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there’s nothing they can do. My wife isn’t a minor. She hasn’t committed a crime. No one’s abducted her. All of which is true. But I’m concerned.”
    He drew his breath in as he indicated I should sit down on the plain wooden chair next to his desk. After I had, he sat in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles.
    I took a pen and notebook out of my backpack. “Why is that?”
    â€œWhy, indeed.” Walter Wilcox clapped his hands together softly while he tried to decide what to say. I waited. A minute later he began to talk.
    â€œRecently my wife began seeing a therapist. A psychologist. She hasn’t been the same since.”
    â€œIn what way?”
    â€œShe’s become agitated.” Wilcox bit his lip. “This man . . .” He gave the word a twist.
    â€œThe pyschologist . . .”
    Wilcox nodded. “. . . claims that my wife Janet was sexually abused as a child. Says that’s the root of all of her problems.”
    â€œWhat kind of problems?”
    â€œThat’s the thing.” Wilcox flung out his hands. “I didn’t think she had any. I mean, any more than the ones everyone has. Like last year, she went to a family reunion back home. She got some sort of twenty-four-hour stomach bug. But this psychologist told her it was her body’s way of telling her she’d been abused.”
    â€œShe told you this?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd that upset her?”
    â€œTerribly. It’s like she’s become a different person. Maybe it’s the pills she’s taking.”
    I interrupted. “Which are?”
    â€œProzac and . . . I’m not sure about the other.”
    He looked at me for a comment, but I didn’t say anything.
    â€œAll I know,” Wilcox continued, “is she flies into these rages. She cries. She gets anxious. And the worst of it is, I don’t think this abuse thing is true.”
    â€œDid you tell her that?”
    â€œYes. And I wish I hadn’t.” He rubbed the furrow between his eyebrows with his thumb. “She began screaming and yelling. Telling me I was part of the problem. Telling me I was just like her uncle. I left and came to the office. I had to. I just wanted to give her time to calm down, you know?”
    I nodded encouragingly. It’s something I’m good at.
    â€œWhen I returned, she was gone.”
    â€œHow did you know that she’d left?”
    He frowned. “What do you mean, how did I know? It was obvious. Her car was gone. And she’d packed her suitcase.”
    â€œWhat did she take?”
    â€œSome of her clothes. I’m not sure what exactly. I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing.”
    I could have told that from the way he dressed. “What else?”
    â€œHer makeup. Hairbrush. Toothbrush.”
    â€œDid she take a lot of money with her?”
    â€œNot that much. Two thousand dollars.”
    Two thousand dollars was enough to allow her to go somewhere, but it wasn’t enough to live on. “Does she have another source of income?”
    Wilcox shook his head. “Frankly,” he continued. “I’m afraid she’s suicidal. She’s been talking a lot lately about life not being worth living. I don’t want to have to . . .” He shuddered.
    â€œI see. Can I ask why she went to this psychologist in the first place?”
    â€œMy daughter suggested him. Janet wanted to lose weight, and she hadn’t been able to. She got on the Internet and that’s when she decided that she was an emotional eater, so that’s why she went to see this man. God, I wish she hadn’t. I told her I liked her the way she was. I told her it didn’t matter, but we were going to go to a wedding in six months and there was this dress she wanted to wear . . .” Wilcox’s voice trailed off. “There were going to be some people there she hadn’t seen in a couple of years. I