Page 11 of Wrong Mail

"And the sleep?"

“I’m getting some."

"With help, or without?"

I look at the little square of myself in the corner of the screen, the woman with wet hair and a careful expression. I think about lying, but I don't, because lying to Kane wastes both our afternoons. "With, twice this week. The nights David is away are worse. He left today for Portland."

Kane nods slowly. “Right. The nights alone. We've talked about how those go. Are you still checking the locks? Listening for things that aren’t there?”

I nod. “I'm aware I check the locks. It's a very boring problem to have."

“It isn’t boring and it isn’t a problem. It’s a response. Your body learned something two years ago and it’s still trying to keep you safe with the only tools it has.” He lets that sit. He’s good at letting things sit. “How’s the hearing? You said the right side’s been bothering you more.”

“I saw the audiologist again this morning. Nothing’s changed. Same loss, same frequencies. She reminded me the damage is permanent. The hair cells that were destroyed aren’t coming back.” I shrug. “And she’s still trying to talk me into a hearing aid.”

“Why won’t you?”

“Because then it’s real.” I hear how that sounds and push straight past it. “Most of the time I manage. It’s worse in loud rooms. Everything on that side gets muffled, and sometimes I lose half of what someone says and nod like I heard them.” I try to make it a joke and it lands somewhere short of one. “I hate that the most, I think. More than the pool. More than the driving. Missing things. I used to hear everything. It was the whole job, hearing what people were trying not to say.”

There. I've walked us right up to it without meaning to, my mouth arriving before the rest of me can stop it. A small alertness comes into Kane's expression.

"The job," he says. "Say more."

"It's nothing. I'm just rambling.”

"Mallory."

I look past the laptop to the island, where the envelope is hidden beneath the catalog. In that half second, I decide to give him only part of the truth.

"Cassandra might call again,” I say. "My old editor. She checks in from time to time. It gets me thinking about work, that's all. Whether I could still do any of it."

"And how does that thought feel?"

"Like standing at the edge of the pool," I say before I can dress it up. "Wanting to get in but not being able to."

He's quiet. He takes his glasses off, which is what he does when he's about to say the thing he really means to say. I brace.

“I want you to be careful,” Kane says. “Because I know that woman. The working one. She isn’t gone. She’s part of you, and she’s a gift. But the work you did before the accident, the cases, the crime material you buried yourself in, that world was hard on you even then. After what you went through, going back into it could cost you more than you realize.”

He pauses.

“There are things from that night you still can’t remember. We don’t know why some memories come back and others don’t, and trying to force them isn’t something I’m willing to do. When memories do return, they don’t always come back neatly. They can come in pieces. Images. Sensations. Sometimes enough to make you feel as though you’re right back there.”

He watches me for a moment.

“You’ve already spent two years trying to get your footing. I don’t want you throwing yourself back into that world before you’re ready.”

"I'm not forcing anything."

"I'm asking you not to." He puts the glasses back on and looks straight into the camera. He almost never does, and for a moment it feels like being watched through a window. "Avoid obsessive digging into the past. Especially old cases, old articles, any of it. You don't have anything to prove to Cassandra or to yourself. If something from back then comes looking for you, we handle it together, slowly, in here. But don't go looking for it. Can you promise me that?"

I glance toward the envelope under the catalog. From here, it’s only a catalog on a counter in a quiet house. But I know the exact weight of the paper inside it. I know that sometime tonight, when the house is dark, I’ll slide it back out and read every word.

"I promise," I tell him.

"Say it like you mean it."

I groan. "I promise, Giles. No digging."