Free Beloved Wolf by Kasey Michaels

in the morning, still sipping on her first cup of coffee, dressed casually, without hose or heels, watching Louise Smith pace the oriental carpet.
    Dr. Wilkes liked Louise. Really liked her. She’d come into the office for the first time almost five years ago, frightened, withdrawn, obviously carrying more than just baggage. She’d come in stumbling under the weight of a steamer trunk of trouble.
    Louise was a pretty woman, a woman whose problems somehow didn’t show in her face, unless you looked deeply into her soft brown eyes. Then a person could see a depth of despair that would stagger someone stronger than Louise, sometimes still did stagger the woman.
    Like this morning, when Louise had phoned and begged for an immediate appointment.
    â€œSomeone needs me, Dr. Wilkes,” Louise said now, turning toward the psychologist. “I can feel it. I’m needed somewhere.”
    Dr. Wilkes sighed. Not a good thing to do, sigh. Not in front of a patient. Even if Louise was much more than a patient. She was a friend. Their sessions may have begun all those years ago as strictly professional, but their relationship had evolved into something deeper, more personal.
    And that was wrong. Dr. Wilkes knew it. She had stepped over the line, become too involved with Louise’s problems. Maybe today was the day to pull back, restate the obvious and get them back onto that less level doctor–patient playing field.
    â€œSit down, Louise,” Dr. Wilkes said, motioning toa small, comfortable upholstered chair near the opposite side of the cozily furnished room. She watched as Louise ran a hand over her simply cut light brown hair, smoothed her hands down the sides of her neat cotton dress that skimmed a trim body that also belied Louise’s fifty-two years.
    â€œLet’s recap, okay?” the doctor said, reaching for Louise’s file, a file she knew almost by heart.
    Louise sat very still, her spine erect, her hands neatly folded in her lap, her legs crossed at the ankles. Every inch the lady. “If you think it will help, Doctor, certainly. And again, I apologize for disturbing you at home. It’s just that these past few days the dreams have become so vivid.”
    â€œYes, as you said.” Dr. Wilkes opened the file on the desk in front of her. “All right. You were born Patricia Portman, fifty-two years ago, in California.”
    â€œAt least we think so,” Louise inserted, sighing. “Isn’t it odd? That we’ve never checked for a birth certificate, not in all these years?”
    â€œNot odd, Louise. Frustrating. You wouldn’t permit me to check any deeper, to consult anything more than the medical records that accompanied you upon your discharge from St. James Clinic.”
    â€œ Both of my discharges from St. James Clinic,” Louise corrected.
    Dr. Wilkes shook her head, not in dissent, but because this had been the largest stumbling block she faced with Louise. The woman had first shown up in Jackson, then disappeared, and then reappeared a few years later, both times upon her discharge from St. James Clinic in California. The doctor knew Louise’slife for the past thirty years, but nothing of her life before she’d entered the California prison system.
    And Louise refused to allow a search that probed any more deeply into her complicated past, a past Louise still swore not to remember.
    â€œWhy, Louise? Why won’t you let me learn more about your background? We could locate your parents, possibly some siblings, relatives, who could help us understand—”
    Louise’s chin lifted. “Help us? You saw the records, Dr. Wilkes. I was in that asylum for years. Years. And never once a visitor, never a single contact or inquiry from anyone. If I have relatives, they’re either dead or I’m dead to them. They believe I killed Ellis Mayfair.”
    Dr. Wilkes pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.