Read Turn of Mind for Free Online Page B

gifts on schedule—those he saves for when I least expect them—but the ones he brings on these occasions are nevertheless deliciously unusual. What will it be today? I feel doglike, capable of wearing out the carpet with my pacing. Not that I’m often in this mood. No. And not that I would let him catch me. But nevertheless, there is this excitement, this anticipation, that has not dissipated. My parasite, thriving in darkness, his essence remaining mysterious throughout the mundanity of marriage. The shared bathroom, the clothes abandoned on the floor, the crumbs under the breakfast table. Still an enigma despite all this. A gift from the gods, James was. And today, as I wait for his return from parts unknown, I give thanks to them.

    I pick up the first photo album, labeled 1998–2000. The woman who helps me insists. She doesn’t understand how utterly stupefying it is to be guided through the sea of unfamiliar faces and locales. All labeled in large black capital letters as though for an idiot child. For me.
    To be asked, over and over, And who is this? Do you remember her? Do you recognize this place? It’s like being forced to see someone’s holiday snapshots of places you never wanted to go.
    But today I will do what the leader at our support group suggests. I will examine each photo for clues. I will think of the book as a historical document, myself as an anthropologist. Uncovering facts and formulating theories. But facts first. Always.
    I have my notebook beside me as I look. To record my discoveries.
    The first photo that has Amanda written in the caption is dated September 1998. Amanda and Peter. A vibrant older couple. They could be in an ad for healthy aging.
    The woman with longish thick white hair caught up in a ponytail. You can tell how strong and capable she is. Her wrinkles augment this authority. You wouldn’t want to be in a subservient position to her. You’d have to hold your own or be vanquished. An executive? A politician? Someone used to controlling crowds, multitudes even.
    The man next to her is a different sort altogether. Although his beard is gray, his hair still has traces of black. He stands a little behind the woman and is only very slightly taller. More humor in his smile, more kindness.
    You would turn to him for help, advice. To her, for decisive action. I cannot see his left hand. Hers has a wedding band on it. If they were husband and wife, there would be no doubt who would be in charge.
    The photo has few other points of interest. They are standing on a porch—a rare feature for the brownstones on this street. It is summer: They are wearing T-shirts, and the honeysuckle vine climbing up the railing is in full bloom.
    Behind them are folding lawn chairs, the kind woven from cheap multicolored plastic strips. A small oval plastic table immediately in front. On it, three empty tall glasses and one full one that contains a flat watery amber liquid. There is a slight blur in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo—perhaps the photographer’s hand, gesturing the couple to move together.
    The sun must be behind the photographer, because his (her?) shadow shades the woman’s neck and breasts.
    And suddenly I remember. No, I feel. The heat. The insistent buzz of cicadas that were everywhere that year—the seventeen-year plague, everyone said, only half kidding. They crunched underfoot, spattered across our windshields, forced us inside during the hottest months of summer.
    Peter and Amanda’s house had a screened-in porch, which is what made it possible to sit outdoors that day, to relieve the claustrophobia, the sense of incarceration. We were waiting for James, who was late, as usual.
    We’d drunk our beers and were debating whether to open some more when Peter suggested capturing the moment. What moment? Amanda and I had exclaimed, in such perfectly matched tones that we both laughed.
    Peter, characteristically, was