"Yes, words can be very humiliating," said Kavanagh, and Larissa couldn't help feeling that the doctor was mocking her. She remembered her own similar reaction to Bo's worry about Jonny. For some reason, Larissa liked that about Kavanagh, liked being judged. It got her blood up.

"A friend of mine recently had a situation," she said, "and we all knew, and now we're all looking at her boyfriend like he is a chump for staying with her."

"Is that what you would think of your husband? That he would be a chump for staying with you?"

"I don't knowaI was just talking about my girlfriend. That it's better to keep that stuff hidden, because your friends never look at you the same way."

"Is that what's important to you?" Kavanagh asked. "Not if your husband will look at you the same way, but if your friends will?" and before Larissa had a second to get indignant, continued, "Let me ask you another question. If this could all work out just the way you wanted it to, what would that resolution be?"

Larissa opened her hands. "I don't know."

Kavanagh looked skeptical.

"I have no time to imagine the future," said Larissa. "I'm spending every minute just managing the seconds of today." That'll be one hundred and forty dollars for all the lies today, thank you.

"But I have to know what you want, so we both have something to work toward."

"Okay, you want to know what I want to work toward? I want it to work out without everyone involved getting trounced."

"Who do you mean by everyone?"

"I meanaeveryone involved."

"You?"

"Well, yes. Me, too, I guess."

"Your lover?"

"Yes."

"Your husband?"

"Yes."

"Your children?"

"Yes."

"Who the least? Who do you want to hurt the least?"

Larissa didn't want to answer the doctor's question. She didn't. Because the small answer was: herself. She didn't want herself to get trounced most of all. Because she had to remain with herself till the bitter end, and she didn't want to live with her failed and beaten self.

Kavanagh wrote something down in her little notebook. "Do you see it continuing?"

"See what continuing?"

"The extra-marital relationship, of course."

"As opposed to what?"

"As opposed to ending it and rejoining your family life."

What a terrible idea it was to come here!

"I cannot imagine it not continuing," Larissa said into her fists.

"When you first started, what did you think?"

"I didn't."

"You gave no thought to the future?"

"Not much," Larissa admitted. "I guess at first I thought it was going to be a short burst. Brief, extinguished. I didn't imaginea"

"Tell me how often you see him."

Larissa told her.

"Wow. It seems both insufficient and incredibly excessive. What does your lover want?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked."

"Is he married?"

Larissa couldn't tell even her psychologist! "No."

"Does he have children?"

"No." Kai's sorrow wasn't Larissa's to tell.

"You know," said Kavanagh, "it's not easy to maintain a relationship with a married woman with three children."

If the doctor only knew.

"How does he feel about your children?"

"He's never met them."

"He does know you have children?"

"Of course." Why did Larissa feel constantly indignant with this woman?

"And you've never talked about the future?"

Larissa desperately didn't want to say. So she didn't.

Kavanagh bent her head appreciatively. "And all this time your husband hasn't found out? He must be a very trusting man. This isn't easy to hide."

"I was a theater major in college."

"Ah. That helps. One more question before we go. Do you want to save your marriage? Is this why you're here?"

Larissa paused, like she forgot the words.

"Hmm," said Kavanagh. "Okay, then. See you next week."

On the way home, on impulse, disbelieving herself, out of bounds, knowing it and helpless, Larissa, without calling or thinking any further about it, drove to Albright Circle, parked the car, walked up the steps and knocked on Kai's door. She hadn't planned it; she just pulled into the driveway, walkeda"thunderously, she thoughta"up the wooden staircase and knocked. She heard the guitar and the sound of his singing voice. Outside was dark and cold. The roads were icy.

"Larissa!" He pulled her inside. "What are you doing here?"

The TV was on but without sound, song books, the guitars and ukuleles on his bed, cartons of half-eaten Chinese food, opened cans of c.o.ke and Corona. Kai, wearing loose navy sweats and a gray tank, barefoot and scruffy, was thrilled to see her. She breathed a palpable sigh of relief.

"Oh, I was headed back home from my new shrink," she said. "Thought I'd say hi. Sorry I didn't call. My phone was out of power." Nice, Larissa. Lying to Kai now, too. Nice!

He pulled her onto the bed, swept the books off, moved the guitars to the side, laid her down, jumped on top of her, like a kid. "How long can you stay?"

Her heart aching, the talons of fear inside her still sc.r.a.ping away, she said, as he grinned, pinning her arms, kissing her neck, kissing her lips, "Fifteen minutes."

"That's fourteen more than I need."

Unpinning herself, wrapping her arms and her legs around him, she realized belatedly she would smell like him when she returned home. And she couldn't take a shower, come home after seeing Kavanagh being damp or smelling of soap. "What kind of shrink is this, Larissa?" Jared would rightly ask. But she also couldn't come home having red p.r.i.c.kles of her lover's fresh stubble over her throat. Yet his lips were on her, and his face was rubbing against her neck, her clavicles, her chest. His wiry hair was in her hands, and he was kissing her and murmuring and smiling, something about how happy he was to see her at night, what a gift it was.

She stayed a while. It wasn't an embrace in the public square but it was kisses of youth, silver guitar strings, dirges with drum beats. She came upon him suddenly, and he was himself, at night as during the day, one hour then or now: just happy to be with her like he was a sailor and she was an angel.

February had twenty-nine days that year. One extra day. To Kai's question Larissa had no answer. She was hoping it would vanish in the ether like dandelion fuzz, and it did, and like a dandelion planted root where it parachuted down, sprouting like weeds in the gra.s.s, forcing its way through the pavement by the side of the open road.

What will it be, Larissa? Yes or no. You've got a house you need to clean every day, and vacuuming that hasn't been done since Tuesday week. You're down to your last roll of paper towels, and Michelangelo long ago ran out of white paint because you haven't bought him any. You never did go out for Valentine's Day dinner with Jared, but otherwise, every night you're making your family dinner, baking store-bought cupcakes, frozen pizzas, potatoes in a box, corn in a can. Yes or no.

Megan is abominably wrong for Saint Joan, but the die has been cast, and you've got to make the best of her. She cannot be strong, her voice is whiny, and every day, you ask her, deeper Megan, you are Joan of Arc, the original and presumptuous! Joan is a warrior, built not for romance but for something greater. To make her a flirt would be like making Caesar a flirt; it's unseemly. And Megan, wilting by the backstage, would say, what does Caesar have to do with the Maid of Orleans? They were both warriors, Megan! a.s.sert yourself, don't stand timidly at the curtains, remember Joan is the eighteen-year-old girl that led France to freedom. She doesn't whine, Megan. She roars.

Larissa could've been talking to the curtains. Megan didn't know how to roar. Megan thought the manatee, a sweet and gentle creature, was unfairly maligned with an insulting moniker: the sea cow.

This is tragedy, not melodrama, Megan! Do you know the difference? And the girl would shake her shy head.

Tragedy: where everything happens because of a flaw or an excess or a void in the main character. The hero directs the action of his own playa"heroic struggle, followed by crushing downfall.

Melodrama: literally, drama punctuated by melody, orchestral music, little songs, sensationalized; external events not tragic flaws direct the traffic of your life. Do you see the difference?

And Megan would shake her woeful histrionic melo dramatic head and chirp, "One thousand like me can stop them! The shortest way to save your own skin is to run away!"

Yes or no, Larissa.

The doctor was pensive. "Tell me, is being a wife and a mother important to you?"

"Of course." Larissa once thought it was her whole life. But independent of what she thought about it, it was what it was. Her whole life. Tears came to her throat again.

"What do you think your husband's reaction would be," Kavanagh asked, "if he were to find out?"

"I don't know." I don't want to think about it.

"You've never discussed this issue, even hypothetically?"

"We've discussed it." In Scruples with other couples. "But never with me as the guilty party."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not that person. I was happy in my marriage. Happy to be married. When I was a girl in a pink room, my life nowa"rather, a little before nowa"is what I dreamed of. This thinga"it's not me."

"Oh, but clearly it is." Kavanagh studied Larissa, wearing a pencil skirt, high-heeled pumps, a cropped cream sweater. "You're an attractive woman," she said at last. "Men, I'm sure, must consider you s.e.xy."

"My husband is a handsome man. We're evenly matched." Larissa gave off a whiff of harried irritation. "Andahe is a good man."

"Okay, but not so good that you want to save your marriage."

"How can you save what can't be saved?" asked Larissa.

"Nothing is beyond saving."

Funny, that's what Maggie kept telling her. Maggie, with her swollen ankles and muscle cramps.

"Doctor, but what if you didn't want to be saved? Could you be saved then? Against your will sort of thing? Like divine intervention?" Like Chea"once, not now.

Kavanagh sat in judgment of her from her pretzel-like presiding. "Is this supposed to be a joke?" She looked down into her lapa"at her notes? "Okay let's get down to the bra.s.s tacks: if your husband gave you an ultimatum, said it was either him or your lover, what would your answer be?"

Larissa exhaled. Her guilty eyes drifted to the carpet, and when she looked up, Kavanagh was staring at her, scrunching up her small wrinkled hands with elegant fingers the way she scrunched up her small elegant brow.

"Honestly, I don't see any confusion in you, Larissa," Kavanagh said. "I see crystalline clarity. Tell your husband you don't want to be married anymore, move out, let him file for divorce, work out custody, and move in with your lover."

Larissa turned her head to the window. She couldn't believe it was windy March already. Time was marching on. The steady beat of it, drum drum, one more day at home, one more unfinished project, one more forgotten task. One more minute late to everywhere. One more phone thrown away, bought again, thrown away, bought againa "Our time is up," said Larissa. If she hurried, she could spend an hour with Kai. She would've liked to fire Kavanagh, but because of the good doctor, she now saw Kai in the evenings.

Another week of sushi, s.e.x, love, Saint Joan, deep in frustration and rehearsals, another financial quarter ending, late nights for Jared, sculpting now for Michelangelo and his white dry clay like hardened cement all over the wood floor of her house, and Kai's question and Kavanagh's question hanging in the air like lilac helium balloons, drifting, floating, colorful neon numbness.

Soul, soul, be gone from me.

On the way back from Kavanagh every Tuesday, she made a handy right left right, ran up the wooden steps two at a time, and spent one glorious hour at night in his company. They made love, had hot snacks, watched snippets of sitcoms, innings of ballgames, talked about the aesthetics of retaining walls in masonry landscaping, she listened to the sound of his deep singing voice one week, the strums of his guitar the next, and thena "There has to be an end to this, Larissa."

"No."

"One way or another, something has to change."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why? What do you see happening?"

Who said this to her? Could've been her doctor. Could've been him. She hoped it wasn't him.

"Even if your husband doesn't find out, eventually your lover might get tired of sharing you with another man, no?" said Kavanagh. "Men can be funny about that."