They began seeing a counselor, a woman named Dr. Abernathy who had an office in Englewood with a white noise machine in the hallway and a box of tissues on every flat surface. At the first session Adam talked for forty minutes without stopping, and Natalie sat and listened and did not defend herself once, and at the end Dr. Abernathy said, "That was a very good start," and Adam laughed for the first time in weeks, a short, astonished bark, and said, "That was a start?"
Emma watched them both. She was quieter than usual, and she practiced the cello more than usual, long slow scales in the evenings that floated down the stairs like smoke. One night she asked Natalie, without preamble, while they were loading the dishwasher, what Claire's middle name was. Natalie said she didn't know. Emma said, "That's weird, right? That you don't know?" and Natalie said yes, it was weird, and Emma nodded and said, "Okay," and went upstairs, and Natalie stood holding a dripping plate and felt the full weight of all she did not know about her first child settle on her like snow.
On the seventeenth day, a Wednesday, her phone rang during her lunch break with a number she did not recognize. She was sitting in her car again, in the elementary school parking lot, with a half-eaten apple on the passenger seat. She let it ring three times before she answered.
"Is this Natalie?" A young woman's voice. Low, a little husky, careful.
"Yes."
A long pause. Natalie could hear traffic on the other end, and the wind.