Cold Cold Heart by Tami Hoag

she was aware of the sound of it like a pounding-hard rain. She had left her wet clothes to plug the drain. The room was flooding.
    She knew the feeling.
    *   *   *
    â€œS O TODAY’S THE DAY. You’re going home,” Dr. Dewar said. “How are you feeling about that, Dana?”
    â€œGreat,” Dana said without emotion, knowing her neuropsychologist would not be satisfied with her answer.
    â€œWould you like to elaborate on that?”
    â€œNo.”
    Janelle Dewar sighed. She was a woman on the downside of middle age with a softly rounded figure always draped in flowing skirts and tunic tops and adorned with chunky art-fair jewelry. Her shoulder-length brown hair was thick and liberally threaded with gray. She was a kind, practical woman with the patience of a saint.
    She had been working with brain-injured people her entire medical career. Nothing surprised her. Nothing threw her for a loop. She never judged. She never told patients they shouldn’t feel one way or another. She was a rock, an anchor for people whose brains were pulling and pushing their emotions in all directions.
    The idea of leaving Dr. Dewar and not having her steadyinginfluence day in and day out terrified Dana. But what good would it do her to elaborate on that? It was time for her to leave the Weidman Center. That was that.
    They sat in Dr. Dewar’s cozy conference room—Dana, Dr. Dewar, and Lynda. Dr. Dewar preferred to call it her den, to give a less institutional impression, just as she preferred her patients to call her by her first name, so she seemed more like a friend than a physician. The office was furnished with comfortable oversize armchairs, a love seat, a coffee table. There were large, leafy plants near sliding glass doors that opened onto a small private garden courtyard.
    Dana stared out the window. A steady, soft rain was falling from a drab gray sky. How did she feel about going home? She would be going back to the house she had grown up in. She felt like she would be expected to fit back into a life to which she no longer belonged. She worried her mother would expect her to fall into place like a missing puzzle piece, like nothing had ever happened or changed. But everything was different. Everything had changed.
    She worried that people who had known her would look at her like she was a freak. She had been a story on the national news—the abducted newscaster, then the victim who killed the serial killer. People who had followed the story would know as many details about what she had endured as she did. How did she feel about going home to that? Apprehension and dread pressed down on her like an anvil.
    â€œDana?” Dr. Dewar prompted.
    Dana pretended not to hear her.
    Her mother tried to fill the awkward silence with awkward talk. “We’re so excited to have Dana coming home. After everything she’s been through, after all her hard work here, we’ll finally have some time to be a family again, just be together, maybe take a vacation somewhere warm. It’s a new beginning.”
    Under the sugary enthusiasm, her mother had to be as anxious as Dana was. Dana could hear the edge of it in her mother’s voice. She could smell it beneath the cloying layer of perfume her mother hadput on to mask any nervous perspiration. Lynda would be taking home her daughter, a virtual stranger.
    â€œIt
is
a new beginning,” Dr. Dewar said. “And, as exciting as that may be, it’s normal to also be a little apprehensive about this transition,” she reminded them. “For both of you. There’s going to be a period of adjustment. Don’t make the mistake of setting unrealistic expectations. Don’t put yourselves under that kind of pressure.”
    â€œNo,” Dana’s mother said. “No pressure. No pressure at all. We’ll take everything a day at a time. I just want to keep a positive outlook. We could have lost her. We’re