Wednesdays at one a nove.., p.1
Wednesdays At One: A Novel, page 1
Praise for
WEDNESDAYS AT ONE
“A poignant deep dive into the muddy waters of secrets and regret, forgiveness and loss. A book to leave you breathless!”
—Wendy Walker, author of All Is Not Forgotten
“Intriguing, atmospheric, and masterfully written…hooked me from the first scene. I’m still thinking about this layered and gripping novel.”
—Lisa Unger, author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
“A taut psychological thriller about family, friendship, and the price we pay when our mistakes come back to haunt us. You will inhale it in one gulp.”
—Julie Clark, author of The Last Flight
“In Wednesdays At One, Miller’s tautly crafted debut novel, Gregory’s buried crime literally begins to haunt and undo his present. But wasn’t Gregory’s seemingly tidy life already unraveling? In this riveting psychological story, Miller astutely explores the powerful tensions between the desire to be known and forgiven and the terror of being revealed.”
—Victoria Redel, author of Before Everything
“A terrible secret harbored by a successful clinical psychologist propels this moving, eerie novel. In rapturous prose, Miller captures the way truth can just as easily break us apart as heal our deepest wounds. Unputdownable.”
—Erica Ferencik, author of Girl in Ice
“A rollercoaster of a novel. Twisty and surprising, you won’t be able to put this one down.”
—Katie Sise, author of The Break
Also by Sandra A. Miller
Trove: A Woman’s Search for Truth and Buried Treasure
WEDNESDAYS AT
ONE
SANDRA A. MILLER
Zibby Books
New York
Wednesdays at One: A Novel
Copyright © 2023 by Sandra A. Miller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. Copyright law. Published in the United States by Zibby Books LLC, New York.
Zibby Books, colophon and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Zibby Books LLC
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, historical events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022942885
ISBN: 978-1-958506-03-5
eBook ISBN: 979-8-9862418-8-3
Book design by Ursula Damm
Cover design by Emily Mahon
www.zibbybooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Phineas and Adeline
What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1
Gregory’s garage exuded a comforting reek of bone meal, rusty tools, and the waft of gasoline from his father’s old red lawn mower. As he inhaled the familiar cocktail, his shoulders unlocked, his breathing slowed. The cool dark atmosphere answered to an ache inside him. He was more relaxed here in this dilapidated carriage house at the base of the long, sloped driveway than anywhere in the imposing Victorian up the hill. Originally his wife’s childhood home, the house on Ashford Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had never, not once in the past decade of actually living in it, felt like home to him.
After seeing eight clients in as many hours, the smells in the garage calmed him. So did his routine of sitting on the rickety bench to put on his worn work boots, surrounded by a hodgepodge of terra-cotta pots, swathes of bird netting, and a bouquet of shovel blades and rake tines rising out of a whiskey barrel. The garage, which he refused to call a carriage house, always soothed him but never more so than on an early summer evening like this one, when a broad shaft of light poured through the west-facing window and cast a rosy glow across the concrete floor.
Although he was eager to start digging a new strawberry bed, Gregory stayed seated for another moment to make his daily appeal: Forgive me. Please, forgive me.
He didn’t even know if it was possible anymore or whether he would recognize the feeling of his guilt lifting, if only for a few fleeting seconds. But he never stopped praying for it.
As Gregory opened his eyes, he saw someone peering at him through the dusty glass of the window. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the coarse edge of the barrel. Those eyes with their penetrating gaze. Did he know them?
“Hello?”
But the eyes were gone. No doubt he’d simply seen his own reflected in the glass. He put his hand over his racing heart and exhaled in relief. Then he grabbed the nearest shovel and bolted outside.
Gregory walked briskly across the paved driveway that divided the gracious, circular lawn into two green hemispheres. Behind him, on the west side, a grove of old pines formed a shady path from the back door of his garage up to the house. On the east side of the driveway, Gregory’s perennial gardens created a bright border around the much-coveted property—a rare, sunny double lot across the river from Boston and not a mile from Harvard Square. In the middle of the lawn, he had planted a sizable vegetable garden surrounded by marigolds. He couldn’t be sure the flowers served their purpose of repelling critters, but he still loved the bright orange frame of blooms and their deep spicy scent.
Gregory stood at the spot where he planned to extend the bed and lifted his shovel. He soon fell into a rhythmic digging, piercing the earth hard with the blade. He rarely wore the canvas gloves Liv kept buying and leaving for him on the garage’s cracked granite entry step. It was a small protest against what he felt was a passive-aggressive gesture. Liv cared more about his dirty fingernails than what was going on in his head. And when was the last time she’d actually held his hand? “Your nails are a mess!” she chided at least once a week in the summer months, usually as they were heading to the club for their regular Saturday night dinner. But Gregory liked the musty smell of loam seeping into his palms, the dirt lodged under his nails, his blistered hands breaking through the dullness of their overly scrubbed life.
As he made progress on the strawberry bed, he began to feel better. The sky was that vivid June blue, the color moments before the gold shot of sunset, and it charged him with energy. He even felt a bit horny; not an immediate, teenage horniness but an ache for something he and Liv had lost long ago, an unapologetic lust he once believed was inexhaustible. Gregory thought of his wife’s legs, muscled from tennis and swimming, and the sweet softness between them. In the beginning, their lovemaking was constant. They would fall into bed and press themselves together. It was an escape for him, both an answer to a question about his own moral worth and a respite from the darkness that lurked in his memory. Those early years with Liv felt so far away now, as unrecoverable as the idea that he could be a present, loving husband to her and a dedicated father to Carrie and Petey. A happy family of four in that moss-green Victorian with scalloped shingles and cheerful coral trim.
He hadn’t been sleeping well and had been devoting his evenings to working in the garden, tending the established beds or building new ones. Meanwhile, Liv spent most of her free time playing tennis at the club, Carrie was always at some friend’s house, and Petey was glued to his video games. Under that precariously steep mansard roof, inside the maze of twelve white rooms, they were all living separate lives.
Gregory released the shovel and got down on his knees to work. He pulled at the loosened sod with his torn-up hands, stopping to bite a leaf of garlic mustard and let the bitterness fill his mouth.
“Bye, Dad!” said Carrie, phone in hand, strolling down the driveway. She was dressed in ripped jean shorts that squeezed her thighs and a yellow T-shirt, practically see-through. But he was not allowed to comment, let alone advise. Carrie was short like Liv, but not petite, and had none of her mother’s finely cast features. Those went to her little brother—blond, thirteen-year-old Petey. Carrie’s physical legacy was Gregory’s: strong nose, brown eyes, and thick dark hair, which she had twisted loosely in a bun on top of her head. She was almost seventeen but looked younger, no matter what she wore.
“Where are you headed, honey?” he called out.
Carrie approached steadily, her thumbs frantically texting. “I’m getting bubble tea with a friend,” she said. She smiled at something she’d read on her phone and passed him without a glance.
“Which friend?”
This question stopped her; she had to think.
“Someone from school. You don’t know her.”
Gregory hoped that bubble tea was the only thing she would be drinking that night.
“What time are you coming home?”
“Dunno! I start work tomorrow, so this is, like, my last night of freedom all summer.”
He got to his feet and opened his arms. Too late. She was already walking toward the street again.
“Wait, don’t I get a hug goodbye?”
“Huh?” She looked back and seemed surprised. “Oh. I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“Then I’m going to give you a hug.”
Gregory took a few giant steps toward her, awkwardly put an arm around his daughter’s sturdy shoulders, and pulled her close. He felt her resistance before she briefly relaxed into the embrace. He was trying, he told himself. Wasn’t that what Liv wanted? For him to make more of an effort?
“Have fun,” he said and released her.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Hey, Carrie?”
She paused, her head cocked with impatience. “What’s up?”
“Were you looking in the garage window a while ago? I mean, did you happen to glance in?”
“Why would I do that?” she said. “You ask the weirdest questions.”
“That’s my job,” he said, but she didn’t laugh.
As Carrie headed out past the spruce stands bracketing their property, a woman in a bright sundress appeared on the far side of the street. Not unusual in this neighborhood, where people liked to walk on summer evenings. But there was something different about her, the way she hesitated for a moment and seemed to throw him a brief glance. Although he couldn’t distinguish her features from such a distance, Gregory thought again of the eyes in the garage window. Could they have been this woman’s? He shook off the idea and tried to peer more closely through the fading light.
At first, he thought he knew her, or maybe she was looking for Liv. His wife was acquainted with the families in every home for blocks. But this wasn’t a Liv person. Liv people moved with purpose, while this woman had a slow, modulated grace not typical of either evening power walkers or commuters rushing home from the nearby bus stop.
He wondered if he should wave, but then she disappeared. She was probably just admiring the purple hydrangeas that had recently begun to bloom.
On the way back to his garden, Gregory spied Liv’s latest offering: gray suede gloves with rubbery green accents on the fingers and thumbs. Some kind of green thumb joke?
Whatever the message, Gregory put them on. He couldn’t pick up that shovel again without some protection for his torn skin, and he was determined to finish digging the strawberry bed. He needed to be able to fall asleep and stay that way until morning. And if Liv happened to look out the window, it wouldn’t hurt for her to witness him accepting one of her kindnesses, because he would not be going back into that house before dark.
2
The following day, just before one o’clock, Gregory opened his office door and ushered out his noon client. Fifty minutes every Wednesday with Eleanor S. and her narcissistic personality disorder left him depleted. Worse, he had once again slept poorly last night.
He decided he had earned a walk to Chinatown for dumplings, but there was a woman sitting in the waiting room. He couldn’t remember scheduling a new client. Was she in the wrong office?
She was hunched over a copy of The New Yorker, so engaged with the text that she hadn’t looked up when his office door opened. Her magenta scarf had slipped down, revealing the strap of a sleeveless orange dress. Only after Eleanor S. had closed the waiting room door behind her and Gregory remained standing, hands by his side, did she lift her head.
Her eyes were chocolate brown, and her easy smile seemed genuine, suggesting a friend delighted by the arrival of her lunch date.
“Hello,” she said, her voice so warm that Gregory half expected her to stand and hug him.
“I …” he started. “Are you here for Dr. Bodkin? I’m afraid he’s not in today.” Phillip Bodkin, his mentor and friend who had the lease on the suite, was never in on summer Wednesdays, but perhaps he’d made an exception to his weekly round of golf at the club.
The woman stood as if cued, ignoring his question. The magenta scarf drifted down her arms, revealing the rest of the dress, a summer shift that suggested curves without clinging to them. She approached him unencumbered, no purse, no phone, nothing left on the table except the copy of The New Yorker. Everything about her was vibrant; against the beige backdrop of the waiting room, she seemed to emit a radiant glow.
“Dr. Weber?” She extended her hand. “I’m Mira. Thank you for making time for me.”
When they shook, gripping longer than was customary, he felt like he was tacitly agreeing to something, but he didn’t know what. He noticed a pale scar running from her nose to the corner of her lip.
He wanted to tap open his calendar to see if he had scheduled this Mira months ago and overlooked the appointment. He typically tried not to book anything in his one free hour in the middle of the workweek, but he had made some scheduling mistakes recently, an issue he attributed to his problems with Liv and sleep deprivation. But to completely forget an appointment with someone new? This was a first.
Perhaps she was the mother of one of his young adult clients, and they had planned this meeting to discuss the child’s progress. He didn’t think so. Those mothers approached with a mix of pleading and terror, a desperate hope that this particular mental health expert, with a PhD and twenty years of clinical experience, could extricate their child from a vortex of angst or anxiety, often both. This Mira seemed untroubled. Agelessly beautiful, in that range between twenty-five and forty, she was possibly the most composed person who had entered his office in years.
“Come in, Mira,” he said, stepping aside. When she passed, he got a faint scent of her—mint and maybe a whiff of smoke.
Instead of waiting for him to indicate a seat, Mira settled herself in his black ergonomic chair and leaned back. The chair was spun away from Gregory’s mahogany desk, which was pushed against the wall. The positioning allowed him to face his clients without an imposing piece of furniture separating them. But now Mira was the one facing him.
He wanted to ask her to switch chairs, but instead he half perched on the armrest of one of the two dark green wing chairs and considered how to proceed. That’s when he realized that in addition to his not even knowing her last name or how she ended up in his office, she hadn’t brought in the seven forms he emailed to every new person before their first session. She must have forgotten them. Or had he forgotten to send the email?
“Mira,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “I’d like to have you start by filling out a few intake forms. And please remind me who referred you?”
She focused her gaze on him. “You did. You asked me to come see you.”
Gregory pinched his lips together and drew back. Had he really? Because he didn’t remember. But he wasn’t going to tell her that. “Right. So let’s get you started on those forms,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me.” He tried to indicate with a nod that he needed access to his desk, but Mira had already lowered her head.
“Perhaps I can fill them out after our session?” she said. “This is a big step for me, and I’m eager to dive in.”
He knew he should ask her to move, but the combination of his bewilderment and her beauty made him ignore protocol, at least for another few minutes. He had already forgotten that she was coming in, and he didn’t want to do anything else that would make her feel unwelcome or uncomfortable or—possibly worse—reveal his confusion. He tried to keep his face neutral, tranquil, his body language inviting her to stay, although in truth she showed no actual signs of wanting to leave, which was a relief.
“After our session is fine,” he said, “but—”
“Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that,” Mira said. “Is it okay if I call you Greg?” Her voice was soft and musical. A slight rasp sanded the corners of her words.
“I…I suppose.” He couldn’t remember when anyone except his family had called him Greg, probably not since graduate school, and he shifted at the memory of a nearly forgotten self. He cleared his throat. “Now tell me how you’re doing.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” She shuddered lightly and pulled the scarf tight to her shoulders. “I love summer, but I’m not a fan of air-conditioning. My parents grew up in New Delhi and never let us get one.”
“Yes. Isn’t that why we live in New England, because we like interesting weather?” he said. “Unfortunately, most of my clients expect air-conditioning.” He rose off the armrest. “Let me turn it down. The temperature control is just in the waiting room.” While he was out there, he figured he could type Mira into his contacts to see if she was there. But she waved the offer away.
