“I don’t know.”
“Does it bother you? That they don’t like him, I mean.”
Regan cast a glance aside, impassive.
You cannot fathom the degree to which this bores me, she thought.
So she said, “I started painting again.”
Regan watched the doctor go rigid with unasked questions, but reluctantly, she managed the effort to venture, “Oh?”
“Yes,” Regan said, and didn’t elaborate.
“Is it … going well, then?”
It’s a fire. I used to burn out, now I just burn.
“Yes,” she said.
The doctor’s attention slid to the clock beside her.
“Well,” the doctor said, clearing her throat. “How are things with Marcus?”
“He wants to know why I don’t come to bed.”
The doctor blinked, taken aback a second time. How mundane, Regan thought disdainfully. How small your concerns. How very little the scope of your understanding.
“And why don’t you?”
“Because I’m painting.” It’s obvious, don’t you see it, can’t you hear it? His name is written on my skin, he scarred me, I’ve changed my entire shape for having fit within the enormity of his thoughts, and now the only words I know are lines and color.
“Are you—” The doctor looked tense. “Are you sleeping?”
Regan cast a listless glance out the window.
“It’s getting cold fast this year,” she observed, eyeing the grey streets, grey skies. Sensations of greyness, the onslaught of winter.
“It’s not uncommon to experience symptoms of depression as the days get shorter.”
These symptoms are, of course: sluggishness, detachment, loss of interest in the things that usually bring you joy, sensations of failure, worthlessness.
“I know,” Regan said. “It’s not like that,” are you even listening?
“It’s not?”
The grey of the sky outside was nearly blue. She could see the values in it now, again. She could look closely now, again.
“What’s it like, then?” the doctor pressed, and Regan looked up, the word finding her at precisely the moment her tongue slid between her teeth.
“Incandescence,” she said.
The doctor’s expression struggled to contain both puzzlement and concern. “Charlotte, if something’s changed, we should really discuss it.”
“Yes, I know, and I told you, something has changed,” Regan confirmed, rising to her feet. “I started painting again.”
“Yes, that’s wonderful, but Charlotte—”
“That’s it,” Regan said. “That’s the only thing different.”
“Yes, but if you’re experiencing any… disruption, or if you’re not responding to your medication—”
“See you in two weeks,” Regan said, and slipped out of the office, pulling a pair of gloves from her purse and venturing back into the chill.
* * *
IT WAS GETTING TOO COLD for the motorbike to continue being a reasonable way to get places. Aldo shivered a little as he made his way to his usual spot by the tree, his phone ringing before he reached it.
“You’re early,” he said, and his father chuckled.
“By two minutes. How are you, Rinaldo?”
“Cold,” he said.
“Those winters,” Masso sighed. “You should come home.”
“It’s still technically fall and I will, at the end of term. After finals.”
“You’re missing Thanksgiving again.”
“I know, I have to. Midterms to grade. Have to work on my dissertation.”
“That thing I don’t understand?”
“That thing you don’t understand, yes.”
“I understand very little.”
“Nice of you to admit it. Most people in my department don’t.”
“Tell them to get a new hobby.”
“I’ve been advised not to advise people.”
“Probably best. Nobody likes to listen.”
“No,” Aldo agreed, and shivered.
Brief silence.
“Have you heard from her? The girl, the artist.”
Aldo shook his head. “I don’t expect to.”
“Ah.” A cleared throat. “Better that way. Focus on work and then come home.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I have a regular here whose daughter goes to Stanford, you know. It’s a good school.”
“Yes, Dad, I’ve heard of Stanford. It’s still not that close to you.”