“You snore like an earthquake!” Jack jabbed his finger at Patrick. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the tablecloth began to slip. “You snore like a volcano!”

“Careful, mate.” Patrick adjusted the cloth. “Actually, your mum taped me snoring once. I did sound a bit like a volcano.”

Ding! Fourth Colleen reference in the last hour, thought Ellen. She couldn’t seem to stop noticing it, no matter how hard she tried.

“There’s a volcano in America called the Yellowstone Supervolcano,” said Jack. “And when it erupts—POW!” He banged his fist on the table and a glass full of sugar packets tipped over. “That’s the end of the world. It could happen any minute.”

“Really?” said Ellen.

“I don’t think so,” said Patrick. “Where’s our pizza? Don’t they know we’re starving over here? Let’s see that photo again.” He took the photo from Ellen.

“Have you got a photo of me like that somewhere?” said Jack.

“Yeah, your mum put it in your baby book, remember? You’ve seen it before.”

Ding!

Oh, Ellen, give it a rest. What was the poor man meant to do? Ignore his son’s questions? Pretend Colleen never existed?

“I’m going to the toilet,” announced Jack.

He always went to the toilet whenever they went out. It was his excuse for wandering around the restaurant, checking out whatever interested him.

“I bet he stops right there, where you can see into the kitchen,” said Ellen.

Jack stopped on cue, looking nonchalantly casual as he pressed himself up against a potted plant, and stood on tippy-toes so he could see over a ledge into where they were tossing pizza dough up into the air.

Ellen and Patrick laughed, and for a moment it felt like they were both his parents. Patrick smiled. “Funny kid.” He lifted up the photo and looked at it. “I wonder if you’ll be worried about Armageddon one day, baby? Or will you be a serene, spiritual soul like your mother?”

“I’m not feeling that serene at the moment,” said Ellen. “What a day. First Luisa wanting her money back, and then Ian Roman threatening to ‘bring me down.’ I think this qualifies as the worst day in my professional life.”

“Ian Roman is just throwing his weight around,” said Patrick. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll get distracted buying his next television station or whatever.” He paused. “So are you really hypnotizing his wife to fall in love with him?”

“Of course not,” said Ellen. “I can’t make anyone feel something that isn’t genuine. Rosie asked me to do that and I suggested that we do some work on her self-esteem issues instead. You can’t love someone unless you feel good about yourself. I can’t tell you too much, but I just said I would try and help give her enough self-confidence to either leave him or to try and make it work.”

“Mmmm,” said Patrick. He looked doubtful.

“What?” said Ellen.

“I don’t know. I guess it sounds a bit … airy-fairy?”

Ellen felt quite profoundly irritated. “Oh, so now you think I’m some sort of charlatan as well, do you?”

“Of course not. Look. I’m a simple surveyor. A man of the land. Obviously I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Obviously,” said Ellen.

“Quick! Change of subject! How about our beautiful baby? Hey?” He handed her the photo, and Ellen smiled in spite of herself.

After a second, Patrick said, his tone changed, “Did you see her?”

Ellen kept looking at the photo. She knew exactly whom he was talking about.

“Yes,” she said.

“I have to do something about it,” said Patrick. “With the baby coming…” He pressed a fingertip to the photo. “I’ve never thought of her as dangerous, but she looked a bit … I don’t know, unhinged. Crazier than usual.”

Ellen thought of Luisa today, crazy with grief and envy over Ellen’s pregnancy. She thought of Saskia’s face when she walked into the waiting room. Ellen had seen her immediately. She had a feverish, desperate look about her, as if she was hurrying to catch an important flight.

“Did Saskia want to have a baby with you?” she asked.

“Who cares if she did?” said Patrick roughly. “There is no justification for this!”

“I just wondered,” said Ellen. I just want to understand.

“Family-size supreme?” interrupted a waitress.

When they got home, there was a message on Ellen’s voice-mail from a journalist named Lisa Hamilton. She said she was working on a story for the Daily News about hypnotherapy and “its claims” and had been speaking to some of Ellen’s clients. “I wondered if you would care to comment about some of the allegations that are being made,” she said.

Her voice was cold and clipped, full of certainty and authority with a faint edge of disgust.

Ellen put down the phone.

“Everything OK?” said Patrick.

“I think I know how Ian Roman is planning to put me out of business.”

Chapter 21

Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.

—Freud, 1900

What’s that old cliché? All publicity is good publicity?” said Patrick.

Ellen was already in bed and Patrick had just come in from checking on Jack.

“This isn’t going to be good publicity,” said Ellen. She’d called back the journalist and had agreed to meet her for an interview the following morning at eleven. Ellen had talked to plenty of journalists over the years, and normally she quite enjoyed it. Ever since she’d attended a seminar a few years back called “Marketing Your Hypnotherapy Practice,” she’d actively looked for opportunities and made herself available for comment. Every December she was called up by journalists writing articles to appear in the new year with headlines like “How to Stick to Those Resolutions: We Ask Our Panel of Experts!” She’d been interviewed for health magazines about weight loss, and business magazines about overcoming public speaking nerves. She contributed to a weekly “mental health” column for her local paper, and she was a regular guest on various midmorning radio shows. She’d even been on television a few times.