Janet gave me a hug. This was not typical of our relationship and almost made me flinch. I held rigidly stiff and pressed my hands against her back in an attempt at reciprocation.

She took a step away and laughed. “There, that better?”

I was embarrassed and showed it.

“You don’t need to pretend with me,” she said.

“What’s the story on Tamsin?” I asked, to get off the subject.

“She’s had this job about a year,” Janet said, willing to go along with my drift. “She and her husband have a little house over on Compton. They’re both Yankees. He has a different last name.” Janet clearly saw that as evidence that the couple had a very untraditional marriage.

“Does that bother you?”

Janet shook her head. “She can screw alligators, for all I care. Coming to this group is the most positive step I’ve taken since I got raped.”

“It doesn’t seem like you, not reporting,” I said carefully.

“It’s not like me now. It was like me then.”

“Do you ever think of reporting it, even now?”

“He’s dead,” Janet said simply. “It was in the paper last year. You may remember. Mart Weekins? He was trying to pass on a yellow line on that big curve outside of town on Route Six. Semi was coming the other way.”

“So,” I said. “He wasn’t taking responsibility for himself, I guess. Would you say his being there was-unwise?”

“I wonder if he was dressed provocatively,” Janet said, and we both laughed like maniacs.

As it happens so many times, once I’d met Tamsin Lynd, I saw and heard of her everywhere. I saw her at the post office, the grocery store, the gas station. Sometimes she was with a burly man with dark hair and a beard and mustache carefully shaved into a pattern. Each time, she gave me a friendly but impersonal nod, so I could acknowledge or ignore her as I chose.

As Jack and I drove to Little Rock the next week, after my second therapy session, I tried to describe her character and found I had no handle on it at all. Usually, I know right away if I like someone or not, but with Tamsin I just couldn’t tell. Maybe it didn’t make any difference, if the person was supposed to be helping you get your head straight. Maybe I had no business liking her or hating her.