“Nah, we’re not going home yet. You’re going to have some coffee, calm down and we’ll just talk awhile.”

 “I’m sure you don’t need all this chaos clogging up your mind...”

 “My mind is fine,” he said. “I’m a little worried about yours. It seems like maybe you’re still feeling confused, out of control. Vulnerable. Victimized.”

 “Wouldn’t you?” she returned defensively.

 “Probably. But I want you to think about something, Emmie. Lack of power comes from lack of knowledge. Unless I’m totally off base here, you’re still completely confused about what happened to you, how it happened, what to do about it now.”

 “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” she said.

 “Have you seen a counselor?” he asked.

 “What kind of counselor?” she asked.

 “Okay, I’m just guessing here, but I think you’re still in shock. Maybe you have a little PTSD because you’re not advancing beyond the shock.”

 He actually smiled slightly when he noticed she was looking at him with wide, startled eyes.

 “PTSD isn’t limited to war veterans, Emmie. Anyone who’s been through a trauma qualifies. With a war veteran it might be a car backfiring that sends them into a series of PTSD symptoms—anger, sleeplessness, fear, panic, phobia, so on. For the victim of emotional abuse it might be facial expressions, certain comments, another’s rage or threat. You should check this out, see a counselor.”

 “Listen,” she said earnestly, scooting forward in her seat and turning in his direction. “I don’t have the money for a counselor and I have health insurance for emergencies, but no one, I mean no one, is ever going to offer me discounted therapy because I suffered through kissing goodbye to millions of dollars after living like a queen for years.”

 “Victim,” he said. “You are a victim. And you were probably a victim then, not a queen. You need some help. I’ll check around. I might find someone, you never know. I know everyone—I’ve been teaching half their kids for fifteen years. But while I look, you might want to do some reading. From what you say, you still have so much mystery about what happened to you, you can’t even figure out how you ended up in this mental-emotional minefield and there must be some kind of explanation. If there’s not a clear explanation, there might be enough information out there to help you draw some conclusions. Hit the library. Read those books written by other people who think they’ve drawn conclusions. Find out who they think you are. And who they think your husband was.”

 She was shaking her head. “You have no idea what you’re suggesting, how painful that is. Just the little excerpts are horrible.”

 “I know.”

 “You know? How do you know?”

 “I read about it all,” he said with a shrug. “Lots of theories about your late husband. About you. Varying theories.”

 “Why?” she asked softly. “Why would you read that trash?”

 “Emmie, I’m a science teacher. We investigate. We look shit up.” Then he gave her a wan smile. “I’m just suggesting, since you can’t escape it, maybe it makes sense to face it.”

 “I thought I’d been facing it for the last several years,” she said. “I was in the apartment when Richard blew his brains out, after all. I had to hide from angry plaintiffs. I had to watch the house stripped of personal possessions. I—”

 “You wanted it behind you, and who could blame you. Now that the whole fiasco is part of your identity and you have to live with it, would it help to understand it better? Like, what kind of man was he, really? Because you don’t actually know, do you? You’ve said that had you known, you would have run for your life. So what do you know about sociopaths? Because that’s my guess. He was a sociopath.”

 “What do you know about sociopaths?” she asked.

 He shook his head. “Just a little bit, but I admit to being fascinated. I think when they were passing out consciences they missed a few people but they gave the surplus to me—my conscience seems to work overtime.” He reached for her hand. “If you understood, at least as much as possible, could you be at peace?”

 “I don’t know.”

 “Find out,” he suggested. “I’ll help if I can. I love research. And I love talking to you. But first things first. You need a few days of rest and ice on your head.”

 “And my butt,” she added.

 “Did they x-ray that part?”

 “No. They said if it remains painful to come back in, but it’s already better from just a couple of Advil.”

 “Then let’s keep moving forward. It’s time to call Riley and see if you can get a job. It doesn’t have to be a long-term job. But you have to have something...”

 “Oh, Adam...”

 “She’ll protect you, Emmie. She knows how hard it is to start over, to rebuild your life after you’ve hit bottom.”

 “I can’t believe she’d actually help me,” she said.

 “Sure she would. In fact, if she doesn’t that would mean I don’t know my sister at all. And that’s not possible.”

 “Does she know we’ve been in touch lately?” Emma asked.

 “She knows I ran into you at the burger joint. She knows we had a glass of wine and I gave you her business card. That’s all she knows. In fact, I never mentioned we’d talked after you and Jock broke up, after Maddie was born...”

 “It was more than a few times,” Emma said. “And why didn’t you tell her?”