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“lazies” who hung around the entrance to their brownstone, eschewed alcohol or cigarettes (“them rich folks’ habits,” he’d say), cooked lavish Sunday dinners for his family, his soups and stews steaming up the windows of their small kitchen. Until her mother got sick, theirs had been a family envied by all who knew them—and Wallace had been the beating heart of that family.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me until now?” Sudhir was asking again.
    Maggie closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just glad I finally told you.”
    â€œMe, too.” Sudhir let the argument drop.
    The next day Maggie saw her first client, Rose, in her new home office. It was a beautiful day in early June, and she and Rose stood near the window and admired the plants blooming in the backyard. Then they got started. Maggie had been the older woman’s therapist for several years and figured she knew everything there was to know about her—the passionless but affectionate marriage; the mildly autistic son, Roland, who was now in his thirties and living in Dallas; the daily irritants of working at the public library; the ongoing resentment against a sister-in-law. Sometimes Maggie even wondered why Rose continued seeing her, since the problems seemed so mundane, but she had several clients like this who came for regular tune-up sessions. Maggie was thankful for patients like Rose—they made listening to the harrowing tales more manageable. Besides, she liked Rose and was always happy to see that ruddy face, as plain as the side of a mountain but lit by an ever present smile.
    Which was why she wasn’t prepared for the story Rose told her that day. It turned out that Roland had a twin sister who’d died in the womb. The doctors couldn’t do anything to remove the dead fetus; the risk to the other baby was too great. So Rose carried her other child to term, walking around for three months carrying a dead child. She and her husband had never mentioned his sister’s death to Roland. But Rose still woke from a recurring nightmare in which the dead baby called to her, threatened to put its translucent hands around the healthy brother’s neck and choke him. “I just can’t wash it off,” Rose whimpered. “That dirty feeling of carrying death within my body. And the baby in my dreams—it’s sinister. So unforgiving. Like something from a cheap horror movie.”
    Maggie knew Rose was looking at her, to her, to say something, to set things right, but she was stunned. Amazed at her own vapidity, her own cluelessness. How could she have missed something so important in someone she’d counseled for so many years? And yet how could she have known? She was struck by the limitations of therapy, was reminded anew of the opacity of human relations, the inability to truly know someone else. Her mind flashed to the conversation in the car with Sudhir. If her husband couldn’t have guessed at her history with her father, how on earth could she have known what guilt poor Rose was harboring all these years?
    She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry,” she began, hoping that her eyes were conveying the sympathy that she felt for the older woman, more than her words could.
    â€œI know,” Rose said. “It’s okay.”
    Maggie had a two-hour break after Rose left and before the next client arrived. She went into the kitchen to make coffee. She reached for the pot and found that her hands were shaking so badly that she had to set the pot on the counter. She stared at her hands, puzzled, and even as she did, she felt the shaking spread through her entire body, so that she pulled up the kitchen chair and sat down. Was she getting ill? Catching a cold? She didn’t feel ill. Maybe her sugar was low? Then she felt a sensation in her stomach, and it moved quickly to her chest and then into her