False Memory

flair, she rated the three Chinese restaurants that Martie suggested for takeout. “I don’t have a problem with MSG or too many hot red peppers in the Szechuan beef, but I’m afraid I must rule out choice number three based on the possibility of getting an unwanted cockroach garnish.” Nothing in her face or in her manner marked her as a woman in the nearly paralytic grip of a severe phobia.
    As Martie opened the door to the fourteenth-floor corridor, Susan said, “You forgot your book.”
    The paperback was on the small table beside the chair in which Martie had been sitting. She crossed the room, but she hesitated before picking up the book.
    “What’s wrong?” Susan asked.
    “Huh? Oh, nothing. Seem to have lost my bookmark.” Martie slipped the paperback into her raincoat pocket.
    All the way along the corridor, Susan remained in good spirits, but as the elevator descended, her demeanor began to change. When they reached the lobby, she was whey-faced, and a tremor in her voice quickly curdled the note of good humor into sour anxiety. She hunched her shoulders, hung her head, and bent forward as though she could already feel the cold, wet lash of the storm outside.
    Susan exited the elevator on her own, but four or five steps into the lobby, she had to grip Martie’s arm for support. As they approached the lobby doors, her fear reduced her nearly to paralysis and to abject humiliation.
    The return trip to the car was grueling. By the time they reached the Saturn, Martie’s right shoulder and that entire side of her neck ached, because Susan had clutched so tenaciously and had clung so helplessly to her arm.
    Susan huddled in the passenger’s seat, hugging herself, rocking as if racked by stomach pain, head bent to avoid a glimpse of the wide world beyond the windows. “I felt so good upstairs,” she said miserably, “with Dr. Ahriman, through the whole session, so good. I felt normal. I was sure I would be better coming out, at least a little better, but I’m worse than when I went in.”
    “You’re not worse, honey,” Martie said, starting the engine. “Believe me, you were a pain in the ass on the way in, too.”
    “Well, I feel worse. I feel like something’s coming down on top of us, out of the sky, and I’m going to be crushed by it.”
    “It’s just the rain,” Martie said, because the rain drumming on the car was cacophonous.
    “Not the rain. Something worse. Some tremendous weight. Just hanging over us. Oh, God, I hate this.”
    “We’ll get a bottle of Tsingtao into you.”
    “That’s not going to help.”
    “Two bottles.”
    “I need a keg.”
    “Two kegs. We’ll get sloppy together.”
    Without raising her head, Susan said, “You’re a good friend, Martie.”
    “Let’s see if you still think so when we’re both committed to some alcohol-rehab hospital.”

    12
    From New Life, in the grip of something close to grief, Dusty went home to change out of his damp work clothes into dry civvies. At the connecting door between the garage and the kitchen, Valet greeted him with doggy enthusiasm, tail wagging so hard that his whole butt swayed. The very sight of the retriever began to bring Dusty out of his internal darkness.
    He squatted and gave the dog a nose-to-nose greeting, gently scratching behind the velvety ears, slowly down the crest of the neck to the withers, under the chin, along the dewlaps, and into the thick winter fur on the chest.
    He and Valet enjoyed the moment equally. Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation—and almost as good for the soul as prayer.
    When Dusty plugged in the coffeemaker and began to spoon some good Colombian blend into the filter, Valet rolled onto his back, with all four legs in the air, seeking a belly rub.
    “You’re a love hog,” Dusty said.
    Valet’s tail swished back and forth across the tile floor.
    “I need my fur fix,” Dusty admitted, “but right now I need my coffee more. No offense.”
    His heart seemed to be pumping Freon instead of blood. A chill had settled deep in his flesh and bones; even deeper. Turned up full blast, the van heater hadn’t been able to warm him. He was counting on the coffee.
    When Valet realized that he wasn’t going to receive a belly rub, he got to his feet and padded across the kitchen to the half bath. The door was ajar, and the dog stood with his snout poked through the six-inch gap, sniffing the darkness beyond.
    “You’ve got a perfectly fine water dish there in the corner,” Dusty