The walk, one mile or longer depending on the route I took, had become a symbolic transition easing me away from the stress of the day and toward whatever was to come after. There was a symmetry that appealed to my sense of balance. As my body moved from streets clogged with traffic and pedestrians to residential ones overhung by leafy trees and lined with peaceful gardens, my mind phased from tension to serenity and refreshment.

Normally the twenty minutes were sufficient to complete the process. Tonight, however, I knew that I would need far more than this walk. My last appointment, made in response to a client's emergency call, was the kind that required an evening of caring for myself. I had tended as best I could to Joanne's wounds; now it was time for the counselor to heal herself, to cope with the residue of anxiety that was my typical legacy from particularly emotional sessions with clients.

I had left the early evening bustle of Granville, Burrard, and Arbutus and was now moving into the quieter residential area of Kitsilano, where the creations of contemporary West Coast architects were slotted only slightly uneasily among renovated and unrenovated wooden family homes. The spring greenness, the jewel colors of crocuses and winter pansies, and the bursting pink buds on the flowering cherries, these made up the first step in my healing ritual.

The second step was affection--supportive but not cloying. My landlords could always be counted on for that, and I crossed my fingers that they would be home.

I felt a smile tug my lips when I neared our house. Henry was engrossed in weed pulling, hunkered down in the front yard. He and Bates had revamped a family home into an illegal top-down duplex with a funky art-deco charm. The house had been a drab brown when they bought it. Now a pale lemon yellow with trim in blue, violet, and white, it gave the impression of being entirely comfortable, if not downright smug, about this mid-life rejuvenation.

Henry unfolded his lanky black body in stages until he had reached his full six foot four, pressed hands into his lower back, stretched to ease aches. He resembled one of the great blue herons that inhabit Vancouver's waterfront--all length and angles, but not without a certain dignity and grace.

"Late tonight, Dace," he commented. As I came closer he got a look at my face. He gathered me in and wrapped long arms around me, rather like an over-sized apron that engulfs its wearer with fabric, and security. "Oh-oh, looks like it was one of those." His words rumbled above my head.

I nestled, my face pressed somewhere around the middle button of his old flannel shirt. I muttered, "You got that right."

He pushed me away, held me at arms' length, and studied my face. "What would help? Bates made a stew and it's been simmering ever since I got home. Told me I couldn't touch it until the flavors had really come together. Smells so damn good I couldn't stand it anymore and came out here to work. Join us for dinner?"

By now we were walking the pebbled path that connected front yard to back, arms around each other, lifting our noses as we caught the aroma Henry had been describing. Chicken, I thought. Garlic, onions, and tomatoes for sure. Oregano, and other herbs I couldn't identify.

"Thanks," I said, "but I need some time alone. I'll collect a hug from Bates first, though."

"Take some stew as well. Gotta tend to the body as well as the soul."

We walked in the kitchen door and Bates, a stocky body-builder with cropped hair the color of cayenne, came from the living room to greet us. The voice that followed him was Eric Clapton's.

"Dace has had a rough day," Henry said, "so we're going to give her a bowl of stew and some peace and quiet."

"Poor carrot-top," Bates said, as I claimed my hug from him. He stood only three or four inches taller than my five foot five, and his body was solid as a statue.

Henry dished out stew as his lover and I rocked in each other's arms. I was sinking down into the sensations, barely aware that the music in the other room had stopped. But I was immediately alert when, a moment later, I heard the first few bars of guitar music.

Tension surged through my body and I broke the embrace abruptly. "Bates, please turn it off. Now!"

He hurried to do my bidding. I heard, "Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same..." before Clapton's voice was cut off.

Bates came to stare at me from the living room doorway; Henry stared from the stove, ladle upraised. Henry said, "Who died?"

"Good guess." I could hear the edge to my voice and deliberately softened it. "Sorry. No one in my life. It has to do with a client, and it's not something I want to talk about now. I want to get away from it."

"Understood." He turned back to the stove and Bates came toward me to renew the hug. We'd barely settled in when something tickled my ankles and I leaped out of his embrace for the second time.

"Aren't you the nervy one?" Bates commented as he stooped to pick up the small cat, who promptly transformed herself into a boneless bundle of white and gold fur. The man draped her over my shoulder, a cat-scarf. "Take Tinkerbelle. She's the best relaxation aid I've ever found."

"Now you know the truth about our sex life," Henry said dolefully, shaping his tractable features into an exaggerated expression of melancholy. He brought a plastic sherbet container full of hot stew over to me and put an arm around Bates' waist.

I chuckled, as he had intended me to, then took myself off home. The outside steps to my second-floor apartment took some negotiating as I juggled shoulder tote-bag, squirming marmalade cat, and scald-the-hands-hot plastic container. Having reached my tiny back porch successfully, I conceded my limitations rather than risk an accident. I put everything down while I hunted for my key. Tinkerbelle hovered around the stew container, moaning low in her throat and licking her lips daintily. She got her message across quite clearly; obviously Henry hadn't been the only one who'd been kept away from the stew during its fusion stage.

I paused a moment in the kitchen to give my guest a small bowl of stew with the chicken cut up into cat-size bites. My warning not to burn her mouth occasioned a scornful look, so I shrugged and left her to it, marveling how quickly she'd adapted to the heavy spice quotient characteristic of Bates' cooking.

Time for step three in my relaxation ritual. Home sweet home, and the savoring thereof. My apartment took up the full second floor plus the minuscule attic and had been renovated so that it was modern and bright, yet retained the old-fashioned comfort of the original house. I'd been lucky enough to happen upon the house a few years ago, just after Henry and Bates bought it. They'd consulted me throughout the refurbing process, with the result that this place had become my home as well as theirs, something far removed from the standard rental units I had been accustomed to.

We had decided not to carpet the hardwood floors and had spent a laughter-filled day shopping for area rugs that satisfied our twin criteria: cheap and aesthetically pleasing. Country of origin was irrelevant, and the mix we'd ended up with was a veritable United Nations of diversity and complimentary co-existence. Now, when I turned on track lights and lamps, the polished floor gleamed and the colors in the rugs glowed like pastel flower petals and vivid jewels. There was one particular patch that looked exactly like firelight through a glass of garnet red wine. Obviously a hint to move on in my routine.

A realist, she deigned to follow me into the living room, pacing softly on adolescent cat feet, nose high and whiskers quivering as she checked the room for any new smells that might have materialized since last she was here, all of a day ago. I watched her, feeling my nerves settle again. I flicked the switch on the gas fireplace, opened the side window a slit so the room wouldn't get too hot, and sank into my favorite corner of the couch--the one that let me see both the fire and the view out the floor-to-ceiling window that took up much of the front wall. I propped my bare feet on the glass-topped coffee table that was set at just the right distance away, put the wine glass down on the matching end table, coaxed Tinkerbelle to my lap, and gazed around, letting the sense of "home" soothe me.

This room was eclectic, like the rest of my apartment (which consisted of the combined kitchen/dining room that took up most of the back wall, the bathroom beside it, the medium-sized bedroom that shared the rest of the main floor with this living room, and the office that took up the entire third floor, nestling under the sloping eaves). I had collected furniture, paintings, books, ornaments, plants, and the other essentials of life over a decade and a half, but everything went together amazingly well. In my opinion, which was the only one that counted after all, the casual pastiche made for something comfortable, harmonious, and warm.

I settled in for some breathing exercises, cat stroking, wine sipping, fire watching. Hypnotic, soothing activities. Thinking a bit about Joanne, telling myself that I'd done the best I could for her and that her problems were not mine to take on, then letting her fade out of my mind.

When my tummy was calm, I warmed the stew in the microwave and shared it with Tinkerbelle. She ate by the back door, out of the blue and white Japanese bowl that I'd designated as hers. I ate at the simple pine kitchen table, a four-seater that, when I was on my own, I tucked into a corner so it was windowed on two sides. Beside me was a fresh glass of vino; in front of me a Sandra Scoppettone novel, propped open in a bookstand. From time to time I glanced out the window to Henry's lovingly tended backyard, its symphony of greens and splashes of color rendered almost monochromatic as night settled like a gray Hudson's Bay blanket over the neighborhood.

Back to the living room's cozy fire for a dessert of fruit and a foamy decaf latté topped with chocolate shavings. (Well, there isn't much caffeine in chocolate, is there?) I put a CD on and alternated between reading my book and listening to Michael Jones' fingertips caressing the ivories and ebonies.

When my mind told me it was time, I retreated, with book and cat for company, to soak in a hot bath with gardenia-scented bubbles. My tub is a glorious, comfy old-fashioned one, built into a modern frame with proper shower fixtures and tiles up the walls. Tink tiptoed along the rim to the dry, safe corner nearest my left foot and lowered herself, tucking paws neatly under her body. She made a couple of instinctive but futile attempts to knead the white porcelain, then slitted her grasshopper-green eyes and became motionless. I couldn't tell if the monotonous sound she was making was a purr or a snore, but it certainly was soothing.

Peace. Heaven. I'd lost track of what step I was on--I was that mellow. In twenty minutes I'd crawl into bed with my book and I was sure I'd sleep well. In fact, I was almost drifting off now...

The phone rang, jarring Tink and me out of our separate reveries. Without pausing to reflect, I lurched up, creating a small wave, and my furry friend skittered off the edge of the tub, hair on end, and shot out the bathroom door as if demons were on her tail. Swearing, I grabbed one of my royal blue bath-sheets and went to listen to what the answering machine beside my bed might reveal. Although I didn't feel like talking to anyone, this might be Joanne, or another client in crisis.

At first I thought it was an obscene call. I heard breathing--harsh, gasping breaths--but no words. I felt the hair on my body lift just as Tink's had. Then a soft voice, female, tear-soaked. "Dace? Dace?"

I grabbed the phone. "I'm here."

"It's Ginger." More breathing, as she tried to get herself under control enough to talk. Then something indistinguishable, out of which I caught only the words "need you."

"It's all right, Ginger, I'm here." I tried to keep my voice level and calm, which was difficult; my heart had leaped into my throat and was pounding fiercely there. "Are you at home, and do you want me to come over?" I took her snuffle as an affirmative. I said, "Are you all right?" Well, obviously she isn't, Dace, you idiot. Quickly I added, "I mean, should I call 911?"

"No...just come..."

And so I did. I pulled jeans and a cotton sweater over a body that was still damp, grabbed bag, keys, and cat, stopped downstairs to drop off Tink with my night-owl landlords and explain--inarticulately, I imagine--that I might be out all night, pulled my blue Miata out of the small yellow shack that served as garage and tool shed, and whipped across town. Through the nighttime tranquility of Kits, cursing every stop sign and red light. Over the Burrard Bridge, barely noticing the ocean on either side, the lighted freighters in English Bay waiting patiently for their turn in the loading docks, the mountains behind with the lighted tracks of ski-hills. Into the West End where gays and transvestites hung out along Davie Street, and tourists and locals strolled Denman. A quick left onto Georgia Street and the busy three lanes that cleaved Stanley Park in twain. The darkness and solemnity of tall evergreen forest on either side; it was almost like being in a tunnel. I drove toward the light at the other end, wondering exactly what it was that I was heading for.

What could have happened to Ginger? It came as a nasty revelation that I really didn't have a clue. Once I would have known exactly what was going on in her life, but I hadn't seen much of her in the last few months. Somehow, without me really noticing, we had fallen out of the habit of having lunch or dinner every couple of weeks. That was odd, now that I came to think about it. Ginger and I had hit it off from day one of our Master's program in Counseling Psychology. We had debated ethical issues, studied together, cried on each other's shoulders over clients' problems or our own screw-ups, edited each other's theses, and in the process become fast friends.

The friendship hadn't come unglued when we set up our own practices--me confronting dependency issues by striking off on my own, leasing a one-room office with a tiny waiting room in an old professional building on South Granville; her choosing a somewhat more collegial space-and-resource-sharing arrangement in a storefront just off Lonsdale, halfway up the hill.

We had known each other for six years, and I'd seen less of her in the last six months than ever before.

I thought back, frowning. We hadn't had a fight. Neither of us had acquired a lover who might have consumed copious quantities of our spare time. Nor had either increased our workload or taken on another job or project, like teaching night school or doing community work. At least not that I knew of. When it came right down to it, I had no idea whether Ginger had done any of these things. Surely she would have told me.

I hated the idea of a friendship disintegrating due to careless inattention.

But she had called me tonight, when she needed help. And there was no point in attempting to guess what her problem might be; I'd find out soon enough.

I was starting to drive across the Lions Gate Bridge, a graceful, almost delicate, green metal arch above First Narrows. Its appeal was lost on me tonight; now it signified horror. Last night, Joanne's husband had jumped off this bridge.

Whatever Ginger's problem was, surely it couldn't be as shocking as Joanne's.

Over the course of my evening I had managed to push aside thoughts of my client, but now the bridge acted as a trigger and they flooded back fresh and strong.

Joanne Nelson had called me late in the morning. She had been more articulate than Ginger was tonight, but her voice, too, hoarse in the center and fraying around the edges, revealed that tears had been shed and others were waiting for the moment she let down her guard. Her husband had died and she needed to talk. Could I squeeze her in?

A plea that was impossible to resist.

I told her I was fully booked until six o'clock. Joanne said she'd come then. Her mother was on her way over from Victoria, and could look after the Nelson children--Jason, aged nine, and Jory, seven.

Joanne was on time and, at first glance, looked surprisingly well put-together. Her short, nicely styled brown hair was glossy with health, shining like a chestnut newly liberated from its shell; the brown and cream argyle-patterned sweater went perfectly with the nutmeg brown corduroy pants and polished loafers. It was her face that gave her away. Her skin was pale and blotchy, drawn taut over her sturdy Scandinavian bones. Her light gray eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, leaking moisture as she dabbed ineffectually with a Kleenex.

The first thing she said was, "No, I didn't drive in this state, my mother drove, she's taking the kids to McDonald's for burgers, she'll pick me up in an hour." It was a long string of words with little punctuation or inflection.

"It sounds like you're handling things very well, Joanne. But now you need some time for yourself, some time to talk about this, and that's what I'm here for."

I had given her permission to stop handling things, to let go, and she did. Her story came in bursts and stutters, choked out in a strained voice, cut off when the pain overcame her, taken up again when the tears eased. I handed her tissues, touched her arm reassuringly, and listened.

The day had started normally, up to the point where she was ready to leave for her part-time job at the community center. Yes, she had wondered at Judd's absence at breakfast, a meal he liked to share with his family, but she figured he had left for work early. It had happened before, due to the demands of his work, and I already knew that they no longer shared a bedroom so she wouldn't necessarily have known whether he had returned home the night before.

An early morning jogger on the Stanley Park seawall had found the body. It had been washed up on the rocky beach near where the stone statue of a girl in a wet suit sat demurely on its boulder. The police were able to identify him quickly. Joanne answered her doorbell, opening the front door to a bright sunny morning and the beginning of a nightmare.

The two officers, one female and one male, made her sit down and informed her of her husband's death. They said that it appeared he had jumped off the Lions Gate Bridge the previous night. His car was found in Stanley Park, in the parking lot outside Prospect Point café and gift shop, just beside the viewpoint that overlooked the bridge. In it there was a suicide note.

"I still can't believe it," Joanne had said to me between sobs. "I feel so guilty."

I studied her, debating whether I should ask the question that was on my mind. What the hell, it was sure to be on hers as well. "Did his note say anything about..."

She jumped in quickly. "About me? No, he didn't blame me. In fact he really didn't say anything about me at all." She blew her nose then gave a prodigious sniff. "Still, I keep wondering if he found out about me and Marjorie. If that was why he killed himself. But he didn't blame me, Dace. In fact, he said he was sorry." She choked up and started to weep silent tears.

When she was able to talk again, she said, "The police were nice--mostly it was the woman I talked to, while the man just sat there and took notes--but it was...strange." Her brows drew together and her voice steadied. "I didn't understand what was going on. On the one hand, they were telling me about...about what had happened, and she was being consoling and supportive, helping me figure out how to deal with the kids, even making the call to my mother, which would have been really hard for me to do. But then they were also asking me things like where was I last night, almost as if...as if they were suspicious that I'd had something to do with...his death." Her eyes were wide with confusion, shock, maybe anger. "That's just crazy."

"I imagine it was purely routine. If you were feeling guilty, you may have read more into it than was really there."

"They took my fingerprints!"

I thought about that for a moment. "I've read my share of mystery novels. The police often take prints from the people whose fingerprints they'd expect to be in a certain place, so that they can see if there are any unexpected ones. They're called elimination prints. The police would expect your prints to be in Judd's car, as well as his and your kids'. They wouldn't need to print the children, presumably, because their prints would be tiny ones rather than adult size."

She seemed slightly reassured and we went on to talk about her grief and her feelings of guilt. We touched briefly on her worries about dealing with her mother. She and her widowed mother had an uneasy relationship, one that was maintained more out of their sense of duty than out of any genuine understanding and affection.

"I know that I need her help," Joanne said, "but it's not easy asking for it, much less just getting along with her without squabbling."

We talked about some strategies she might use when she found herself getting particularly anxious, and then moved on to another area of concern--what to say to her children, to help them understand.

"It's so hard," she said bleakly, "because I don't understand it myself. Understand it? I can't even believe it. I keep thinking it must be a bad dream, but I know deep inside that it isn't."

Our time was up and, though I'd have been happy to push on, Joanne's mother would be parked outside waiting. We booked another appointment for noon the next day. When Joanne left, her eyes were still red, her face still strained, but she seemed a tiny bit more at peace.

That was when I'd headed home to find my own peace. I don't have a shell to protect me from clients' emotions. Their anger buffets me, their tension makes my nerves zing, and their pain seeps into my soul. Yet I have to remember to separate their emotions from my own, and to maintain my boundaries. It's a fine line I walk, recognizing their realities as something distinct from mine, caring for these people yet retaining my own sense of self and keeping that self healthy and whole so I can live my own life fully and be at my best when I'm helping my clients.

Over the Lions Gate, I had taken a right on Marine Drive and was now approaching the Lonsdale Quay area. Ginger lived in an attractive modern condo perched above the Seabus Terminal, offering her a view over Burrard Inlet to downtown Vancouver and the harbor. There was a pay parking lot under her building. I stuck my MasterCard into the meter and snugged the Miata close to a huge concrete pillar in hopes it would be protected. The car was a birthday present to myself for my last--thirty-second--birthday, and my pride in my shiny new toy had yet to abate noticeably.

I buzzed Ginger's number and the door to the building released. A five-floor elevator ride later, I knocked at her door. No response. I tried the knob, went in, and clicked the lock behind me. Scanned the combined dining and living space, which was neat and empty, unlit but for the glow of light coming in the window. Proceeded on to the bedroom where the blinds were closed and, for a minute, I couldn't see in the darkness. I waited silently until shapes, then details, started to emerge. Ginger was sprawled on her stomach on top of the flowered duvet, face buried in a pillow, heedless of her skirt and blouse, which were rucked up every which way. On the carpet beside the bed, tossed aside rather than placed neatly, were medium-heeled pumps and a jacket that matched the skirt. Crumpled tissues littered the bed and carpet.

I went to sit beside her, clearing a space by shoving more used tissues to the floor. I touched her shoulder and felt the rigidity of tension. "Ginger?"

She raised herself clumsily, launched herself against me, and broke into noisy sobs. I hugged her, patted her back, stroked the tangled blond hair that normally hung straight and shining past her shoulders, felt my sweater grow damp under her face. From time to time she lifted her head, reached blindly for a tissue, wiped her eyes and blew her nose, tossed the tissue aside, then went back to crying. I sat, breathing deeply and slowly from my center, and trying to keep my anxiety level from escalating unbearably.

It must have been half an hour before she pushed away from me, rose awkwardly, stumbled to the bathroom, and closed the door. I heard more nose-blowing, a flushing toilet, running water.

When she came back her clothing hadn't been adjusted nor her hair combed, but she was able to say, in a small, shaky voice, "Thanks for coming, Dace. I knew I could count on you. Let's go in the living room--it's too depressing in here."

The living room blinds were up and the room was brighter than the bedroom, illuminated by the lights of the Seabus Terminal and of downtown Vancouver across the water. She didn't click on a lamp. She didn't do anything but stand motionless in front of the window. Shock, I thought, and avoidance. I offered to make steamed milk, a treat that I knew she loved. She agreed and I got the impression she was relieved to put off talking.

I went into her compact, well-appointed kitchen and turned on the light, creating an oasis of brightness and color in the gloomy apartment. Ginger's espresso machine was the same as mine. We'd bought them as impulse buys one Saturday afternoon, after a too-long lunch with too much wine, but neither of us had regretted them. I steamed the milk and added a dash of almond syrup, a slug of rum, and a pinch of cinnamon, moving about her kitchen comfortably and noting a few additions since the last time I'd been here, several months earlier. She was now into making her own ice cream, had developed a taste for tinned lichee nuts and chocolate-mint syrup, and was experimenting with several coffee blends from Bean There Done That.

When I brought mugs into the living room, she was huddled in one of the two comfy chairs by the window, arms wrapped around knees, making herself as small as possible and gazing fixedly toward the view with an expression that told me she was blind to it. When I put our mugs down on the table between the two chairs, she started and glanced at me as if she'd forgotten I was there.

"Thanks." She uncurled her body enough to reach for the mug, which she then cradled in her hands for warmth and comfort. She also used it as an excuse not to look at me, staring down into the milk, a curtain of tangled hair partially screening her swollen face.

I took the other chair, picked up my own mug, and gave her privacy by looking out the window myself. "You don't have to tell me about it."

My peripheral vision caught her quick glance across at me and I turned toward her, catching the shadow of a humorless grin that flickered and died like the last gasp from a guttering candle. "Oh, I will. I have to, if I'm going to deal with it. It's just...hard." Her voice quavered on the last word and she almost lost it again.

I gave one of those little "I'm listening" nods that are the trademark of our shared profession. "Take your time, Ginger. I'm not going anywhere."

"I read in tonight's paper that a former client committed suicide." The words burst out and I felt my stomach clench. I tried to empathize with my friend while my nerves absorbed the impact of a second suicide in one day.

In a dull voice, she went on to say that he'd only been in therapy for a few months when they made a mutual decision that he was ready to terminate the counseling relationship. I nodded as she spoke, my mind constructing flesh around her spare words. It's always hard for a counselor to know when to encourage a client to fly on his own. You don't want to be overprotective; yet always in the back of your mind, hiding away in a dark cave of fear, lurks that bête noir, the possibility of client suicide. I had held off the beast so far. So had Ginger, until now.

Having dropped her bombshell, she went back to the beginning. Her voice steadied and took on inflection as she told the story.

He was a lawyer who had become increasingly stressed out at work, so he consulted a short-term counseling service available to lawyers free of charge through the provincial Law Society. When he finished the half dozen sessions provided for under the program, he decided to continue with therapy. The counselor he'd been seeing was not permitted to take him on as a regular client, but mentioned Ginger's name. She had experience with counseling lawyers and other professionals, and her office was not far from his home, making it easy for him to book appointments first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon, on his way to or from work.

"It was the usual mid-life stuff that so many people go through," she said. "He was approaching forty and realized one day that his life would soon be half over and he wasn't happy with where he was nor where he was heading. He had gone into law because he had some vague notion of serving justice, but the big downtown firm he worked for seemed more interested in billings and prestige than in justice. He said the best thing in his life was his children, but he worked so hard he rarely saw them and he felt negligent because they both had special needs that he wasn't meeting. And his marriage...well, it had grown stale. He was still fond of his wife, but more as a friend than a true mate, and he sensed the same from her."

"So he needed to get in touch with his wants and needs," I said, "re-examine his priorities, decide if he wanted to make any changes, and figure out how to go about it."

"Yes, exactly."

I waited but this time she didn't seem inclined to go on. Her focus was inward; if she was continuing to recall, perhaps relive, past events, she wasn't sharing them. Yet she had told me that she needed to talk if she was going to be able to deal with the suicide. Maybe the time had come for some prompting.

"And so you counseled him for a few months," I said, "and he got in better touch with what he wanted, and perhaps formulated a plan of action. He felt stronger within himself, and able to proceed without further counseling."

Her tawny eyes flicked toward me and away, like those of a frightened deer. "Yes, that was basically it." She gazed out the window, excluding me whether consciously or not. She had put her mug down and crossed her arms firmly across her chest as if she were holding something in, or protecting herself against a threat.

"Ginger," I said gently, "you told me you needed to talk about this but now you're blocking. I get the sense you're scared."

She shook her head, but because she had turned away from me I didn't know what message she intended to convey. I sat quietly, working it through in my mind.

Ginger didn't know that I had considerably more information about her ex-client's life than the bare bones she'd given me. In the year and a half that Joanne Nelson had been my client, she had talked a lot about her marriage to Judd, a lawyer with a high-powered downtown firm. For of course it was about ninety-nine percent certain that Ginger's suicidal ex-client was Joanne's husband. There simply couldn't be two so similar suicides in the space of one day.

While I couldn't violate client confidentiality by disclosing to Ginger that Joanne was my own client, or revealing what Joanne had said in our sessions, my peculiar situation did give me a context that I could use to try to intuit the reason for Ginger's unusual resistance. If I knew why she was so ambivalent about telling the story, I'd be better able to decide what approach to take with her.

Counseling has honed my instincts and intuition, my ability to spin reality from a tangled skein of fibers, some opaque and some invisible. I freed myself from rational analysis and let my mind drift, pulling in words, images, impressions from conversations with Joanne and Ginger over the last year.

When I found an answer, when I started to grasp what my friend was experiencing, I felt tears rising to my own eyes. I took a few deep breaths until I felt calmer.

I kneeled in front of her. "Ginger?" No response. When I said her name again, she lifted her head reluctantly and looked at me. I read wariness in her posture, in the expression on her face. Wariness, but also hope.

"You know I'm here because I care about you," I said. "I'm not here to judge, only to help. Tell me about your relationship with...this man." Damn, I'd almost said "Judd," a name she had yet to reveal to me.

Her eyes told me that I was right.

"Oh, Ginger, you poor, poor thing."

She cried again, and I held her again until she had finished. She made another trip to the bathroom, and when she came back I handed her a fresh mug of rum-spiked steamed milk.

"I was in love with him," she announced defiantly. "We were lovers. Not when he was my client, of course. I know that's a total taboo. Probably so is what I did, but I found ways of justifying it to myself." The defiance had turned to a plea for acceptance.

I nodded. "Tell me, Ginger."

"His name is...was Judd. Judd Nelson. He was bright, funny, and kind of average looking except for his beautiful blue eyes with crinkles all around them. Right from the beginning I felt attracted, and I was sure it was mutual. You know how we counselors have special antennas for that kind of thing."

It's true. Often a client develops a strong attraction to the therapist. It may be due to a projection of feelings for a much-loved person, perhaps a nurturing mother. It may be because no one has ever listened so attentively, or known them so well. For most clients, no one in their lives has ever been so accepting and non-judgmental. Counseling is an intimate situation, and intimate, emotional situations can breed intimate feelings. Sometimes it even happens that the therapist develops too personal an affection for the client. It's a total taboo to give in to your own attraction or to encourage a client's. It is the therapist's responsibility to maintain the professional nature of the relationship; otherwise there's a strong risk of confusing or exploiting a person who is at the height of their vulnerability.

As a consequence, we need to be constantly alert to make sure that our own feelings, and our client's, are appropriate for the situation, bearing in mind that the goal of counseling is to help the client grow stronger and more healthy as an independent individual. The goal of counseling is, ultimately, that the therapist becomes unnecessary.

A therapist who becomes aware of inappropriate emotions on either her own or the client's part is supposed to discuss the matter with the client and try to get things back on track.

"Did you talk to Judd about it?" I asked.

"Yes, of course. We had one of those embarrassing little conversations. I know you're familiar with them, given that your clients are always falling in love with you."

That's true, too. I'm a lesbian, and many of my clients are women who are just coming to terms with their own homosexuality. I listen and understand, they feel cared for, and sometimes I'm the first lesbian they've had a meaningful relationship with. And hey, presto, they're head over heels. So, yes, I knew very well the kind of conversation Ginger was referring to.

She went on. "Judd is...was very bright and perceptive. He understood what I was saying and we both agreed that we'd work on having a proper counselor-client relationship. But we never quite managed it. Oh, our sessions would have looked normal to an observer, there was never anything inappropriate, and he made genuine progress. But tiny things, like the way I reacted if his hand brushed mine, or the two of us going out of our way not to touch or let our eyes lock, told me we hadn't resolved the problem, we'd just buried it. Finally I told him we had to have another talk. He said that he knew, but had been delaying until he was sure what he wanted to say."

Her voice wobbled and she sat for a moment, sipping milk, until she was able to go on.

"He was like that. He'd weigh things, mull them over, before making up his mind. He wasn't one to rush into things. Anyhow, he said that he was happy about the work that we'd done, and he felt confident he was on the right course. He still hadn't made decisions about his work or, uh, his marriage, but that was because he wasn't ready to. He needed to do some more thinking, consider, uh, alternatives, get to know himself better. He said that the one thing he was absolutely sure of was that he wanted to get to know me better too. To know me as a person rather than as a counselor."

She shot me a guilty look. "And of course that's what I wanted too. He managed to persuade me it was in his best interests. He's...he was a very persuasive man. It was clear from what he'd said that it would be impossible for us to continue as counselor and client, whether or not we saw each other in, uh, some other capacity. I offered to refer him but he said no. He said that if he felt the need in the future he'd ask me for a referral."

She put her empty mug on the side table and reached out a hand. I grasped it firmly.

"We did start to see each other," she said, "for coffee or a drink, for lunch. Lunch hours were never long enough. Getting together after work was better, though we worried about people seeing us having dinner together. We were afraid they'd get the wrong--or I guess it was really the right--idea. We became friends. We spent more and more time together and got to know each other very well. It was strange because I already knew a lot about him, from counseling him, yet I learned different things and got to know him in a different way as a friend. And he, of course, hadn't known much about me at all, so we spent a lot of time talking about me. He was such a good listener, not self-centered like so many men are.

"Then, one day, we had an early dinner down at the Trattoria on the corner and he came back here for coffee afterwards, and it just seemed natural to make love. We already knew each other so well; it wasn't even a dramatic transition. Oh, it was wonderful, and got even better with time, but it seems like, from the day I met him, we just slowly got to know each other more and more intimately--mentally, emotionally, physically."

"And you fell in love with him. And he with you?"

"Yes." It was no more than a whisper. She leaned back, eyes closed, looking very, very tired.

I felt the same way. It wasn't just the lateness of the hour, the paucity of sleep and surfeit of emotion--it was the nature of her situation. She had terminated a counseling relationship and become lovers with her former client who just happened to be a married man, and then he had committed suicide. As well as sorrow and anger over the loss of her loved one, Ginger would be suffering guilt about being unprofessional, guilt about being the "other woman," and, perhaps even more, the gnawing feeling that she hadn't been a good enough counselor or a good enough lover to keep her man alive. How could she bear it?

I squeezed her hand. "Ginger, I can only try to imagine what you're going through. But maybe I can offer some perspective. I know you. I know from our conversations what you're like as a counselor, and I know from personal experience what kind of a friend you are. You're the opposite of irresponsible. Of course you're not perfect, but you try as hard as anyone possibly could, and you've got wonderful skills, intuition, and judgment."

She took her hand out of mine and gazed at me steadily through red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. "Thank you, Dace, but that argument won't fly. The facts speak for themselves." She gave a short, humorless laugh. "That's a legal principle, you know. Judd told me. There's some fancy Latin name for it, which I don't remember, but the principle is that in some situations, the very existence of certain facts can be taken as proof that a wrong was committed, either by an action or by a failure to act. He's dead, Dace. He killed himself. That's the fact. That means that I had to have screwed up, both as a lover and as a counselor. Screwed up royally, and fatally." She was battering herself with harsh words, inflicting the pain she thought she deserved to suffer.

"He did it and I didn't have a clue," she said. "Not a clue that he was heading in that direction. Oh, I knew there were some things he was anxious about, but I honestly thought he was handling them effectively. There's a difference between uncertainty and weakness; sometimes he was uncertain about the right course of action but I thought he was strong enough inside to find the best path for him. And I thought he was talking to me, sharing with me, letting me help him as a friend and lover. Even now, I haven't the faintest idea why he did it. It makes no sense at all, which means that I was completely out of touch with him. How could I be so wrong? I have no judgment, Dace. It's gone. I have no skill or intuition. I'm...nothing."

This time when she cried, I cried with her. After all, I wasn't Ginger's counselor--I was her friend. I was entitled to experience and express my own feelings, and to share in hers.

I tried more words of reassurance, but I knew they rang hollow in light of what had happened. In truth, I had no answer for her. To my mind, she was the same Ginger I had always known; yet she was right about the facts. They did suggest a different reality.

Some time around three or four in the morning, we were talked and cried out. She didn't want me to go, so she loaned me a long baggy T-shirt and we both crawled into her queen-size bed. As I lifted the duvet, I realized that I was getting into Judd's side. She must have had the same thought because she turned to me, tears wet on her cheeks again, and sobbed quietly against my shoulder until exhaustion claimed both of us.