InSight

be highly inappropriate and would jeopardize our professional relationship. See you Thursday, 2 p.m.
    Abigael Gallant

    Abby heard her mother hovering near the door, making no secret of watching. Abby wouldn’t be drawn into a dialogue about her love life, or lack of it. Lucy always had a man in her life. During her drinking days, she coupled with partners who shared the same weakness for alcohol. Back then, Abby played the role of mother to Lucy’s needy inner child. She’d never been able to call her “Mother” since.
    Meyer Goldman, Lucy’s current and longest-lasting significant other, was crazy about her, catered to her every whim, and was always available if Abby needed something. Meyer never had a problem with alcohol but encouraged Lucy’s abstinence, even during her drying-out period, when she tested everyone’s patience.
    Lucy asked the inevitable question. “Who’s Luke McCallister, Abigael?”
    “I told you, a patient.”
    “Does he want to take you out?”
    Abby sighed. Not again. “You know I can’t do that.”
    Lucy pulled up a chair next to the computer and put her hand on Abby’s arm. “Go out with him, Abigael. You need a life outside work. You’ll dry up and rot.”
    “I have a life, and I like it the way it is. Stay out of it, Lucy. I’m a big girl.”
    “You’re a scared big girl.”
    “Scared of what? Men?”
    “Yes. What happened with Stewart was a freak thing. It won’t happen again.”
    Abby threw her head back and laughed. “Is that what you think? That I’m afraid I’ll meet another Stewart—a man who’ll murder my daughter and blind me?” She pushed back from the computer. “That’s already happened.” Rising, she turned and walked the six steps to the hall leading to her bedroom. “I’m going to bed,” she said over her shoulder. “Do me a favor. Let Daisy outside for a while. Let yourself out when you’re finished.”
    “Go out with this guy,” Lucy said.
    Abby brushed the back of her hand along the wall leading to her room. “I know you mean well, but please, I know what I’m doing. Thanks for dinner. Good night.”
    * * * * *
    T here were nights when going to bed didn’t mean going to sleep. This was one of them. Not for Daisy, though. The dog’s snoring didn’t keep Abby awake but made her aware that she wasn’t sleeping. She tossed and turned most of the night. The face of her seven-year old daughter flashed in her memory. Stewart’s blue eyes stared at her in the darkness, and she felt the dampness on her pillow. Would this ever pass? Would she ever forget the haunted look on her daughter’s innocent face on the last day of her life?

Chapter Three
    Unfamiliar Territory

    I t’s Friday, thank God, or is it the other way around?
    When Abby checked her email, another message awaited from Luke McCallister. Two words: Please reconsider.
    No way. Not with a patient. She put McCallister out of her mind and turned her attention to the day’s business.
    Cleo had scheduled Abby’s two most difficult patients, dampening the end-of-the-week highs. Abby was tired, cranky, and not looking forward to either of them.
    She turned on her tape recorder and speed-listened to her last session with Jonah Wall. A bizarre vision of him locked in her mind from Cleo’s description, and she stopped herself from mentally, and unprofessionally, referring to him as Jonah Whale. She rarely asked what a patient looked like, unless his appearance contributed to his psychological problems. Eighteen, acne-faced, and pushing three hundred pounds, Jonah Wall got off on being disturbed. Abby thought he liked her because she couldn’t see him. She shared notes with Jonah’s psychiatrist, Dr. Don Weston, and in a moment of professional candor, Don said the boy needed to get laid. She didn’t disagree. They were trying to convince him to go to a summer camp—socialize with others in the same predicament. Maybe with a lake and a moon and a large diet pizza…maybe.
    Her second patient from hell, Vietnam vet Ted Shand , lost both legs in the war. An ex-heroin addict who came wrapped in forty years of bitterness, he wore two prosthetic limbs and walked with crutches, but she smelled him long before she heard his four-legged gait. The man needed a bath. She suggested he take one, but whether out of spite or stubbornness, he never did. Fortunately, he came only once a month, but on that day a little Vicks Vapor Rub under the nose helped her get through the hour.
    By the