The therapist's name was Dr. Anita Voss, and her office smelled like cedar and old books and something faintly floral that Mia couldn't name.
She had made the appointment because Patricia had suggested it—not as a condition but as a practical observation. "You're going to be deposed at some point," she had said. "I need you able to answer questions about your mental state without falling apart. That's not a criticism. It's a preparation."
Mia had written it in her calendar under an alias she would not examine too closely: self-maintenance.
Dr. Voss was fiftyish, unhurried, with the particular quality of stillness that serious listeners develop over years of practice. She did not have a clipboard. She had a small notepad on her knee that she rarely looked at.
"Tell me why you're here,"
