Losing Faith by Adam Mitzner

doesn’t see it as a joking matter. She has the look of someone ready for a fight.
    “Same judge as the last case too. Right?”
    He now realizes the source of Cynthia’s discontent. Apparently he was right when he told Sam Rosenthal that he overestimated his ability to keep his affair with Faith a secret. But he knows Cynthia well enough to know that she’s not going to confront him, at least not now. It’s enough she’s just given the signal that yes, she knows.
    “Hopefully this one will end better,” he says.
    “I assume you’re not basing that on how it’s begun.”
    “Rachel is working tonight on motion papers for her to reconsider that.”
    “I see. So you’re working with Rachel on this one too?”
    “And what’s wrong with that?”
    “Nothing, Aaron. Nothing you do is ever wrong,” Cynthia says, and returns to her book.

14
    T he first thing Rachel does when she wakes up each morning, even before brushing her teeth, is swallow four pills. She doesn’t remember their names, as they change every so often, when she starts to experience side effects or she feels an episode coming on. She literally gobbles down this cocktail of antidepressants and antianxiety medications, as if they were the cure-all to a poison coursing through her body.
    She’s been on some type of pharmaceutical regimen since her first episode, which occurred shortly after spring break during her senior year at Stanford. At her midsemester evaluation, her adviser, Professor Gryzmala, told her that she was behind schedule on her thesis. Worse still, he said he was “disappointed,” although when she conjures the memory now (with the benefit of the meds, perhaps), she’s less certain that he actually said he was disappointed with her , which she always previously believed, rather than merely with the progress of the thesis.
    She stayed on campus during spring break to do more research, and when she mentioned this to Professor Gryzmala, he suggested that they have dinner at the faculty club to discuss the direction she was taking.
    Rachel recalls primping for that dinner more vividly than preparing for her high school prom. She must have tried on six or seven outfits, trying to achieve the perfect costume that said grown-up woman , with just the right amount of sexuality . . . all without being obvious, of course.
    At dinner, Professor Gryzmala ordered a bottle of wine with the perfect Italian pronunciation, even though he spoke English with a trace of a Polish accent. It was the first really good bottle of wine Rachel ever had, rich and full-bodied. Her head began to spin midway through the second glass.
    The conversation was just as intoxicating. He saw things—in art, books, the world around him—that she was convinced she’d never be able to see for herself.
    After dinner, he walked her home, even after she put up a feigned protest that it was not necessary. She knew he was married but had nevertheless cleaned her room and changed the linens, so there was no way she could tell herself that she was surprised that the evening was going to lead back to her place.
    When they reached her door, she didn’t even ask if he wanted to come inside, so sure that they’d already tacitly made that agreement. She was more than startled when he said, “Thank you for a lovely evening. I think you’re on the right track with your thesis and I look forward to reading it.”
    “Don’t you want to come in?” she said.
    “Oh no . . . thank you, but no,” he said, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “I need to get back home. My wife and I always read to our kids before bed, and tonight’s my night.”
    Rachel can’t remember anything that happened after that. They must have said good night, but she has no recollection of those words passing between them. She knows that there was no physical contact, certainly not a kiss, or even a touch of the arm.
    The next morning, she couldn’t get out of bed.
    It was as if every body