Page 5 of Since She's Been Gone

He nodded. “Okay.”

We walked back to the counter and stood side-by-side. “Before I pick up my cake, I’d like to help him finish his order,” I told the store clerk.

“So far, he has a rainbow-shaped cake with chocolate frosting and purple writing on top,” she said.

“My daughter likes rainbows,” the man told me.

“Is there any way to do rainbow-colored frosting on the rainbow cake?” I asked the woman.

“Sure, we can do that. How about toppings?” she asked.

I spotted some cakes inside the refrigerated glass counter below with long rainbow-swirled lollipops.

“I think those lollipops would be great on top of the cake to keep with the rainbow theme,” I told the man. “What do you think?”

“Okay,” he said.

She totaled his bill, and he paid her.

“Thank you,” he said to me.

“I’m sure her mom would be happy you’re celebrating your daughter’s special day,” I said.

He nodded, the tears still in his eyes, and left.

Later that day, I checked my phone for messages between sessions and saw one from a number I didn’t recognize. I figured it was a prospective new patient. But it was the man I’d helped at the bakery. His name was Eddie.

He’d gone back to get my name from the bakery clerk, Googled me, and found my therapy website. He asked if he could take me out for lunch to thank me.

I wouldn’t characterize that first lunch together as a date, since he had asked me out to thank me. So it felt pressure-free, and we got to know each other without all the usual dating stressors.

I remember leaving the lunch thinking I liked him, not romantically, but as a person. He was hurting, in pain, and trying to do right by his daughter, just like Dad had tried to do with me, and I admired him for it.

When he asked me out again, I thought it was the beginning of a friendship. It wasn’t until a couple months later, when he kissed me for the first time in front of my house, that I realized he felt something more.

The truth was that I had wanted him to kiss me for a while but wasn’t going to go there since he was grieving his late wife.

In the middle of the kiss, he pulled away from me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not sure I can do this. It feels like I’m cheating on Helen.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. “We can take things slowly or just be friends.”

“Thank you for understanding,” he said. And then he pulled me in close again, kissing me for a long while. We’ve been together ever since.

When we arrive at my office in Beverly Hills, I knock on the building manager’s office door.

“Coming,” the manager shouts before opening the door. He only has a few strands of white hair left on his head. I notice a couple of dated security television screens behind him.

“Yes?” he asks.

I take out my driver’s license and show it to him. “Hi, I’m Dr. Beatrice Bennett from suite 301. I saw a new patient today who didn’t give me her last name or contact information, and I need to call her. It’s an emergency. I’m wondering if you have any footage of her,” I say.

He looks confused. “I might,” he says. “But how’s that gonna help?”

Eddie holds up his phone. “We can scan her face using a facial recognition app to figure out who she is.”

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that. You’re not the police. What kind of danger are we talkin’ ’bout?” the manager asks.

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