The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry Page A

reason you became a therapist.”
    â€œIt wasn’t the unfulfilled dream of my mother, I can tell you that much.”
    â€œWasn’t it?”
    â€œOh, please,” Zee said.
    â€œWhat was the unfulfilled dream of your mother?”
    â€œWe both know what it was.”
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me again?” Mattei said.
    â€œThe Great Love. It’s what she wanted from my father—and what she never got.”
    â€œSo already there’s a similarity to Lilly.”
    â€œAnd just about every other woman in America,” Zee said.
    â€œTrue enough. Your mother was onto something when she started writing fairy tales about The Great Love.”
    â€œSomething that evidently killed her,” Zee said.
    â€œWhich?” Mattei said.
    â€œWas it the fairy tale that killed her? Or The Great Love?”
    â€œAren’t they pretty much the same thing?”
    â€œYou tell me,” Mattei said.
    When Zee didn’t take the bait, Mattei asked a different question. “What’s the other dream of the fairy tale?”
    â€œBesides true love?”
    â€œWhat are both your mother and Lilly looking for?” Mattei asked.
    â€œMy mother’s not looking for anything. My mother’s dead.” Zee was growing tired of this line of questioning.
    â€œBear with me for a moment,” Mattei said.
    Zee folded her arms across her chest.
    â€œWhat did your mother want from you then, and what does Lilly want now?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Zee said.
    â€œThink about it.”
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    Z EE THOUGHT ABOUT M ATTEI’S QUESTION, and she thought about Lilly Braedon many times during the next few months.
    It was William who finally contacted Zee. He was desperate. “She’s not doing well,” he sobbed into the phone. “I don’t know what to do.” He told Zee that Lilly had stopped the therapy within the first month. Convinced that the doctor was coming on to her, she had refused to step back into his office. “I don’t know,” William said. “She’s such a beautiful woman. Men can’t help throwing themselves at her. I tend to believe her.” He tried to compose himself before going on. “She won’t even get out of bed.”
    Whose bed? Zee wanted to ask. But she didn’t. Instead she agreed togo to the house to meet with Lilly, and with that, Zee crossed another line.
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    T HE HOUSE WAS A MESS. It hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, William told her. Finally, in frustration, he had hired a maid service, three women from Brazil who didn’t speak much English, which he decided was a good thing, because he was afraid of what Lilly might say to them if she started talking. But instead of speaking even a word of hello, Lilly had taken to locking herself in her bedroom and crying the whole time they tried to clean—huge, wrenching sobs that finally upset the maids so much that they quit. “What was she crying about?” he’d asked the women, but they didn’t know. Gesturing, they managed to communicate to him that Lilly had been talking on the phone with someone.
    William thought that maybe the phone calls had been to Zee.
    Zee didn’t tell him what she already knew, that the phone calls were to Adam.
    â€œYou didn’t break up with Adam, did you?” Zee asked Lilly at her first return session.
    â€œI couldn’t,” Lilly said. Then she started to cry.
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    L ILLY BECAME Z EE’S PATIENT ONCE more. And once again her meds were adjusted. Soon she was driving herself into Boston on a regular basis. She seemed better. Spring was turning to summer again, and Lilly’s spirits were lifting.
    They didn’t talk about Adam anymore. Lilly wouldn’t, and there were clearly boundary issues that Zee had violated; she didn’t want to risk making things worse. For now it was important not to drive Lilly away again. It was enough that she was here and that