Contents
Chapter 38
Overview
In a flashback nine months earlier, Charly returns from a run and receives an anonymous mailing: a torn divorce decree for former patient Regina Barry and her husband, Kyle, who once threatened Charly. Disturbed, she debates next steps with Clark, rejects calling police or contacting Kyle, and resolves uneasily to ignore it.
Summary
Nine months before the present, Charly finishes a five-mile run, pleased her knee has healed and planning to freshen up before Clark gets home. She checks the mail and finds an anonymous envelope with her typed address.
Inside is a torn, typewritten divorce decree for Kyle and Regina Barry. Charly immediately connects it to Kyle Barry, the husband who once confronted and threatened her because her treatment helped Regina’s psoriasis, which he believed would lead to a divorce.
Shaken, Charly brings the paper upstairs, where Clark is already home. After she explains who Kyle is, Clark asks if the mailing is a threat and suggests involving the police. Charly argues there is no explicit threat to report.
Clark then offers to call Kyle, but Charly refuses, fearing escalation. Clark concludes the gesture is meant to intimidate her and advises trying to forget it.
Although Charly agrees outwardly, she remains unsettled, wrestling with whether Kyle is simply trying to scare her or might actually intend harm, and resolves—uneasily—to move on without contacting authorities.
Who Appears
- Charly (Charlotte) McKennaNarrator; receives an anonymous mailing of Kyle and Regina Barry’s divorce decree, feels threatened but declines police involvement.
- Clark McKennaCharly’s husband; reviews the decree, suggests calling police or Kyle, urges her to ignore the intimidation.
- Kyle BarryFormer patient’s husband who previously threatened Charly; apparent sender of the ominous divorce decree.
- Regina BarryKyle’s wife and Charly’s former patient; her divorce from Kyle is revealed by the mailed decree.