Page 49 of Offside

"Fourteen months. Long enough to believe we knew how to manage it."

"Did anybody know?"

"Not until somebody did." I sighed. "We were careful. We thought being careful and ethical were the same thing." I paused. "Separate arrivals. No messages on work accounts. No affection in the clinic. She reviewed my work as if we were strangers. Sometimes more harshly because she was afraid fairness would look like favor."

"That wasn't fair. Either way, she changed the way she treated you."

"She overcorrected."

I folded the top of the takeout carton down, then opened it again.

"When the relationship was discovered, the practice opened a review. I had opportunities to tell the complete truth." That was the hardest part. "I didn't. I said it had been private, mutual, and unrelated to work. All three statements were true, but none of them were complete."

"What did you leave out?" Bishop asked. "Tell me all of it."

"She'd evaluated me the whole time. I'd stopped disagreeing with her in meetings because I knew we would argue about it at home. When a promotion opened, I didn't apply because we'd already discussed how it would look. Sometimes she made decisions without asking what I wanted."

Bishop's left hand rested open on the table. "Why did you leave that out? Who were you protecting?"

"I thought the truth would end her career," I said. "I thought I was protecting her from a punishment that would land harder because she was the superior. Because she was a woman who had fought for that authority. I also thought if I admitted the relationship had shaped my work, every good decision I'd made for three years would become suspect."

"So you protected yourself too. Not only her."

"I guess." I thought about that. "I protected the version of myself who believed I'd kept work and my personal life separate."

The review lasted eleven weeks. I sat in conference rooms while the practice's lawyers asked whether each decision was clinical, operational, or personal—like anything was ever that clear cut.

"Did you see her outside the meetings?" Bishop asked.

"Only once." I stood and went to the desk. The wood was narrow and scarred from three moves. "She brought me into her office before one of the final meetings. I was talking too fast. I kept asking what we were going to say."

Bishop stayed in his chair. I looked at the desk instead of him.

"She stood behind me and put her hands over mine. It was something she'd done when she was teaching me. That day, we were standing at her desk, and she told me to be still and let her handle the outcome."

"Did you?"

"Yes. I stopped asking questions." I turned back to him. "The practice proposed an exit. My severance, a confidentiality agreement, and a recommendation that protected my license and made the move sound voluntary. Marguerite helped shape it. She said leaving cleanly would protect my future and preserve the division."

"Her division," Bishop said.

"Ours, she called it."

"Did you want to leave?"

The question stopped me. He hadn't asked whether she was wrong, whether she'd used me, or whether I loved her. Those were the questions I continually asked myself.

"I don't know," I said honestly.

Bishop waited.

"That's the worst part. By the time the paperwork arrived, the plan was already set up and I was grateful enough to sign it."

"What did you want from her?" Bishop asked. "Not from the practice—from her."

"To ask me." My voice broke on the last word. Bishop stood, but he didn't cross the room.

"Can I come over there?" he asked softly.