought he was exposing me to 'Marine discipline' or some other equally idiotic shit."

"Why would he want to do that?"

"May I repeat: how the hell should I know?"

"Let's think about this for a second." Sarah pauses—not for effect; she contemplates the situation. He sees it in the cast of her face, her expression. He relaxes just a fraction; she takes his experiences seriously. Not many people have; in fact, most people haven't, mainly because they never asked about his childhood. He recalls how Stacy flinched away from him when he'd mentioned John's silence for a summer . . . he sets the memory aside as Sarah speaks.

"Did John do alcohol?"

Greg is surprised by the question. He has to think about it. "Not that I remember. I never saw him take a single drink, not in the house at least. He'd have a beer at the bar, but that's about it."

Sarah settles into the chair, sips her tea, holds the cup with both hands—probably to warm them. She gets cold easily in this old house; in point of fact he knows she wears two pairs of socks and her sheepskin slippers, along with her usual flannel-lined jeans and long-sleeved thermal shirt under her favorite old Aran sweater. "Doesn't that strike you as odd? I mean, most Marines seem to be as macho about drinking as they are about anything else."

"I guess . . ." he says with reluctance.

"How about drugs? A lot of those guys came back from Korea and Vietnam with addiction problems."

"Nope. In fact, the only fight I ever heard my parents have was about Mom using pills, not him."

Sarah nods. "Tell me what happened."

The memory comes back to him, bright as a new penny. Most of his childhood remembrances are sharp and clear, something he despises—it's why he keeps them locked away in a tiny little corner of his mind, where he doesn't have to look at them. "I went to play at a neighbor's house for the afternoon . . . 'play' being the operative euphemism for Mom dumping me off on the people next door when she was too stoned to cope. I must've been about ten years old or so. I was supposed to be home at suppertime. Well, the kid's mother was pregnant and she got sick." His diagnostician's mindset kicks in for a moment. "From the symptoms she displayed, it was most likely pre-eclampsia. Huh . . . just thought of that. Interesting."

"Go on," Sarah says softly when he falls silent. With an effort he gathers his thoughts.

"So . . . the father came home and took everyone to the hospital, which meant I had to go home early. I came in the front door and I heard them arguing in the kitchen. I don't remember specifics, other than John saying she had to 'stop using those goddamn pills' or he would leave her. For a minute I was actually hopeful, until he said he'd take me with him because he wouldn't stick a kid with a drug addict. At that point, I was silently begging Mom to say she'd stop taking the sedatives. She was crying and she agreed. I didn't want them to know I'd been listening . . ."

"You knew if John found out you'd heard them, he'd make life hell for you," Sarah says. There is a quiet understanding in her voice that eases his fear and anger, allows both emotions to fade into the usual background noise that always goes on in his head. He nods.

"So I went outside and sat in the front yard. I came in a half hour later and Mom was getting dinner and John was watching TV." Abruptly he realizes he's fallen neatly into her trap and given her far too much information. She'll have to work for anything she gets from him now.

[H]

Sarah paused. She knew Greg was perfectly able to draw his own conclusions and get to the right place, but he could also go in a completely opposite direction out of sheer bloody-mindedness. She decided to coach him a little. "So, he didn't drink, he didn't use drugs, he wouldn't tolerate your Mom using drugs, to the point that he would take a kid, possibly not even his own, who for certain he didn't like very much, away from her to protect him. Why do you think he felt so strongly about this?"

"Never thought about it." Greg's tone was flat, uncompromising. It had 'DON'T GO THERE' written all over it, a big bristly display of hostility. Sarah ignored the warning, but tried a slightly different route.

"What do you know about his family?"

"His father died before I was born, we moved a lot and didn't see grandma House very often. He didn't contact her much that I can remember, and he never invited her to stay with us or even visit." He hesitated. "I don't know . . . The few times she visited she was—was good to me. She—liked me."

Sarah felt a stab of compassion for the confused and misunderstood child Greg had been, and still is to a large extent, but didn't let the emotion distract her. "Did you get the feeling he was ashamed of her or his father when he was alive?"

"Not sure . . ." Greg pondered the question for a moment. "It's possible. Don't see what that has to do with anything."

"You know enough about psychology to understand that children of parents who have serious substance abuse problems grow up in chaotic households, to say the least. And you know that if they don't get help dealing with that, they tend to do one of two things. Either they become just like their parents and abuse booze or drugs themselves, or they become controlling in an attempt to overcome the chaos they endured throughout their childhood."

"You being a poster child for the latter, of course." Sarah acknowledged his dig with a nod; it was the truth, so she let him score the point. Greg tipped his head back for a moment, considered her words. Then he looked straight at her, his gaze fierce. "You're saying you think that's what happened to him."

"It's certainly possible. It would explain why he was so drawn to the military and to the Marines in particular–for the structure. It would also explain why he was such a fanatic about order, punctuality, and discipline. And why he didn't want to leave you with your mother while she was using pills, which he probably would have considered an abusive environment, ironically enough."

"Seriously?"

"Think about it. It fits." It wasn't exactly a differential diagnosis, but Sarah thought she had successfully appealed to his logical side. She waited to see what his response would be.

[H]

There's a pause. After everything John did to Greg, there is a part of him that can only see the man as a cold, mean, miserable son of a bitch. But there is also the part of him that can be detached, and he uses that ability to think about what Sarah has postulated. It's certainly possible. In fact, it makes the most sense out of John's behavior of anything he or anyone else has hypothesized over the years. Of course, that doesn't mean he can simply accept it. "So what? Even if that was the bastard's motivation, it doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about."

Sarah tilts her head a bit and studies him. "We were talking about your being the same kind of parent as John."

Just that fast, the clench in his gut is back. "So, I'm supposed to learn something from the example of my un-daddy, who, possibly having been raised in a crappy, chaotic environment, turned my life into a living hell by creating a crappy, obsessively orderly environment for me?" He shakes his head. "Nope. Go rattle your beads and dump your gris-gris on someone else, witch doctor. It ain't gonna work on me."

Sarah doesn't rise to the bait. "I would like you to consider my point: people can use different methods than their parents employed."

"But even with one hypothetical household using 'different methods'," he puts plenty of scorn in the words, "both families were still completely dysfunctional. By inference you're suggesting that I should change again, go back to being what we think his father was–abusive and neglectful–because I'm an addict."

He should have known she wouldn't fall for his argument; she's not a clueless fellow on his team who hasn't mastered the art of critical thinking. "I did say there were basically two reactions–for people who didn't get help. You got help and you're in recovery."

Greg snorts. "Yeah, right now." He just throws that out there to rattle her, but instead of the smartass response he's expecting, her reply is serious.

"You know very well that all we're ever sure about is today." There's a dark edge of resignation in her words that reminds him she understands that concept all too clearly. Still, he can't let her comment go untouched.

"And this is good for a kid, how exactly?" He puts a considerable amount of sarcasm in that rhetorical question.

"Every parent is flawed. You are more self-aware than anyone I've ever known. For the most part, you know exactly what your flaws are and, since you are getting help, how to deal with them. That puts you miles ahead of almost any parent out there."

"So you're saying I'd know how not to hurt a kid because I'd know when I was screwing up and to stop it." He doesn't buy that for a second, but he'll let her believe it. And yet he can't resist going a step further, just to see what she'll say-to test her. "What about . . . " He hesitates, then decides to take the plunge. Fuck it. An experiment is only as valid as the integrity of its components. "I don't have the capacity to care about a child. Not the way . . . not like a parent should."

Sarah doesn't answer right away. When she does, she surprises him again. "We've had this discussion before, son. All your life, you've had people tell you that you aren't worthy of being loved, that you can't love in return. Unfortunately, your experiences can't be changed. What can be changed is whether you accept that it's true or not. And I think you know by now that it isn't." The unaccountable affection . . . no, now he knows it for what it is—the love she feels for him shines through her simple words, as warm and bright as the fire behind the screen a few feet away. He turns his face from hers for a few moments, unable to bear the look on her face. He's not worthy of it, and he knows it even if she doesn't.

"Well, that helps my self-loathing," he tries for sarcasm but it comes out pained instead, which he hates. "But that doesn't tell me how to give two shits about some ankle biter my wife and I made by smacking an egg and some sperm together."

"It's the place you start. And then you add your empathy and your being a good teacher, and you're pretty much there."

"Empathy," he scoffs, but falls silent for a few moments. "That's . . . that's all there is to being a good parent, then?"

Sarah smiles a little. "It's the most important stuff. Bein' thrilled that they hit a home run in Little League or learned how to play 'Heart and Soul,' telling everyone until they can't stand to listen about the latest funny thing your kid said, and turnin' into a big pile of mush because they want to hug and kiss you, that comes along in time."

Greg rolls his eyes. "Get real. Can you honestly see me doing any of that?"

"Not so as anyone would notice, but, yes."

"But none of that is my loving someone," he has to point out. "How do you know I can do that?"

Sarah's sea-green eyes gleam with mild triumph; she thinks she has him by the short hairs, so to speak. "You love Roz."

"Meh. She gives me sex."

"And that's all there is to your relationship?"

"It's the biggest part of it." Greg offers a leer. "Biggest part—see what I did there?"

Sarah chuckles. "Son, as they used to say back home, you're so full of horseshit it's comin' out yer ears."

"Such a bucolic image." He gives her a hard stare. "Redneck. You can do better than that."

Sarah ignores his sarcasm. "If it was just about sex, you'd have never married her, nor would you be trying to stay married to her. Nothing wrong with admitting that you love someone."

He can't let that one go. "There always has been, for me."

"But there isn't now." She sits back a bit. "Things have changed."

He lets that pass without comment. "So you really think I could love a kid."

"Absolutely." As usual, Sarah exhibits an unshakeable faith in him that he's not sure he's worthy of. It warms him even as a voice of denial lingers at the back of his mind. That voice has gotten less insistent since he began to work with Sarah, but it's still there. He can't refute her love and respect for him logically, but there is something about this situation that requires he at least be capable of looking at the truth, even if his shrink can't or won't.

"If I did find out I could love a kid, which I doubt, this wasn't a kid. So I won't get all maudlin and stupid over something that didn't exist."

[H]

Sarah was well aware that Greg had changed the subject. She decided to let him think about what she'd said, and let the session move on. She was familiar with Greg's views on this topic. Biologically speaking, a baby is not a baby until it's born, and her boy was a scientist to his core. Facts were what mattered to him, or so he'd convinced himself; feelings just clouded the 'real' issue. She knew by now it was a blend of his medical training, John's conditioning against emotions of all kinds, and defensiveness against the hurt and betrayal he'd suffered for a good chunk of his life, that made him dismiss his or anyone else's emotions. But he was fully capable of emotions of all kinds, both fierce and tender, though he kept them deeply buried. She felt the inevitable wave of sorrow for the man her son might have been, but pushed it aside.

"Human females are non-productive for months during pregnancy and have a high risk of death from childbirth. The offspring produced are also tremendously fragile in comparison to other species and have one of the longest childhoods of any species."

Greg inclined his head in mock reverence. "Thank you, Margaret Mead."

"This isn't anthropology, it's biology, and you know it. Why would human adults endure all that, including the tremendous strain on resources of a child that grows until well into its teens?"

He looked away. "It's the price we pay for having large brains, which makes those tendencies nothing but survival strategies."

Sarah didn't let him dismiss the point. "And those large brains also push our impulses toward hedonism, not the altruism associated with raising a child."

Greg exhaled through his nose. "What's the end result of this rambling discourse?" he said after a moment.

"Just that there needs to be something beyond pure survival instinct to make us go through all that. It's to our evolutionary advantage to feel something for a child, or even a fetus–a potential child."

"And you have your own experience with that, don't you, Mommy Dearest?"

Even after everything she'd done to deal with the pain of her loss, it still stings like a hard slap in the face when she was confronted in this way; despite the years since her last episode of abuse, she remembered that feeling all too well. She knew that Greg had done it on purpose, but felt no animosity toward him for it as her analyst-self pushed away the hurt, aware they were close to some serious pain he'd tried to hide from her, and himself. She returned to the topic at hand.

"So, the loss you are feeling is an evolutionary response."

"Well, doesn't that just appeal to the rational scientist in me. Thanks for giving me cover for my emotions, Doctor." The sarcasm dripped off him like water would if he'd been caught in a downpour without a raincoat. "It might have worked better if you weren't so blatantly obvious, though. Your technique is rusty. You sure you're ready to open a practice, even here in East Podunk?"

Hmm . . . Sarah examined his statement with as much rational objectivity as she could muster, because it was vitally important for her patient that she did so. She could give in to the uncertainty and worry he'd raised later on, when she was alone. Poking one of my professed inadequacies with a sharp stick. He hasn't lashed out like this in a long time. That means he's hurting even more than I thought. She responded with honesty, the best weapon in her arsenal against the formidable defenses of which he was capable. "Any doctor worth his or her salt questions themselves now and then, yes." She sat back and waited for his reply, outwardly calm as she ignored the pain he's caused. That, too, was part of parenting.

[H]

By now, he shouldn't be surprised by her forthrightness or her ability to be self-aware, and that includes her own weaknesses. But he's known so few people in his life like this, he can still be taken aback when he encounters it. So he watches her instead, waits to see if she'll lie to him or contradict herself, or give up—anything he can work with to get himself out of this situation, and go home. Even as he thinks it, he knows it won't happen; she's way too good at her job despite his jeers to the contrary.

"We're getting off the subject here," Sarah says at last. "As I was saying, you've been genetically programmed to feel something over the loss of even a potential child."

Greg remembers his phantom little girl with dark hair and green eyes, seated at his piano. A jolt of pain suddenly surges inside him, so intense he feels his eyes water. "This is stupid," is all he can say. It comes out as a resentful mutter; he might as well be eight years old.

"No, it's not," Sarah says. "Don't be angry for feeling something. I know this doesn't fit in with your logical view of yourself, with the empirical evidence you've collected over the years, and that frustrates and angers you. But I'll venture to say this: your evidence-gathering was influenced from the start by outside forces. You do have emotions, quite valid ones as a matter of fact. Denying them never does you any good, as you well know. Hey, even Mister Spock had feelings."

He almost groans out loud at this last caveat. "Yeesh. If I give you a few sniffles and clear my throat, can I go home?"

"Shown' me that you have the start of a cold won't do much to convince me you're facing your pain." She watches him with such compassion. "Try something else, like the truth."

"I . . . I just-I don't-" He hates himself when he sounds so weak, like a whiny, spoiled child, but he can't help it. He's always avoided this kind of thing, and, while Sarah is right that it won't do him any good to do that now, he still can't get away from the part of himself that wishes it would all just disappear.

"I know," Sarah says softly. "But sometimes we have to encounter pain in order to heal. You're a doctor, you know that. Lance the boil, and all those other ancient cliches."

"'First do no harm'," he throws at her. "Anyway, you know doctors make the crappiest patients."

"But they can't avoid becoming patients sometimes, can they? Why would it be so terrible to allow yourself to feel something over this? Why do you consider it harmful?"

"Because it's pain, dammit!" He lashes out at her because she's made herself a target just by prodding him about this. "I don't—I don't want to feel pain!" Again, he loathes that pathetic little boy's voice that comes out of him.

"I know that you've had several lifetimes' worth already, son." Sarah says it with a quiet sorrow that both comforts and annoys the hell out of him. "But this isn't going anywhere unless you address it."

"Fucking pointless," he snarls. "I don't need to feel something over nothing."

He should have known she wouldn't let that one go. "It wasn't 'nothing', Greg. It was the combination of some amazing genes, of a potential person you have to admit you were at least curious about."

"Curiosity, okay," he reluctantly concedes. "But no sadness."

"Why not?"

He snorts at her disingenuousness. "You can't be sad over lost potential."

"Oh, bullshit." There it is, that familiar twang; bool-shih-yit. Her reply surprises as much as it comforts him; of course she won't get sentimental, she knows that's the surest way to alienate him. "So all those years you lost with your leg are fine with you?" Sarah sounds politely incredulous. Well, she has him there. He responds with a feeble attempt at sarcasm.

"Oh, aren't you just so clever."

She sighs softly. "I'm just saying, and you know this from your own experience, that people feel badly about lost potential all the time."

"Uh uh. This is not that. It's not whether I should have become a blues musician instead of a diagnostician."

She shakes her head. "No, that's living with a choice. This wasn't a choice you made, was it?"

And there it is, the barbed lance-point buried deep in his side that he's tried to ignore. As much as he's done his best to convince himself that things were better now, that because of the miscarriage they won't have to make a decision that will make Roz feel guilty, he can't get over the feeling that something was taken from him . . . from them. The outcome would have been the same, he knows, but he wanted at least Roz to be able to choose. He sits there helpless, the pain of the lance-point undeniable now, a wound that poisons him with every moment he denies its existence.

"It was like your leg, wasn't it?" Sarah asks softly. It's clear she's aware she treads on dangerous ground now.

"Yes," he says with great reluctance, because he can't say anything else. "It's—it's not like I could wimp out and think there would be a better drug for the pain, or relief from an amputation, or a new treatment." He looks down at his leg and the new muscle he's grown, and finally admits that he had allowed himself to hope all those years. "Even if I hadn't had Chase do the surgery . . . and if we changed our minds and decided we wanted to have a kid . . . this particular combination . . . this potential . . . this . . ." He has to say it, he has no choice. "This child . . ."

And just that fast, he feels his breathing accelerate, and moisture accumulates on his lashes. He blinks them away, mostly. After a few moments he's vaguely aware that Sarah has left the room, but he can't seem to concentrate on anything except the grief inside him . . . and yet it's not the excruciating pain he'd feared it would be. It hurts terribly, yes; the kind of hurt he knows won't ever leave him completely, there will always be a weight in his heart when he thinks of his child—his and Roz's baby, their unique creation-but somehow it feels right that the weight will be there. It should be there.

When he comes out of his thoughts, it's to find Sarah by his side. In her hands is a notebook. It looks familiar . . . he places it within seconds of seeing it.

"Gonna record all this angst in your Big Book of Little Greggy's Secrets," he says at last. He struggles with a sense of betrayal.

"No," she says quietly. "I promised you a long time ago that when the day came, I would give you the notes of our sessions together, all the way back to the beginning, so you can do whatever you like with them." She smiles just a little. "Today is that day."

With that she places the notebook in his hands. Greg stares down at it.

"You're serious," he says. She nods.

"Yup. All yours."

He wipes his eyes, a quick swipe to clear away the tears he hates so much, and opens to a random page. The entry is written in hieroglyphs—middle Egyptian, he remembers her saying-in Sarah's small, neat hand; columns of information, precise and elegant and for all that, nearly as unreadable as a scribble, at least to his eyes. He can pick out a word here and there, but that's all.

"You could make a fortune off this." It's what he'd said when she'd first told him about her notes.

"So I could. Not interested," Sarah says. "I love you too much to destroy your trust and our friendship for a few bucks. I'd rather earn it the honest way and poke around in neurotic people's heads an hour at a time."

That gets a slight chuckle out of him. He runs his fingers over the page. So much careful work, and she's handed it over as if it's of no consequence . . . but he knows far better than that. The absolute faith this gesture demonstrates threatens to open a new well of emotion inside him. To ease the intensity he stands up, goes to the fireplace. Sarah follows him. He stops, reaches out to move the screen, stares into the bright flames. When her hand comes to rest on his arm he doesn't flinch; her touch is welcome and has been for some time now, a reminder of what he's gained amid loss. He draws in a breath. With a single quick gesture he tosses the notebook into the fire. Together he and Sarah watch it burn.

"I suggest we continue our sessions," she says after a while. "You might find you want to do some exploring."

Greg stares at the curling pages, lost forever now, and feels some of those inscribed words leave him for good too. Not all, not by a long shot . . . but some. "Yeah. I'd . . . I'd like that." He turns his gaze to her, searches her face. He sees again the faint scar through her eyebrow, the laugh lines at the corner of her eyes, the quiet honesty and love in her bright gaze. After a bit of hesitation he bends down and kisses her cheek. When he draws back there are tears in her eyes.

"Well done," she says softly. "So proud of you, son."

He holds her gaze. "I have to go . . . I have to tell her . . ."

"I know. I'm here whenever you need me." She smiles a little. "Give your wife a hug and a kiss from me."

He bolts from the house in his eagerness to get home, starts up the car and almost slamming it into gear, uncaring that Jay will give him hell for it when it's time for a tune-up. He backs out and pulls into their driveway next door. His chest is squeezing as he puts Barbarella in the garage; he runs through the path Roz cleared with the snow blower from the garage to the back door, catches himself as he slides now and then.

The kitchen is warm and smells of the roast braising in the oven, but it's deserted. He finds Roz in the living room, curled up on the couch to watch tv. She takes one look at him and turns it off with the remote. He dumps his coat and gloves on the chair and stares at her, unable to move forward.

"I . . . I wanted to tell you—" His voice is rough, harsh, too loud. He stops, clears his throat. "I didn't want the kid . . . except—" In his mind he sees the little girl again, his little girl—ours, he thinks, ours. "What you said to me, I felt it too. I wanted the part . . . the part that was you . . ." The words die in his throat; he can't get the rest of them out. He stands there, unable to move. The tears he'd held back at Sarah's house fall so fast and thick it's like trying to see the road while driving in a downpour. And then he feels his lover's slender, work-worn hands cup his face, his tears gently wiped away with her thumbs. Her mouth finds his, her soft lips sweet as wine, but his face is too wet to realize she's crying as well, until she draws in a shuddering breath and brings him close, shaking.

Some time later they lie in bed after making love, and hold each other. The pain is still there and probably always will be, but they share it now, and that makes it easier for both of them—he understands that finally. After a while they get up to take dinner out of the oven and eat at the table in their warm, fragrant kitchen, while outside the wind picks up the fresh snow in swirls. As he sits there, for a moment he thinks of the quiet woman across the lane, undoubtedly settled in her study with a cup of tea and the latest psychology journals, deep in study and notes as she does her best to become a better healer than the superlative one she already is. He sends her an unspoken word of thanks, and takes a sip of wine in her honor.