The Map of True Places

She stood up and grabbed a towel.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said, wrapping herself in the terry-cloth robe.

He just stood there watching her, his expression difficult to read. She could tell he had something to say, something important from the look of things, but she wasn’t ready to talk.

“Give me a minute, will you?” Zee said, and Michael turned and walked out of the bathroom.

She went to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of socks, so her feet wouldn’t leave more prints on the wood floors. She put on a sweatshirt and jeans.

She found him in the kitchen. He was eating a piece of salmon. She recognized the O Ya box.

“What’s all this?” she asked him.

“I’ve been calling you. You didn’t answer either phone.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry” seemed to be the word that started most of her sentences these days.

“The wedding planner quit,” Michael said. “But she’s charging us six thousand dollars for her time.” He held out the tray to her. “I figure these are worth about half a grand apiece.”

She shook her head. She wasn’t hungry. She felt a little sick.

“For that price she should have sent the sake, too,” he said.

She walked over and hugged him, holding on for longer than she wanted. He didn’t return the embrace. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll pick up the expense.”

“It’s not about the expense,” he said. She could see him considering before he continued. “I have to ask you an important question,” he finally said.

“What question?”

“Do you not want to get married?”

His question caught her off guard. “Why would you even ask me that?”

“Come on, Zee.”

A long silence followed. The truth was, she didn’t know. She didn’t know if she didn’t want to get married at all, or if she just hated the process. The big wedding was clearly something he wanted. She could count only about five people she would even invite.

“Maybe I just don’t like the wedding planner.” She knew that much was true, though it was all she seemed to know. She felt suddenly foolish for the snow day and guilty that she’d made him feel bad.

“Well, you’ve solved that problem, I’d say.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. She reached into the box they’d sent over and pulled out a piece of sushi. She would take a bite, and then she would tell Michael how much she liked it and that she thought they’d found the perfect food for the wedding. “It’s really good,” she said. “Great, actually.” She didn’t have to lie.

The phone rang. Zee didn’t move to answer it.

She could follow his thought process. Michael was a game theorist and as famous as Mattei in his own right. He was paid to predict what groups of people would do. As a result, Michael always seemed to know what she would do before she did it, even when (as was so often the case these days) she had no idea herself.

Don’t answer the phone, she thought.

She didn’t say it. It would have been stupid. And it would have been futile. As she stood there with him, she felt as if she were the one who was the game theorist. She knew exactly what he would do.

Michael picked up the phone on the fifth ring. “Yes?” he said into the receiver. Zee could tell that it was Mattei. Then, so she continued to feel his earlier reprimand, he went on, “No, evidently Zee does not answer her cell.” He listened to Mattei for a moment, and then, at her direction, he walked over to the TV and flipped it on. “What channel?” he asked. Then he handed the phone to Zee.

Zee kept her eyes on the television as Michael changed the channels, settling on the local news, Channel Five.

“What’s going on?” Zee said to Mattei.

On the screen several cars were pulled over on the top level of the Tobin Bridge. An SUV with its driver’s door opened sat next to the leftmost guardrail. Police were trying to contain the crowds who were leaning over the side, pointing. The TV camera panned across the blackening water, but aside from a few pleasure boats nothing seemed unusual. The camera cut back to the newscaster, a blonde in a blue top. Pointing the microphone at the toll collector, she asked, “Did you know she was going to jump when she pulled over?”

The toll taker shook her head. “I thought she was opening the door because she had dropped her money.”

Another eyewitness leaned into the microphone, vying for camera time. “She didn’t jump, she dove.”

The newscaster held the microphone out to a man who stood off to the side, staring over the railing. “I am told that you witnessed the whole thing,” she said to him.

He didn’t say anything but just stared at the newscaster.

Zee recognized shock when she saw it and hoped one of the medical personnel would treat him for it.

The woman poked the microphone closer. “What did you see?”

As if suddenly realizing where he was, the man pulled himself together. With a look of disgust and anger, he pushed the microphone away. “Stop,” he said.

Zee felt dizzy. She held on to the couch arm to steady herself. A faint beeping sound was still audible from the SUV’s driver’s-side door, near where the key had been left in the ignition. It was weak and failing, but no one had thought to put a stop to it.

Zee recognized the car.

“Her husband left a message on the ser vice,” Mattei said to Zee.

Michael stared at Zee, still not understanding what was happening.

“Who was it?” he finally asked.

“My three-o’clock,” Zee said.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_2a240fd4-4178-5c11-ba39-d4e723659e0c)

Zee took the tunnel to the North Shore instead of the bridge. The old Volvo she’d gotten in grad school barely passed inspection every year, and though she seldom drove in town, she couldn’t seem to give it up. The alignment was so bad that she had to keep both hands firmly on the wheel to stay in her lane as she drove.

Zee hated tunnels—the darkness, the damp, the dripping from overhead, where she imagined the weight of water already pushing through the cracks, finding any weak spot and working its way through. She wasn’t alone. Since the Big Dig tunnel ceiling collapse a couple of years back, most Bostonians were skittish about tunnels.

“Water always seeks its own level,” Zee said aloud, though she was alone in the car and the sound of her own voice seemed wrong. The thought was wrong, too. It only made her more tense. Think of something else, she told herself. She wished she had taken the bridge. At the same time, she wondered if she would ever be able to take the bridge again.

Both Mattei and Michael had told Zee not to go to Lilly’s funeral.

“Why would you do that?” Mattei asked.

“Because she was my patient,” Zee said. “Because I’m a human being.”