Page 99 of Don't Tell

I end the call.

I sit on the edge of the guest bed and look at the photograph of Marguerite.

I let myself, for the first time in three days, think about him.

I have not let myself all week. I have been keeping the thought of him in the room across the hall the way I used to keep the thought of my mother in the cabinet under the sink — present, contained, not opened. I open it now.

He hasn't come in the three days I've been here.

I'm not going back tomorrow.

I'm going to wait.

I'm going to wait because my mind will recover from this. I'm strong, clear, and I have a meeting with a gallerist on Thursday. A life that can keep being my life without him. My mind is going to be fine.

It is my heart I'm not sure about.

I have not said the word to him. I have not said it to Renée. I have not said it to myself in any full sentence in any room I have stood in this week.

I say it now.

In the dark, in the guest room at my cousin's house, with the photograph of Marguerite on the bureau and the small distant sound of Chad and Renée loading the dishwasher downstairs, I say it.

I love him.

I have for a while.

I don't know when he will come.

I don't know if he will come the right way.

I'm going to wait anyway.

23.Cade

I make the appointment at 7:00 a.m.

The receptionist on the line tells me the soonest available is 11:00 a.m. I take it. She asks if I have insurance. I tell her no. She asks if I have been in therapy before. I tell her no. There is a small pause on the line and then she tells me she has me down for then, suite 412, please bring a photo ID.

I shower. I dress. I don't eat. I sit at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee I don't drink and I look at the clock above the stove for forty minutes and at 10:00 a.m. I get in the car.

The building is on a side street I have driven past a thousand times without noticing. The fourth floor is small. The hallway is the kind of carpet that has been there since 2003. The door at suite 412 is a plain wood door with a name plate that says her name in a font I don't recognize.

I sit in the chair in the waiting room for nine minutes.

I stand up and sit back down.

The door opens.

She is in her 60s. Her hair is gray and cropped short. She is in a sweater I have seen on my mother. She holds out her hand and I shake it and she gestures to the inner office and I go in.

The room is small with two chairs, a low table, and a window that looks at the side of another building. The chair is not trying to impress me. There is a file on the desk that has nothing in it yet.

We sit.

"What brings you in."

"A woman left me. I'm the reason. I'm trying to figure out how to fix it."