“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “Pardon the armchair analysis. Occupational hazard.”

She looked down at me. I took her hand and she relaxed.

“After all,” I said, “he did tell you about the drowning- which was pretty emotionally loaded stuff.”

“The drowning,” she said. “Yes. He did tell me that. I remember it clearly.”

“And you told me. And Helen.” Twisting and turning the truth like wood in a lathe.

“Yes, of course I did. You were the people I felt close to. I wanted both of you to know.”

She pulled away, sat down on the opposite end of the bed. Bewildered.

I said, “It must have been a terrible experience, being forced under water, someone trying to kill you. Especially at that age. The primal age.”

She turned her back to me. I listened to the arrhythmic hiss and squeak of Shirlee’s breathing.

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think lies are… a combination of elements?” Her voice was empty, dead, like that of a torture victim. “Fiction combined with repressed truth? That when we lie, what we’re really doing is taking truth and changing its temporal context- bringing it forward from the past to the present?”

I said, “It’s an interesting theory.” Then, “If you feel up to it, I’d like to hear about how you and Sherry finally met.”

“A couple of days after Uncle Billy visited me, Paul came by and told me she was ready.”

“Back to his house.”

“Yes. He put me up in my room and told me to meditate, be sure to get a good night’s sleep. The next morning he brought me down to the living room. Everything was set up with big soft pillows and dim lighting. He told me to wait, and left. A moment later he reappeared. With her.

“When I saw her a jolt of electricity shot up my spine. I couldn’t move. She must have been going through the same thing, because both of us just stared at each other for a long time. She looked exactly like me except she’d dyed her hair platinum-blond and was wearing sexy clothes. We started to smile- at precisely the same moment. Then we started giggling, then laughing out loud, threw out our arms and ran toward each other- it was like running into a mirror. A few minutes later and we were talking away as if we’d been best friends all our lives.

“She was funny and sweet- nothing at all like Paul had described. Not selfish or spoiled the way Uncle Billy had implied. It was obvious she wasn’t highly educated, which surprised me because I knew she’d grown up rich. But she was bright. And well-bred- her posture, the way she crossed her legs. She told me she was studying to be an actress, had already starred in one film. I asked her the title but she just laughed and changed the subject. She wanted to know all about grad school, all about psych, said she was so proud that I was going to get a Ph.D. We really hit it off, discovering that we liked the same foods, used the same toothpaste and mouthwash and deodorant. Noticing little mannerisms we had in common.”

“Like this?” I tugged on my earlobe.

“No.” She laughed. “I’m afraid that’s all me.”

“Did she talk about her home life?”

“Not much that first time- we really didn’t want to talk about anything but us. And she hadn’t been told about Joan yet- Paul said she wasn’t ready for that. So we concentrated on just the two of us. We stayed in that room all day. The first time I had a hint of anything negative was when we got on the topic of men. She told me she’d done lots of men, so many she’d lost count. She was sounding me out- wanted to see if I approved or disapproved. I wasn’t judgmental, but told her I was a one-man woman. She refused to believe that at first, then said she hoped he was one hell of a man. That’s when I told her all about you. For a moment a scary look came into her eyes- predatory. Hungry. As if she hated me for loving. But then it disappeared so quickly that I thought I’d imagined it. If I’d known better, I would have protected you, believe me, Alex. Protected us.”

“When did it start going bad?”

Her eyes moistened. “Soon after, though I didn’t realize it at the time. We were supposed to go shopping together, but she didn’t show. When I got back to Paul’s house, he told me she’d packed her bags and left town without telling anyone. That it was her pattern- she had no impulse control. Not to worry, it wasn’t my fault. She finally came back, two weeks later, in terrible shape- bruised, groggy, unable to remember anything that had happened other than that she’d ended up in a bar in Reno. From that point on, that’s what it was like- drop in, drop out. Fugue states, drug abuse.”

“Jana. Your dissertation.”

That jolted her.

I said, “I read it. I was interested- in you. Whose idea was it?”

“It started out as a joke. I’d just been through a rough month with her- a couple of overdoses, lots of verbal abuse. And I was under pressure, needed to come up with a dissertation topic or apply for an extension from the department- my second one. I was unloading on Paul about how much she frustrated me, how hard she was making it for me. That it would have been easier to be her therapist than her sister. He laughed at that, said being her therapist was no picnic either. We talked about the loss of control that comes from dealing with people like that. Then he said, why didn’t I put myself in the therapist role- as a means of establishing some sense of control in the relationship- and write it all down.”

“Working it through.”

“Paul said she owed it to me.”

“Sounds like Paul was angry at her too.”

“He was frustrated- all those years, and she kept getting worse. Deteriorating. Toward the end she was downright paranoid, near psychotic.”

“Paranoid about what?”

“Everything. The last time she came back- the time she wrecked my practice- she was convinced I was out to get her, that I was revealing her personal secrets to my patients, humiliating her. It came from her own pain, but she was projecting it onto me- blaming me, the way she’d done years before.”

“Tell me about that.”

“It was a long time ago, Alex.”

“I’d still like to hear about it.”

She thought for a while, shrugged and smiled. “If it’s that important to you.”

I smiled back.

She said, “It happened after she got married- to Italian nobility, a marchese named Benito di Orano whom her mother introduced her to. Ten years younger than her, suave, handsome, heir to some sort of shoe company- another impulsive thing- they’d only known each other a week, flew to Liechtenstein and had a civil ceremony. He bought her a Lamborghini, moved her into his villa overlooking the Spanish Steps. Paul and I hoped she’d finally settle down. But Benito turned out to be a sadist and a druggie. He beat her, doped her up, took her to the family palazzo in Venice, crammed her with dope, and gave her to his friends- as a party favor. When she woke up, he told her he’d had the marriage annulled because she was trash, then kicked her out. Literally.

“She crawled back to the States like a worm, burst into my office in the middle of a session, screaming and bawling and begging me to help her. I called Paul. Both of us tried to calm her down, persuade her to admit herself. But she wouldn’t cooperate and she wasn’t a clear and present danger, so there was nothing we could do, legally. She stomped out, cursing both of us. A few days later she was the old Sherry again- foul-mouthed, popping pills, back on the road, constantly on the move. From time to time I heard from her- middle of the night phone calls, postcards that tried to be friendly. Once or twice I even drove out to the airport to see her between planes. We’d chat, have drinks, pretend everything between us was okay. But her rage hadn’t dissipated. The next time she came back to L.A. to stay, she got close to me again, then started in with her follow-up visits. God, I loved my work, Alex. Still miss it.”