Free The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar

for emphasis. “God-swear, madam. That day only, I decide.”
    Maggie felt something relax within her. So the attempt had been an impulsive gesture. Good. Good. It meant Lakshmi probably would not repeat it.
    Still, she frowned as if puzzled. “I don’t understand. What happened on that particular day to make you feel so sad? Did you have a fight with your husband?”
    â€œNo, no, madam. Not husband fault. I wicked woman. I do wicked thought.”
    It hit Maggie. Of course. There was someone else. Why hadn’t she picked up on it sooner?
    They were now about forty yards away from the path that led to the woods behind the hospital, and Maggie decided to walk into the dense grove of trees. Here, on the back lawn, Lakshmi would feel exposed, naked, in the glare of the sunlit afternoon. But the light would be weak in the woods, and if there was one thing that Maggie had learned in her years as a therapist, it was that shame required darkness.
    Lakshmi relaxed visibly as soon as they entered the woods. Maggie saw that it was more than the anonymity provided by the shade. For the first time, Lakshmi looked at home, in her element: She plucked a leaf off a tree, crushed it in her hand, inhaled its smell, and then said its name in her language; she got down on her haunches to examine a mushroom growing at the base of a trunk; she turned her radiant face up to gaze at the sliver of sky that showed through the leaves. Despite the awareness that they were wasting time, despite the realization that they didn’t have much of a window before her next appointment, Maggie was transfixed. She felt as if these woods were magical, and that they had transformed the sullen, crushed woman into a pixie.
    She knew that the pixie would disappear with the next question, but she had no choice. “What was the wicked thought? That made you attempt it, I mean.”
    Lakshmi, who had been running her hand across the soft spindles of a pine tree, stopped. Slowly, she turned to face Maggie, who held her gaze. Come on, she willed her silently. Tell me, so I can make a judgment about whether it’s safe to release you. She saw a cluster of emotions cross Lakshmi’s face before it went slack.
    â€œThis customer, he came to restaurant every Thursday,” she said. “So nice he was, madam. Always saying please-thank-you to me. Always, without fail. He my only friend, madam. And he smell”—Lakshmi looked around them—“he smell like this place. Clean.” She plucked a pine needle off the tree and held it to her nose.
    Here it was, Maggie thought. She’d slept with this guy and was terrified her husband would find out. After having met the husband, a mountain of a man, Maggie couldn’t blame her. He would probably kill her if he knew.
    She opened her mouth, but just then, Lakshmi began to sob. The hair on Maggie’s arms stood up. In her practice, she’d heard lots of people cry—it was one of those sounds you had to steel yourself to—but she had never heard a sound like this. It’s cultural, she told herself, but she knew that wasn’t it. She’d attended Sudhir’s grandfather’s funeral, where his widow had wailed and beaten her chest; she’d seen videos of Middle Eastern women keening during mass funerals; what she was hearing now was unlike anything she’d ever heard. In Lakshmi’s crying was the sound you’d make if you were the last person left alive on the entire planet.
    A shiver ran through Maggie. For a second her mind played tricks on her—I’ll have to describe this to Peter and ask if he’s ever heard this sound during his travels, she thought—before she remembered her resolution not to see Peter again. She looked around, not knowing how to interrupt Lakshmi’s crying, angry with herself for having brought her to this place. So she was going to coax a cheap little confession out of the poor woman. So what?