I wiped my eyes. “I hope so.”

T.J. and Tom were waiting for us when we walked out of the restroom. T.J. led me to a chair and sat down beside me.

“Are you okay?” He put his arm around me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

“I’m better now.”

“It’ll all work out, Anna.”

“Maybe,” I said. Or maybe not.

The next morning, I read the newspaper coverage of the press conference. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but it wasn’t good either. The article didn’t question my teaching ability, but it echoed some of the points the reporter made about the likelihood of a school district agreeing to hire me. I handed it to Sarah when she walked into the room. She read it and made a disgusted noise.

“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

“I’m going to talk to Ken.”

Ken Tomlinson had been my principal for six years. A thirty-year veteran of the Illinois public school system, his dedication to the students and his support of the teachers made him one of the most respected men in the district. He didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about things that didn’t matter, and he told the best off-color jokes I’d ever heard.

I stuck my head into his office a little after 7:00 a.m. a few days after the press conference. He pushed his chair back and met me at the door.

“Kiddo, you don’t know how happy I am to see you.” He hugged me. “Welcome home.”

“I got your message on Sarah’s answering machine. Thanks for calling.”

“I wanted you to know we were all thinking about you. I figured it might be a little while before you could make it in.” He sat down behind his desk and I sat in a chair across from him. “I think I know why you’re here now.”

“Have you had any calls?”

He nodded. “A few. Some parents wanted to know if you’d be returning to the school. I wanted to tell them what I really thought about their supposed concerns, but I couldn’t.”

“I know, Ken.”

“I’d love to give you your old job back, but I hired someone two months after your plane went down, when we’d all lost hope of you ever being found.”

“I understand. I’m not ready to go back to work yet anyway.”

Ken leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the desk. “People want to make things into something they’re not. It’s human nature. Lay low for a while. Let it blow over.”

“I would never do anything to harm a student, Ken.”

“I know that, Anna. I never doubted you for a minute.” He came out from behind the desk and said, “You’re a good teacher. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not.”

The halls would fill with teachers and students soon, and I wanted to slip out unnoticed. I stood up and said, “Thanks, Ken. That means a lot to me.”

“Come back again, Anna. We’d all like to spend some time with you.”

“I’ll do that.”

***

The details of the press conference spread like wildfire and it didn’t take long for our story to reach a worldwide audience. Unfortunately, most of the information was incorrect, embellished, and not even close to the truth.

Everyone had an opinion about my actions, and they discussed and debated my relationship with T.J. in chat rooms and on message boards. I provided many late night talk show hosts with monologue material, and I was the punch line of so many jokes that I stopped watching television altogether, preferring the solitude and comfort of the music and books I missed so much on the island.

T.J. took his share of ridicule, too. They laughed about his tenth grade education but said that maybe it didn’t matter considering the other things he must surely have learned from me.

I didn’t want to go out in public, worried that people would stare. “Did you know you can buy almost everything you need on the Internet?” I was sitting on the couch next to T.J., typing on Sarah’s laptop. “They’ll ship it right to your doorstep. I may never leave the house again.”

“You can’t hide forever, Anna,” T.J. said.

I typed ‘bedroom furniture’ into the Google search box and hit enter. “Wanna bet?”

The insomnia started a few weeks later. First, I had trouble falling asleep. With Sarah’s blessing, T.J. spent the night often, and I’d listen to his soft breathing, but I couldn’t relax. Then, even if I managed to fall asleep, I’d wake up at two or three in the morning and lay there until the sun came up. I had frequent nightmares, usually about drowning, and I’d wake up drenched in sweat. T.J. said I often cried out in the middle of the night.

“Maybe you should go back to the doctor, Anna.”

Exhausted and fraying, I agreed.

“Acute stress disorder,” my doctor said a few days later. “This is actually very common, Anna, especially in women. Traumatic events often trigger delayed onset insomnia and anxiety.”

“How is it treated?”

“Usually with a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and drugs. Some patients get relief from a low dose antidepressant. I could prescribe something to help you sleep.”

I had friends who had taken antidepressants and sleeping pills and they’d complained about side effects. “I’d rather not take anything if I can help it.”

“Would you consider seeing a therapist?”

I was ready to try anything if it meant getting a full night’s sleep. “Why not?”

I made an appointment with a therapist I found in the yellow pages. Her office was in an old brick building with a crumbling front step. I checked in with the receptionist, and the therapist opened the door to the waiting room and called my name five minutes later. She had a warm smile and a firm handshake. I guessed her to be in her late forties.

“I’m Rosemary Miller.”

“Anna Emerson. Nice to meet you.”

“Please have a seat.” She pointed at a couch and sat in a chair across from me, handing me one of her business cards. A lamp burned brightly on a low table next to the couch. A potted ficus tree stood near the window. Boxes of Kleenex were scattered on every available surface.

“I’ve followed your story in the news. I’m not surprised to see you here.”

“I’ve been suffering from insomnia and anxiety. My doctor suggested I try therapy.”

“What you’re experiencing is very common, given the trauma you suffered. Have you ever seen a therapist before?”

“No.”

“I’d like to start by taking a full patient history.”

“Okay.”

She droned on for forty-five minutes, asking me questions about my parents and Sarah and my relationships with them. She asked about my prior relationships with men and when I told her the bare minimum about John, she probed further, asking me to go into more detail. I fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering when we were going to get to the part where she fixed my insomnia.

“I may want to revisit some of your patient history in the coming weeks. Now I’d like to discuss your sleep habits.”

Finally.

”I can’t fall asleep or stay asleep. I’m having nightmares.”

“What are the nightmares about?”

“Drowning. Sharks. Sometimes the tsunami. Usually there’s water.”

Someone knocked on the door and she glanced at her watch.

“I’m sorry. We’re out of time.”

You have got to be kidding me.

”Next week we can start some cognitive therapy exercises.”

At the rate we were going, I might not get a good night’s sleep for months. She shook my hand and walked me to the lobby. Once outside, I dropped her business card in a garbage can.

T.J. and Sarah were sitting in the living room when I got home. I plopped down on T.J.’s lap.

“How did it go?” T.J. asked

“I don’t think I’m a therapy person.”

“Sometimes it takes a while to find a good one,” Sarah said.

“I don’t think she’s a bad therapist. There’s just something else I want to try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go back.”

I left the room and returned a few minutes later, dressed in running tights and a long sleeved T-shirt layered under a sweatshirt and nylon windbreaker. I pulled on a hat and sat down on the couch to lace up my Nikes.