I sure did.

When I got home that night, I skipped my usual protocol. I didn’t check the phone messages or the mail. I didn’t flip through the TV channels. Instead, I went straight to my bedroom. I glared at the frog, then I stripped off my clothes, leaving them in a pile by my side of the bed, and I slipped under the covers.

It was only 6:00, and the sleep I craved didn’t come. I was depressed enough to want to snooze the next four months away, but my body wouldn’t allow it. I lay in our bedroom, light seeping boldly through the blinds. I thought of all those people heading out for a spring Friday evening-maybe off to Wrigley Field for a night game, maybe dinner outside at Jack’s Bar on Southport-and yet here I was, in bed. Alone. This was how I wanted it, but I wanted to be unconscious. Unable to feel the questions, the shame, the wonder of whether I could ever truly be happy when I wasn’t happy now, even after I’d gotten everything I’d thought I wanted.

I threw off the covers and sat up. Chris was still at work. Probably would be for a long while, since I’d told him I was working late in order to avoid seeing him. I’d been doing this for the last few days. I couldn’t bear his sweet face, his unconditional love.

If I could just tell someone about Evan. Hell, about all of it-getting what I wanted overnight, how none of it had been like I’d imagined-maybe I could set it right. But I’d exhausted my list of potential advisors, both friends and family. I needed someone who could be objective, who could listen and tell me honestly what in the hell to do.

Blinda. That was the person who came to me then, because this need for an objective viewer of my life was what had brought me to her in the first place. And hadn’t she started all this with her mantra of look inside, Billy, and her gift of the frog?

I glanced at the frog on my nightstand as I dialed her number. Surely she was back from Africa by now. The phone rang five times-a hollow, distant sound-then a click. She was there! But then the whir of an answering machine and Blinda’s musical voice, “I’m out of the office for a while, but please leave me a message. Peace.”

I felt an irrational desire to say, Yeah, peace to your mother, and hang up, but I composed myself and asked her to call me as soon as she got in.

Days went by without word from her. I avoided Chris. I said I had to work, then sat in my empty office over the weekend, listening to the steady whir of the air-conditioning, finally throwing myself wholeheartedly into work, hoping it would chase away everything else. But my mind kept coming back to Blinda and the conversation we’d had when she said she was leaving for Africa. All I could recall was that she would be out of town for a while. What did that mean, exactly? Weeks, months, years?

Frustrated, I dug up the few names of other therapists who’d been recommended when I started entertaining the idea of therapy. One was on East Ohio Street, not too far from the office. On Monday, I called the number, spoke to a receptionist and made an appointment for five o’clock that same day. I hung up and felt myself breathe fully with relief. I simply needed to talk to a professional. That was all. Soon I would have this whole mess figured out.

Her name was Dr. Hyacinth Montgomery, “but everyone calls me Dr. Hy,” she said with a smooth smile. She looked like a presidential candidate-a perfect figure in an impeccable black suit, subtle makeup and a stylish brunette bob.

Her office was wood paneled and lined with books like an English library. A vase of white tea roses sat on the coffee table next to the patient couch. The effect was elegant, but I missed the cracked Asian pot and the wooly red and orange sofa in Blinda’s place.

“Please, sit,” she said. “Now tell me what brings you here.”

I explained that I already had a therapist, someone I’d been seeing for a few months, but that she was out of town and I needed to talk to someone.

“Fine,” she said. “That’s just fine. What seems to be on your mind?”

“Well, uh…” The words dried up in my mouth. How to explain this? Best to just get it out, I decided. “I was seeing my therapist because I was unhappy with some aspects of my life.”

“Mmm, good,” Dr. Hy said.

“So, there were these aspects I wanted to be different,” I continued. “They really weren’t anything earth-shattering. I wanted my husband to pay more attention to me, I wanted to be promoted at work, I wanted my mother to stop living her life through mine, I wanted to get over my father, who took off when I was young, and I had this somewhat irrational hope that this guy at work would have a crush on me.”

Dr. Hy laughed, a soft tinkle of a laugh. “I think those are all valid wishes.”

Confident now, I charged on. “I told my therapist all of this, and she asked me if I’d done enough to make these thing happen. Then she told me to look inside for my happiness.”

Dr. Hy nodded, a small smile of agreement.

“But she also gave me this frog,” I said. “I should have brought it to show you, but the point is, she gave me this frog and told me that in the Chinese culture the frog was believed to bring good fortune. I didn’t think much of it, and I put the frog on my nightstand. When I woke up the next morning, everything had changed.” I held my breath, waiting for her reaction.

There was a crease between Dr. Hy’s eyebrows now. “How do you mean?”

Too late to turn back, I thought. I’m paying her. I might as well blurt it out. “I got everything I wanted overnight,” I said. “I know this sounds crazy, but it’s absolutely true. The very next day, my husband was great, the guy at work had a crush on me, my mom was in Milan, my dad was just gone from my head and I was a vice president.”

The crease deepened. “Overnight, this happened? Do you mean ‘overnight’ as a figure of speech?”

“No, no,” I said. “Literally, the day after I saw her, after I got this frog, my whole life changed.”

“Maybe it just felt like that.”

“No, it did. I know how odd this sounds, but please, trust me.”

Dr. Hy leaned forward. “Just to make sure I understand you, you’re saying that your therapist gave you a frog, an icon of some sort, and the next day your life was very different. You’d gotten everything you wished for.”

“Exactly.”

“Were you on any medications at the time?”

“No.”

“Do you use drugs or alcohol extensively?”

“Well, I’ve been known to have one too many glasses of wine on occasion, but no.”

“And Billy, do you really believe that your life was entirely different in one day?”

“It absolutely was. I woke up that morning with the frog on my nightstand, and it had all changed, just like that.” I snapped my fingers for effect. “Please. Can you help me straighten this out? I’m not sure where else to turn.”

“Are you taking any medications now?”

“Just vitamins and stuff. Why?”

“Have you ever been prescribed antipsychotic drugs?”

“What? No! I mean, I guess I can’t blame you for asking, but I am not psychotic.”

“Of course not, and I wasn’t suggesting that. It’s simply that on these drugs many people feel more…” She paused, as if looking for a word in her mind. “Stable.”

“I’m perfectly stable.” I paused. “Well, I’m pretty stable anyway. I just don’t want my life to be like this anymore. I want to have some say in it. I thought I wanted to get everything overnight-I mean who doesn’t?-but it hasn’t been as great as I’d hoped. And I feel like everything is preordained somehow. Like I didn’t have a hand in it. I think it has something to do with the frog or Blinda, but I can’t figure it out.”

“And where is this Belinda now?”

“It’s Blinda, not Be-linda.” I wasn’t sure why this mattered, but I felt the distinction needed to be made.