Free No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay Page B

this.”
    “What is it, exactly, we’re working through?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be argumentative. I really wanted to know. “I’m not trying to be a jerk here, I guess I’ve just lost sight of the goal for the moment.”
    “What we’re attempting to do here is help Cynthia deal with a traumatic incident in her childhood that’s resonating to this day, not just for her own sake, but for the sake of the relationship the two of you share.”
    “Our relationship is fine,” I said.
    “He doesn’t always believe me,” Cynthia blurted.
    “What?”
    “You don’t always believe me,” she said again. “I can tell. Like when I told you about the brown car. You don’t think there’s anything to it. And when that man called this morning, when you couldn’t find it in the call history, you wondered whether there’d even been a call.”
    “I never said that,” I said. I looked at Dr. Kinzler, as if she were a judge and I a defendant desperate to prove his innocence. “That’s not true. I never said anything like that at all.”
    “But I know you were thinking it,” Cynthia said, but there was no anger in her voice. She reached over and touched my arm. “And honestly, I don’t entirely blame you. I know what I’ve been like. I know I’ve been hard to live with. Not just these last few months, but ever since we got married. This has always hung over us. I try to put it away, like trying to put it in the closet, but every once in a while, it’s like I open that door by mistake and everything spills out. When we met—”
    “Cynthia, you don’t—”
    “When we met, I knew getting close to you would only bring you some of the pain I’d been feeling, but I was selfish. I wanted to share your love so desperately, even if that meant you’d have to share my pain.”
    “Cynthia.”
    “And you’ve been so patient, you really have. And I love you for it. You have to be the most patient man in the world. If I were you, I’d be exasperated with me, too. Get over it, right? It happened a long time ago. Like Pam said. Just get the fuck over it.”
    “I’ve never said anything like that.”
    Dr. Kinzler watched us.
    “Well, I’ve said it to myself,” Cynthia said. “Hundreds of times. And I wish I could. But sometimes, and I know this is going to sound crazy…”
    Dr. Kinzler and I were both very quiet.
    “Sometimes, I hear them. I can hear them talking, my mother, my brother. Dad. I can hear them like they’re right here in the room with me. Just talking.”
    Dr. Kinzler spoke up first. “Do you talk back?”
    “I think so,” Cynthia said.
    “Are you dreaming when this happens?” Dr. Kinzler asked.
    Cynthia pondered. “I must be. I mean, I don’t hear them right now.” She cracked a sad smile. “I didn’t hear them in the car on the way over.”
    Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief.
    “So maybe it’s when I’m sleeping, or daydreaming. But it’s like they’re around me, like they’re trying to talk to me.”
    “What are they trying to say?” Dr. Kinzler asked.
    Cynthia took her hand off my arm and linked her own fingers together in her lap. “I don’t know. It varies. Sometimes, it’s just talk. About nothing in particular. About what we’re having for dinner, or what’s on TV, nothing important. And then other times…”
    I must have looked as though I was about to say something, because Dr. Kinzler shot me another look. But I wasn’t. My mouth had opened in anticipation, wondering what Cynthia was going to say. This was the first I’d heard her speak about hearing members of her family speak to her.
    “Other times, I think they’re asking me to join them.”
    “Join them?” Dr. Kinzler said.
    “To come and be with them, so that we can all be a family again.”
    “What do you say?” Dr. Kinzler asked.
    “I tell them I want to go, but I can’t.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    Cynthia looked into my eyes and smiled sadly. “Because where they are, I might not be able