The room's mood-lighting peeved Minn irrationally. Every time she sat in that same cream-colored barrel chair and stared at the same generic photo art of close-up flowers and water ripples, she decided it'd be the last time she'd come, and yet she always returned. Two weeks between appointments gave her enough time to forget, to figure she had to keep things up for appearance. Surely Wolf would be upset if she stopped going, so it was worth all the nonsense she was forced to talk about. Still, if she had to hear that woman say You're not making enough progress, Minn one more time—well, she might just lose it.

"Hello again, Minn!" Ellen's deep, smooth voice from behind startled her patient in spite of its warmth. "How's your day going?"

Minn straightened up, the therapist's presence necessitating good posture. Dr. Ellen was only several years older than she, and yet Minn couldn't help but see the woman as the grandmotherly type: caring but also ready to scold if a scolding were called for.

"Fine," Minn returned perfunctorily.

"And the last month?" Ellen seated herself in the twin barrel chair across from Minn, placed her cup of tea on the little table beside her.

"Oh, the same, really," she lied.

"Nothing worth noting?"

"No."

"Did you want anything to drink? Coffee or tea, water—I can get you a cup?"

"No, thanks."

"All right. I just want you to know it's there if you change your mind." Ellen had a folder on her lap, which Minn could only assume was filled with notes about her and their conversations. She felt a desire to ask but stifled it.

"I have only a half hour today," Minn told Ellen. "I know they'll still charge me for the forty-five minutes, but I just have somewhere to be, and it's been a long day at work. Just, meetings and everything." Lies. Work had been easy, and she had nowhere to be.

"That's not a problem. I'm just glad we get to talk some more today. Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to start?"

Sighing, putting up her hands in uncertainty, Minn shook her head.

"How about your break? Didn't you just have some time off work?"

Damn the woman. How'd she know that? Minn did not want to tell her what she'd done last week. "Yeah, I did. It was . . . it was fine. Nothing much. Just nice to relax a little, not think about grading projects for once. I mean, not that work is bad; it's fine. I love teaching. I've been doing it for so long that I feel pretty good about my lessons from day to day. I don't stress too much about anything."

"Your students—they're teens, right?"

"Yes. Fourteen to eighteen, though I mostly work with the older ones, you know, in the more advanced classes."

"And being around them daily, you don't struggle with that?"

Minn laughed awkwardly. "No. I mean—why would I?"

The therapist's face showed no emotion; the woman was infuriatingly professional. "You know why, Minn."

Both of them were quiet for a moment, Ellen sitting in all her self-righteousness and Minn stewing. "I don't want to talk about Peter, today," she grumbled at length.

"I know," Ellen returned, and Minn expected her to say more, but Ellen didn't seem inclined to push, today.

"I mean can't we just have one day where we talk about other things?"

"Absolutely. Anything you want."

Ellen was quiet, waiting, probably. That's how she got to Minn: she sat there in her silence, and Minn felt compelled to fill it, to pass the time. There was much she could say, she knew. For one thing, her nerves had been on edge since she'd met Isaac at Circle Ridge, since he'd told her to get his backpack (which she hadn't yet found time for), and since she'd had to sit with his case manager and tell a bunch of lies. She'd had to make herself look stable, after all; she'd had to show them she had the capability to take in Isaac. Frankly, they'd seemed happy anyone at all even wanted him, which was probably how it was with a lot of teens. In all her reading about foster care, Minn had seen plenty of data indicating teens were far harder to foster out than children were. Still, she had to make them sure she could care for him, so she'd had to convince them everything was just fine, that she was all right. She knew, too, that they'd be doing a background check on her at some point.

She needed to cover her bases.

"Look," Minn filled the void, tired of Ellen looking at her with that blank, non-judgy face, "I'm looking into fostering a young person. I know you might think that's a bad idea, but he really needs help, and I feel I could be a positive influence in his life."

Even the ever-placid Ellen betrayed her thoughts with an eye-flutter. "Foster? You mean take this young man into your home?"

"Y-yes . . ."

"Is he around Peter's age?"

Minn looked at her fingers and nodded. "He is. I thought . . . he and Isaac are much like each other."

"This boy—his name is Isaac?"

Another timid head nod from Minn.

"And you think Peter would be all right with this?"

"Peter's got the biggest heart." She grew very quiet, picked at a fingernail, laughed bitterly. "Far, far bigger than mine, that's for certain."

Ellen did that thing where she leaned forward as if she were invested and, in her best therapist voice, said, "Minn, every kind of healing takes time. When we experience trauma, we often blame ourselves. It's completely normal to do so, and what's also normal is to seek ways to heal ourselves as quickly as possible, to rush the process, even if it means cutting corners. But I worry that unless you're ready to accept the way things are, you'll only be hurting yourself."

"I have accepted the way things are," Minn blurted.

"Have you?"

A movie played in the theater of Minn's mind, of her rising from her chair and strangling the insufferable woman. But she managed to shake it out of her thoughts.

"Can you tell me about that night?"

"Again?"

"Minn, if you're going to bring a new element into your life, I think it's important for you to be honest with yourself about the ones already present."

Oh, why was Ellen asking about that night for what was surely the fiftieth time? They'd gone over and over it, and even though the therapist had never given her anything other than a listening ear, Minn knew the woman was always disappointed in her, that her answers were never good enough. But it was all different, now, wasn't it? If she wanted Isaac to stay, if she wanted Ellen to give the correct answer to the boy's case manager, she'd have to lie. She'd have to give in to whatever Ellen wanted to hear, regardless of her own shame in having to say it. Isaac needed her; she couldn't hold her pride and discomfort above his needs.

So, taking a deep breath, Minn began once more to recount what'd happened the night Peter had left.

It'd been about three months prior, a week or so before Christmas. The winter holiday had begun. Peter didn't go to Minn's school; he'd obtained a scholarship for an International Baccalaureate school downtown, and he'd preferred it to the local public school. That hadn't surprised his mother. Peter had happily passed through elementary school in their district, but once middle school had arrived, he'd struggled to acclimate, to grasp changing social roles, to understand why friendships shifted and stability eroded. There'd been bullies, and fights, and tears . . . Minn had eventually pulled him out. She'd sent him to an expensive private school for one year of eighth grade at great cost (though Wolf had ended up funding most of it) and then, thankfully, the boy had been accepted into his IB school. Everything about the transition had been rocky, but in the end, Peter's outlook had improved drastically; he'd even been able to stop his antidepressants.

For some time, things had been well, but junior year had renewed the boy's anxiety and depression. The typical eleventh-grade woes—college prep, exams, thoughts of the future—had been heightened in her otherwise gifted son. He'd reached his limit that night, the one he'd stormed out of the house.

Minn hadn't had a good week, herself. Not only had she been growing concerned with Peter's recurring black moods, but there'd been some negligible nonsense at work (which she no longer remembered) as well as a recent ghosting by a man she'd kind of actually liked, and . . . well, suffice it to say she'd been in no proper frame of mind when her son had begun arguing with her over the most petty of things: not having any ketchup, forgetting to fill up his car after she'd borrowed it a few days earlier, losing some sort of permission slip he'd needed for something—stupid stuff like that. But Minn's irritability and Peter's attitude had kept both from being reasonable, and when the boy brought up an increasingly frequent sticking point—his paternity—the argument had tipped into its downward spiral. Why in the world Peter had waited most of his life to begin pestering Minn with questions about his father was beyond her understanding. She'd always told the boy the truth, that she didn't know who his father was. But for some reason, Peter had recently decided that answer was no longer acceptable. Had she been even-tempered enough for a discussion about her one and only night of debauchery, perhaps she and Peter could've discussed it like adults, but neither of them had been emotionally poised for such a conversation. In the end, the mutually exchanged unkindnesses and recriminations had sent Peter slamming out of the house with a bag of belongings, claiming he was going to go live with his uncle.

At the time, Minn had been too fuming to call him back, but once she'd realized he really wouldn't be coming home, guilt had consumed her. How could such an unimportant argument over completely unimportant things have caused her to lose her son? She'd sought the answer for months, in vain.

She could only hope that at some point, Peter would forgive her, and he would come home.

Lies, lies, lies. If she wanted Ellen to think she'd made progress, Minn would have to lie. They weren't easy lies, which was why she'd been avoiding them for so long, why she'd spoken only her truth, but Isaac relied on her, now, so she'd do it for him. Minn sat in that too-comfortable barrel chair in the cloying coffee-shop lighting and told the woman everything she'd been wanting to hear for the past three months. The tears Minn shed in the process were hardly affectation; the lies were more difficult to bear than the truth. And all the while she spoke, she kept telling herself that, as gut-wrenching as this was, it'd be over soon enough, and she could leave with the certainty that she'd done the right thing for Isaac, even if she'd had to tell lies about her son in the process.

"What a breakthrough you've made today, Minn." Ellen smiled maternally, put a hand on her patient's shoulder, as she led her to the door of the office. "I'm so proud of you, and I hope you're proud of yourself. I know how difficult this was for you."

Minn forced a nod, though it was interrupted when she turned aside to rub at her tearstained face. God, would this woman never leave her alone?

"This boy that you want to take in," Ellen pushed, reaching her hand for the doorknob more (Minn thought) to keep it shut than to open it, "he's Peter's age?"

Sniffling, Minn returned, "Yes, I already told you that."

"And . . . and you think this is healthy?"

"One hundred percent. He needs help, and I can help him. No one else will. Do you know how hard it is for teens to find homes? Especially ones like Isaac? Nobody wants them. But I do. I want him."

The ever-patient Ellen offered Minn a searching look. "For you, Minn. I meant is it healthy for you?"

Meeting the therapist's gaze with one twice as fierce, Minn averred, "This is the best thing that could possibly happen for me. I am determined to help this boy." Her voice faltered only slightly as she added, "I need to help this boy. I hope that you can understand that."

Ellen released a gentle breath, offered a genuine soft smile, and opened the door. "I do, Minn," she replied. "I do."