"Hello," she said, stretching out her hand. "I'm so sorry I'm late. It was chaos at the office. I'm sorry, that's not your problem. Oh, I didn't even ask-are you Dr. Gregory? Please say yes."

"I am," I replied, and shook her hand.

"Thank God. I'm Naomi Bigg."

"Please come on back to my office."

Naomi chose the chair opposite mine and surprised me by pulling a compact from her purse and checking her face before she turned her attention to me. The interlude of vanity gave me a chance to observe her.

For some reason, I immediately focused on her eyebrows. They'd been plucked with a ferocity that was impossible to ignore. The remaining arc of hair was so narrow that it appeared to have been drawn into place with a fine-tipped pen.

She snapped the compact shut and returned her gaze to me.

I always started the first session with new patients the same way. I said, "How can I be of help?"

She pulled her hands together in front of her chest as though she were about to pray. "I'm not sure. I'm confused-I guess it would be great if you could help with that." Her eyes were focused out the window. The redbuds in the backyard of the old Victorian were ablaze with the pink of spring. I knew the brilliant blossoms would disappear with the next snowstorm.

I waited for Naomi to continue. She didn't.

Finally, I said, "You're confused?" My words had a singular intent, akin to freeing a stuck CD.

"In the sense that I don't know the right thing to do, yes. I'm that kind of confused."

I waited again, longer this time. It was apparent she wanted to play this like a tennis match. She hit. I hit. I wondered whether it was wise to oblige.

I said, "And you think I can be of help with your decision?"

"Yes. Do you know how I chose you?" She looked my way for the first time since she'd greeted me in the waiting room.

I shook my head.

"I saw you on the news after that thing that happened last fall in Steamboat Springs. You know, with those girls? That's how long I've been thinking about this, about coming to see somebody for… help. For therapy, you know? Since at least last fall. I thought because of that work that you did-I mean helping to find who killed those two girls after such a long time-that you might be the right person to help me, too."

She returned her gaze to the redbuds.

I felt like telling her to get on with it, that I had a baby waiting for me at home, a baby who smelled even better than the flowers on those trees. But I didn't.

As I waited for her to resume, my mind drifted back to the previous autumn's events in Steamboat Springs. Lauren and I had accepted an invitation from a private group of forensic specialists called Locard to participate in an investigation of the 1988 murder of two girls outside Steamboat Springs. The outcome of the investigation had garnered a lot of press coverage, both local and national.

"And then I saw you again on the news last night. You were outside Community Hospital? I think you were with your wife. That's when I decided I was going to call, that it was the right time."

Damn news cameras, I thought.

Naomi Bigg said, "You know what anniversary is this week?"

A crack of sunlight burned through my late-day fog. Aha! Anniversary reaction. She wanted to talk about a loss she'd suffered at this time last year, or the year before, or…

"No," I said, "I don't know what anniversary is this week."

She crossed her long legs, tugged down her skirt. I noticed that her left ankle was bruised. I filed the information.

I was guessing that she'd lost her husband. Divorce or death? I glanced down to check for a wedding ring, but her left hand was covered by her right. My money was on divorce. My second guess was that she'd lost a child. I really hoped not; I knew my heart would resist hearing that story.

"Columbine," she said.

Had Naomi lost a child at Columbine High School? God.

I instantly started considering which colleague I could refer her to, a colleague without a new baby, a colleague who would be able to listen to her grief without terror filling the part of his own heart that cherished a new life.

She was right, of course. That week was the anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School. Which meant it was also the week of the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. A couple of tragic days in April and a lot of lives for which the beauty of spring would never be the same.

Never.

She gazed at me briefly. "My confusion? I think a lot about the parents, you know?"

"The parents…?"

"The Harrises and the Klebolds."

I'd been wrong, 180 degrees wrong. I thought she'd been talking about the parents of the victims. Instead, she was talking about the parents of the killers.

She went on. "I think about whether they should have known what was going on. Whether they should have known what was in their children's hearts. Even whether they should have turned their own children in to the police. I think about all those things all the time."

The late-day fog in my brain had finally lifted. Suddenly the sunlight was so bright that I couldn't see for the glare.

Sometimes new patients need prompting, and sometimes their stories have such internal force that the words spew forth like fluid from a cut hydraulic hose. The tennis match between us was over and Naomi needed no further prompting. She'd ripped the lid off the Pandora's box that she had carried into my office and snakes were slithering out unfettered.

"Sometimes parents know when their kids are angry, they do. They see it, they feel it. But it doesn't mean they know the depth of the rage, the sense of injustice their children feel, or what awful things their children might do. How could they even have imagined it? The Klebolds and the Harrises? How could they ever, ever have guessed what evil was in their children's hearts? Even with the clues, the term papers, everything. How could they possibly have guessed what their children were going to do that awful day at Columbine?"

The words were so poignant, so potentially revealing, but the tone was impersonal, distant. My new patient was much more comfortable talking about someone else's struggle than she was talking about her own. I glanced again at her left hand. With her thumb she was twirling a platinum wedding band around her ring finger. Good-sized diamond on the matching engagement ring. Married? Separated? I didn't know. But Naomi was about the right age; she could certainly have kids the age of the Columbine assassins.

She lifted her left arm and focused her attention on her fancy watch. "Oh my, the time. We have to stop already, don't we?"

I looked at the small clock on the étagère behind the sofa. We had only two minutes remaining in the session. "In a couple of minutes," I said. "You were talking about how the Harrises and the Klebolds should or shouldn't have known about what their kids were going to do."

Her eyes closed and her breathing became shallow. "It's a hard question to answer from a distance, isn't it? When the tragedy is so terrible, people are so quick to judge."

"Is that how it feels to you?" I asked.

"Can I come back for another session? Now that I've started, I think I'd like to continue talking about all this," she said.

"Of course. We'll find another time before you go." I was rushing my words, husbanding the few remaining seconds. I forced myself to slow down. "Do you have children, Naomi?"

"Work is… difficult. I'd need something late in the day. Or maybe I can get away over lunch."

"We still have a minute or so."

"I need to go."

I considered pointing out the resistance she was demonstrating, but it was too early in the process. Anyway, I knew I was being aggressive with my questions. I checked my book. "Thursday at five-thirty?"