to Lilly.”
“And just about every other woman in America,” Zee said.
“True enough. Your mother was onto something when she started writing fairy tales about The Great Love.”
“Something that evidently killed her,” Zee said.
“Which?” Mattei said.
“Was it the fairy tale that killed her? Or The Great Love?”
“Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?”
“You tell me,” Mattei said.
When Zee didn’t take the bait, Mattei asked a different question. “What’s the other dream of the fairy tale?”
“Besides true love?”
“What are both your mother and Lilly looking for?” Mattei asked.
“My mother’s not looking for anything. My mother’s dead.” Zee was growing tired of this line of questioning.
“Bear with me for a moment,” Mattei said.
Zee folded her arms across her chest.
“What did your mother want from you then, and what does Lilly want now?”
“I don’t know,” Zee said.
“Think about it.”
Zee thought about Mattei’s question, and she thought about Lilly Braedon many times during the next few months.
It was William who finally contacted Zee. He was desperate. “She’s not doing well,” he sobbed into the phone. “I don’t know what to do.” He told Zee that Lilly had stopped the therapy within the first month. Convinced that the doctor was coming on to her, she had refused to step back into his office. “I don’t know,” William said. “She’s such a beautiful woman. Men can’t help throwing themselves at her. I tend to believe her.” He tried to compose himself before going on. “She won’t even get out of bed.”
Whose bed? Zee wanted to ask. But she didn’t. Instead she agreed to go to the house to meet with Lilly, and with that, Zee crossed another line.
The house was a mess. It hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, William told her. Finally, in frustration, he had hired a maid ser vice, three women from Brazil who didn’t speak much English, which he decided was a good thing, because he was afraid of what Lilly might say to them if she started talking. But instead of speaking even a word of hello, Lilly had taken to locking herself in her bedroom and crying the whole time they tried to clean—huge, wrenching sobs that finally upset the maids so much that they quit. “What was she crying about?” he’d asked the women, but they didn’t know. Gesturing, they managed to communicate to him that Lilly had been talking on the phone with someone.
William thought that maybe the phone calls had been to Zee.
Zee didn’t tell him what she already knew, that the phone calls were to Adam.
“You didn’t break up with Adam, did you?” Zee asked Lilly at her first return session.
“I couldn’t,” Lilly said. Then she started to cry.
Lilly became Zee’s patient once more. And once again her meds were adjusted. Soon she was driving herself into Boston on a regular basis. She seemed better. Spring was turning to summer again, and Lilly’s spirits were lifting.
They didn’t talk about Adam anymore. Lilly wouldn’t, and there were clearly boundary issues that Zee had violated; she didn’t want to risk making things worse. For now it was important not to drive Lilly away again. It was enough that she was here and that she seemed to be improving. It was Lilly who finally brought up Adam.
It was about six months later, in one of her sessions. “We think we’re free,” she said, “but we’re not. We’re the product of every association we’ve ever made, and sometimes of ones we inherited from people we never even knew.”
“That’s very profound,” Zee said.
“So you agree?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I agree or disagree. What matters is what you think.”
“I just told you what I think.”
“So you did,” Zee said.
Lilly made a face.
“What?” Zee said.
“Did you ever want to get out of something but you didn’t know how?”
“What is it you want to get out of?”
“Just about everything right about now,” Lilly said.
“Why don’t you tell me the specifics, and I’ll see if I can help you work through it,” Zee suggested.
“My marriage, for one,” Lilly said.
“Why do you want to get out of your marriage?”
“I feel as if William set up this elaborate trap for me and made it look all pretty, and I just fell into it,” Lilly said.
“And now you want to free yourself from the trap?”
“Yes.” Lilly looked at Zee. “You don’t approve.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I approve.”
“But you don’t.”
“I didn’t say that. People get divorces. No judgment,” Zee said.
“So you’re saying it’s okay?”
“Do you think it’s okay?”
“I have two children,” Lilly said.
“Yes, you do.”
“I feel like I’m dying,” Lilly said.
“Let’s explore that,” Zee said.
Lilly said nothing.
“In what way do you feel like you’re dying?” Zee asked.
“Not dying. Trapped. I can’t leave because of the children. And I can’t stay.”
“I understand feeling as if you can’t leave. Why do you feel you can’t stay?” Zee said.
“It’s not safe,” she said.
“Are we talking about Adam?”
“It’s not Adam. Adam is wonderful,” Lilly said.
“Are you telling me you want to be with Adam?” Zee asked.
Lilly looked confused for a moment. “No, I never said that.”
“Why do you feel unsafe?” Zee asked again.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“I’m glad you brought it up. If you feel unsafe in any way, I need to know about it,” Zee said.
“I told him what you said. That I should get away from him.”
“We’re talking about Adam now,” Zee said.
Lilly hesitated for a second. “Yes. Adam.”
“Adam whom you just described as wonderful.”
“I’m so confused.” Lilly started to cry.
“It’s okay,” Zee said.
Lilly clearly looked frightened.
“And what did Adam say when you told him that?” Zee asked.
“He said that you were a bitch and someone should teach you to mind your own business,” Lilly said. “Those were his exact words.”
It took Zee by surprise. She sat for a moment trying to