The pointed implication was that I did have a good reason to be shooting my mouth off: to gossip with my wife. “Are you asking me something, Jim? Or is that just a flat-out accusation?”

He shrugged.

I registered some surprise at the fact that he didn’t seem particularly angry. Although his words were sharp, his tone was the same one he might have used to order take-out Chinese.

What did I do? I took the bait.

“I will repeat my earlier assurance. I told no one-no one-about our conversation last week. And I will repeat my earlier suspicion, Jim, that your accusation about the incident has to do with something between us-something in the therapeutic relationship.”

“Like what might that be?” These words were delivered in a tone that was totally dismissive. Litigators, in my experience, are more skilled at being dismissive than most people on the planet. They are able to imbue layers of nuance into their dismissiveness that most of us can only dream of. A law school trick of some kind, I suspected.

“Trust, maybe?” I tried to keep sardonic echoes from my own voice, but I wasn’t totally successful.

“Trust?” He slumped back and crossed his ankles. His wingtips were the size of river kayaks.

I waited.

“Yeah, well. Like my client trusts me right now? That kind of trust? Sure, sure, we can talk about trust, Alan-after I somehow end up convinced that you’re not just covering your ass. How’s that?”

The remainder of my Monday was more or less routine from a patient point of view.

Midafternoon I reached Lauren again. Her neurologist was hopeful that the steroids would arrest the exacerbation and felt confident that her good history of recovering from previous flare-ups boded well for her this time, too. To boost prophylaxis even more he started her on a statin, something she’d been discussing with him for a while, and he gave her some Ambien samples to help her try to get some sleep until the Solumedrol loosened its grip on her psyche.

She said, “I hope it works.”

“The Ambien?”

“Everything. The steroids, the statin, everything.”

“You scared, babe?”

“Yes. I’m afraid you’re getting tired of this.”

“Don’t worry about that. Worry about getting better.”

“Sam wasn’t worried.”

“I’m not Sherry, Lauren.”

“You must have second thoughts about marrying me. Everybody has limits,” she said.

I felt my pulse jump. I wanted to bark,“Of course I have limits. Of course I hate this. Of course I feel sorry for myself.”

I didn’t.

“Be honest,” she pleaded.

¡Dios mío. Hay un hacha en mi cabeza!

Lauren didn’t want my honesty. She wanted my reassurance. In all my years in clinical practice treating couples, I’d seen honesty wielded much more often as ahachathan as a caress. There was a time in the eighties when the relationship mantra from the women’s magazine gurus was“All honesty, all the time.”What a disastrous few years of misguided advice that was. Since then, whenever I heard a romantic partner whine for unabashed honesty in my office, I tested the waters for one of two things. First I listened for the call of insecurity begging for reassurance. Alternately, I listened for the diseased call of someone begging to be hurt or begging for the license to inflict pain.

With her earnest “be honest” I decided that Lauren was seeking the former and not the latter, and I prayed that I was right.

I wished I could touch her or kiss her nose. I couldn’t. So I said, “I’m not even close to my limit.” I didn’t say“I’m full of doubt,”or“I wish I were as good and generous a person as I’d like to be.”I didn’t say“I don’t know my limit, but I think it’s within range of my vision.”I didn’t.

No, I reassured her. Why? Because the reassurance was at least as true as my doubts and a whole lot truer than my fears.

She made a noise in response. Disappointment? Dismissal? Relief? I wished I knew.

The cream of reassurance that I was whipping was already in stiff peaks. I added more sugar until it tasted just right. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetie. I love you.”

It was all true. A little less than totally honest, but all true. Imperfect honesty in an imperfect world. Nobody, least of all Lauren, would have to spend the day removing anyhachasfrom theircabezas.

But the telephone was a terrible instrument for gauging the effectiveness of comfort, and I feared that my words were barely palliative.

I was packing up to go home when my pager vibrated on my hip. No message, but I recognized the number. I threw my briefcase and jacket back down on top of the desk and dialed deliberately, giving myself time to pull my thoughts together.

I wondered whether the state of Georgia was in the Central or Eastern Time zone. I guessed Eastern. It took me most of a minute to find a place where I could balance my current annoyance with my compassion and my friendship.

Sam answered. “Hey, Alan.”

I said, “Hi, Sam. What’s up?”

“I’m in Georgia.”

“Yeah.” I wanted to say I knew that already, but confidentiality rules. “What time is it there?”

“A little after eight. How pissed off are you?”

“Lauren’s sick. I don’t have enough energy to waste any of it being pissed off at you.”

“What’s going on with Lauren?”

I explained Lauren’s predicament as though I were talking to a friend, and Sam said all the right things in return. I felt better. Then I asked, “What about you. You feeling okay?”

“This-this road trip-has been kind of good for me, I think. Takes my mind off things. No chest pains so far. I’m watching my diet. Taking all my damn pills.”

“Exercise?”

“I walk when I can.”

“It’s important, Sam.”

“Yeah.”

The “yeah” was his way of indicating to me that it was time to move on.

“Nothing from Sherry?”

“Nothing. Simon’s okay, though; I talked to Angus.”

He paused long enough for me to respond. When I didn’t, he said, “She loves me. I love her.”

“You still worried that it’s not enough?”

“Things are complicated, you know? Life, marriage, relationships-it’s all complicated. Listen, I thought you might want to know that I think he might be alive. Sterling.”

“What? Really?”

“The whole accident/rescue thing is too goofy for words. Nothing came down in a way that gives me any confidence in a scenario of him rushing to help someone and accidentally ending up drowning in a raging river.”

“Like?”

“I’ll tell you later when I have more time. A for-instance, though-on one side of the car he was trying to reach was all this brush and trees and crap-you know, stuff to hold on to-on the other side was a muddy riverbank, real steep. Which one do you think he chose?”

“The mud.”

“Yeah. Like I said, goofy. I think if your IQ is anywhere near your golf score, you choose the side with the bushes on it. I keep trying to come up with excuses for him, but I’m failing.”

“You think he planned it so he went into the river, or maybe just found himself swimming and took advantage of serendipity?”

“Good question, Alan. I’m impressed. Turns out that he hesitated at the top long enough to think it all through. Actually drove past the accident scene once and then came back. So yeah, I’m thinking premeditation. I got Lucy checking to see what kind of swimmer he was.”

“I bet she finds out he was pretty good.” I was thinking that anybody who crewed on a big expensive yacht and gave diving demos had to be more than a little comfortable in the water.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

I realized how close I’d come to an unwitting disclosure. “Nothing. I just think Lucy might find something.”

“You could save her some work.”

“Maybe, but I won’t.”

He let it go. “In case you’re wondering, I’m planning on keeping my suspicions to myself until I have a little more evidence.”