LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at the gravestone, as if willing it to answer her. A single tear came out of the corner of her right eye. She wiped it away as she turned away and headed in the direction of Jack’s grave. He’d been buried on the other side of the cemetery, which she could just barely see from where she stood. She walked to the little path that ran through the grounds, enjoying the silence. She paid no attention to the few others who were there to pay their respects and grieve, leaving them with their privacy.

      Yet as she neared Jack’s grave, she saw someone already standing by it. It was a woman, short and with her head bowed down. With another few steps, Avery saw that it was Rose. Her hands were stuffed into her pockets and she was wearing a coat with a hood, which was up and covering her head.

      Avery didn’t want to call out, hoping she’d manage to get close enough where they could actually have a conversation. But within several more steps, Rose apparently sensed someone approaching. She turned, saw Avery, and instantly started walking away.

      “Rose, don’t be like that,” Avery said. “Can’t we just talk for a minute?”

      “No, Mom. Jesus, how can you ruin this for me, too?”

      “Rose!”

      But Rose had nothing more to say. She quickened her pace and Avery did everything she could not to give chase. More tears came spilling down Avery’s face as she turned her attention to Jack’s grave.

      “Whose side did she get that streak from?” Avery asked the gravestone.

      Like Ramirez, Jack’s stone was of course also silent. She turned back to her right and watched as Rose grew smaller in the distance. Walking away from her until she was gone completely.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      When Avery walked into Dr. Higdon’s office, she felt like a cliché. Dr. Higdon herself was very poised and polite. She seemed to always have her head pointed slightly upward, showing off the perfect point of her nose and the angle of her chin. She was a good-looking woman, if not a bit overdone.

      Avery had fought the urge to go to a therapist but knew enough about how the traumatized mind worked to know that she needed it. And that was excruciating to admit to herself. She hated the idea of visiting a shrink and also did not want to resort to calling upon the services of the Boston PD–assigned shrink she’d seen a few times over the years following particular tough cases.

      So she’d reached out to Dr. Higdon, a therapist she had heard about last year during a case involving a suspect who had used her to get over a series of irrational fears.

      “I appreciate you meeting with me so quickly,” Avery said. “I was honestly expecting to have to wait a few weeks.”

      Higdon shrugged as she sat down in her chair. When Avery took a seat on the adjacent couch, the feeling of becoming a living cliché only intensified.

      “Well, I’ve heard of you a few times just through news stories,” Higdon said. “And your name has come up when new patients have come in, people you’ve apparently crossed paths with in your line of work. So I had an open hour today and figured it would be nice to meet you.”

      Realizing that it was unprecedented to get an appointment with a respected therapist just two days after making a call, Avery knew not to take the appointment for granted. And, never having been one to beat around the bush, she had no problem getting to the point.

      “I wanted to meet with a therapist because, quite honestly, my head is just a mess right now. One part is telling me that healing is going to come from time off. Another part is telling me that healing is going to come from productivity and familiarity – which leads me back to work.”

      “I know just the briefest of details about the healing you’re looking for,” Higdon said. “Could you elaborate?”

      Avery spent ten minutes doing just that. She started with how the last case had unfolded and then ended in the death of her ex-husband and her would-be fiancé. She breezed over the part about moving away from the city and the recent fallout with Rose, both at her apartment and their run-in at Jack’s grave.

      Dr. Higdon started asking questions right away, having taken down handwritten notes the entire time Avery had been talking. “The move to the cabin by Walden Pond…what made you want to do that?”

      “I didn’t want to be around people. It’s more isolated. Very quiet.”

      “Do you feel that you heal better both emotionally and physically when you’re on your own?” Higdon asked.

      “I don’t know. I just…I didn’t want to be in a place where people had the ability to come by and check on me a hundred times a day.”

      “Have you always had problems with people concerned for your well-being?”

      Avery shrugged. “Not really. It’s a vulnerability thing, I suppose. In my line of work, vulnerability leads to weakness.”

      “I doubt that’s true. In terms of perception, probably – but not in the actual state of things.” She paused for a moment here and then sat forward. “I won’t try to dance around topics and subtly lead you to the key points,” she said. “I’m sure you’d see it for what it was. Besides, the fact that you can admit to a fear of vulnerability tells me a great deal. So I think we can get directly to the point here.”

      “I’d prefer it that way,” Avery said.

      “The time you spent alone in the cabin…do you believe it’s helped or hindered your healing?”

      “I think it’s a stretch to say it helped, but it made it easier. I knew I wasn’t going to have to deal with the onslaught of well-wishers to constantly check in on me.”

      “Did you try reaching out to anyone during that time?”

      “Just my daughter,” Avery said.

      “But she rejected all of your attempts to reconnect?”

      “That’s right. I’m pretty sure she blames me for her father dying.”

      “If we’re being honest, that’s probably true,” Higdon said. “And she’ll come around to the truth on her own time. People grieve differently. Rather than escaping it all in a cabin in the woods, your daughter has chosen to assign blame to an easy source. Now let me ask you this…why did you resign from your job at all?”

      “Because I felt like I’d lost everything,” Avery said. She didn’t even have to think about it. “I felt like I’d lost everything and failed at my job. I couldn’t stay because it was a reminder of how I wasn’t good enough.”

      “Do you still feel that you aren’t good enough?”

      “Well…no. At the risk of sounding conceited, I’m very good at my job.”

      “And you’ve missed it over the course of these last three months or so, right?”

      “I have,” Avery admitted.

      “Do you feel that your desire to return there is just to fall back into what your life was once like or do you think there might be some actual progress to be found there?”

      “That’s just it. I don’t know. But I’m getting to the point where I think I have to find out. I think I have to go back.”

      Dr. Higdon nodded and scribbled something down. “Do you think your daughter will react negatively if you went back?”

      “Undoubtedly.”

      “Okay, so let’s say she wasn’t in the equation; let’s say Rose couldn’t care less if you went back or not. Would you have any hesitation?”

      The realization hit her like a brick to the head. “Probably not.”

      “I think you have your answer right there,” Higdon said. “I think at this point in the grieving process, you and your daughter can’t let one another dictate the way the other grieves. Rose needs to blame someone right now. That’s how she’s dealing…and your strained relationship makes it

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