Page 48 of Wrong Mail

"It does."

"And how do you find that, Mallory?" Henry asks.

I exchange a glance with David.

"It has its challenges, but it's his career, so I support him in that."

Henry nods, his gaze moving between us.

"That's why I appreciate what you did the other night," David says, taking another sip of his drink. "I forgot to ask. What were you doing nearby? There was a storm, right?"

"You don't have to answer that," I say.

"No, it's fine. I got caught out in it, on my evening walk." Henry says it gently, still smiling. "And look, I understand the question. Having your neighbor turn up out of nowhere. I'd be wary of me too."

David doesn't answer that, and the not-answering is loud.

It's the mention of the Ericksons that moves the conversation forward.

"So what do you think about the Ericksons?" I ask.

I bring them up because we’ve sat here for an hour and nobody has said their names, and that makes them the only thing I can think about. I say something about Rodriguez, about how he doesn't believe it was random either.

"You've been looking into it," Henry says.

“No,” David says before I can reply. "She's been resting. Isn't that right, Mal?"

He says it lightly, over the top of me, and I feel my hand go flat on the table. I've seen him do it before. It still lands like a slap.

"I've been doing a little reading," I say. "That's not the same as looking into it."

"Mallory."

"I have a laptop and two working eyes, David. I've been reading the news like everyone on this road."

"And I asked you not to. Your therapist’s been asking you not to, and you're doing it anyway."

He’s just told Henry from up the road that I have a therapist. I watch him realize it a half-second after I do.

And then he does the thing he does, the appeal to the other adult. "Henry, talk some sense into her. You'd know, wouldn't you? You've been through something like it. You went looking, after your sister. Tell her honestly whether it helped."

And Henry looks at me. Not at David. At me.

"It didn't help," he says. "I'd be lying if I told you it did." He turns his glass a quarter turn on the cloth. "But I don't know that I'd have survived not doing it, either. That's the part nobody warns you about. You aren't choosing between the healthy thing and the unhealthy one. You're choosing between two things that cost you."

David says nothing.

"Can I ask you something?" Henry asks, and he's still looking at me. "Those clippings. The ones that came to your door by mistake." A pause. "They're all from Oregon. You said you were a crime journalist. Do you remember any of those cases?"

The table goes quiet.

Something turns over in me, slow and cold, a déjà vu with no picture attached, gone before I can hold it. I open my mouth.

"That's enough," David says.

He doesn't raise his voice. He sets his knife and fork together on his plate, careful and deliberate, then looks at Henry.

"You have to understand, Henry, Mallory has a diagnosis," David says. "A real one. Her memory was affected by a car crash a couple of years ago. Her old line of work isn't something I want dredged up for the sake of interesting table talk. She's been through enough. We both have."