Jenna had covered her mouth. Marge was shaking her head sadly. Aunt Patrice was already crying.
"We love you, Nora," Derek said, tears rolling down his face. "That's why we're all here. We just want you to get help."
Lorraine stood up beside him and put her arm around his waist. "We've arranged for someone to talk to you, dear. A friend of the family. He's a wonderful doctor. He's just going to sit with you and see if there's something we can do."
The doorbell rang.
It rang as if it had been timed to the second, which, of course, it had.
Lorraine pressed her hand to her heart. "Oh! That must be Alan."
She went to the door. I heard a man's voice, low and polished, and then Alan Voss walked into my dining room.
He was forty-five, tanned, in an expensive gray blazer and tortoiseshell glasses. He carried a leather folder under one arm and wore an expression of professional compassion, like a man who'd practiced it in a mirror.
"Nora," he said warmly. "It's good to see you again. I know this is hard."
Every eye in the room was on me. Some pitying. Some frightened. Some relieved that at last somebody was going to fix me.
I put my napkin on the table.
I stood up.
For almost three weeks I had been pretending to be a woman who could barely finish a sentence. So when I opened my mouth, and my voice came out level and strong and clear as a bell, the sound of it went through that room like a slap.
"Thank you, Dr. Voss," I said. "Please stay. I'd like you to see this too."
Derek's head snapped toward me. "Nora—"
"For six weeks, everyone in this room has been describing me." I looked slowly around the table, one face at a time. "I've been listening. Now it's my turn."
"Honey, sit down," Lorraine said. Her voice had lost its warmth. "You're overwrought."
"Ray," I said.
Ray Kessler pushed back his chair, walked to the wall, and pressed a button on a small remote.
The television above the sideboard lit up.
It showed my kitchen. The date in the corner was October 30th. The time was 8:34 p.m.
A woman in a lavender cardigan walked across the linoleum. She was not using a cane.