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CHAPTER 1 Late for Dinner

Friday’s an ordinary day at the daycare, if there is such a thing when you have thirty children between the ages of one and four under your supervision. There are no visits to the emergency room, despite the fact that Carrie Myers gets a penny stuck in her nose. The parents make their usual number of calls, from zero, in the case of the Zen 20 percent, to ten, in the case of Mandy Holden.

It’s all because of the video cameras. Standard issue in daycares these days: twelve cameras (six in the baby room, six in the toddler room), all strategically positioned so any concerned parent can watch their child all day long via streaming video if they want to.

I’m glad Seth graduated prior to the invention of the Daycare Cam. I tell myself I’d be in the Zen 20 percent, but I have enough evidence to the contrary to know I would’ve had the camera feed open on my computer screen eight hours a day.

But since that was never a possibility, I can let myself feel annoyed when I catch a scuffle out of the corner of my eye on a toddler room monitor (they’re arrayed around my desk like I’m the head of security, which, I suppose, I am), and I hear LT’s wail through the wall moments later. I count down the seconds. Three, two…

“Hi, Mandy,” I say as I pick up the phone, not bothering to pretend I don’t know who’s calling. Mandy Holden calls between five and ten times a day with questions ranging from her son LT’s caloric intake to any incident she picks up on from the black-and-white video she watches all day long. (He’s called LT after his father, Trevor, because he’s “Little Trevor” in looks, expression, everything. Around here, when the parents aren’t listening, he’s referred to by the name he’s earned: “Little Terror.” Thank God the video plays like a silent movie.)

“Did you see that, Claire? That other kid—”

“His name is Kyle.”

“Whatever. He pushed LT over! He needs a serious time out, and if you’re not going to talk to his parents, I will.”

“You know I can’t call a child’s parents every time there’s an isolated incident.”

“Isolated incident! He did the same thing last week.”

“Actually, if you’ll recall, it was LT who pushed Kyle that day. Kyle pushed back in retaliation.”

“Retaliation my ass. I saw the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry, Mandy, but I reviewed the video as per your request. LT was definitely the aggressor.” In fact, at this very moment, LT’s meting out his revenge on Sophie Taylor by stealing her snack. I’m sure I’ll be getting a call about that too.

“Are you suggesting my son has anger-management issues?”

“Of course not. I’m simply saying that three-year-olds, particularly three-year-old boys, often get in scuffles. You can’t read too much into it, no matter who the instigator is.” I glance fondly at the picture of Seth at that age pinned above the monitors. He’s smiling with a little-teeth grin, a perfect mixture of mischief and innocence.

“Instigator!”

I pause deliberately and lower my voice. “However, if you’d feel more comfortable removing LT from our care, you’re perfectly entitled to do so.”

I’m playing my trump card. Every daycare in town is full to the max. Mandy isn’t going to give up her slot unless LT’s taken out of here on a stretcher.

“I never said anything about taking LT out of Playthings,” she huffs.

“Well, I seem to be getting a lot of these calls lately, and we do have an extensive waiting list.”

I can hear her grinding her teeth. “I’m expressing concern for my child, Claire. I don’t think that deserves a threat.”

“Now, now, calm down. You know we all love LT. We don’t want him to leave. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” she says. “LT is happy.”

“That’s great. So we don’t have an issue?”

“No. Everything’s fine. I have to get to a meeting…”

“Talk to you soon.”

We hang up and I rest my head in my hands. I love running Playthings, I really do, but sometimes, particularly on the days when the Mandys of the world are in high gear, I wish I were back in the grown-up world, dealing with grown-up problems.

Of course, that world was full of adults complaining about the way their babies were being treated too.

Much to the chagrin of some of the parents, my lunch hour’s a sacred thing. I don’t accept calls—in fact, I can’t be reached at all, and unless you’re a fellow student at the music conservatory, it’s like I don’t exist.

This is a rule I implemented soon after I started Playthings, when I was still being swept by the waves of sadness connected to why I chucked my law career and started the daycare in the first place.

“You need to make time for something purely yours,” my doctor told me when I complained about having trouble sleeping, and the general listlessness I still felt. “Something that brings you joy. Did you have anything in your life like that? Before?”

I could’ve taken the easy road and told him that what I used to do was run frantically between work and child care, that I hadn’t had time for anything else. I hadn’t had much time for me. Instead I said “Piano” in a small voice, even though I hadn’t played in years. I no longer even owned a piano; we’d left it behind when we bought the house because it wasn’t worth paying the extra money the movers wanted for something I touched only to wipe away the thin layer of dust that marred its glossy surface. It felt like an easy decision then, but now I wasn’t so sure it was the right one.

“Piano it is,” Dr. Mayer replied in a voice that brooked no opposition. And something about it, something about how it was connected to me before, caught hold in my brain.

I left his office and drove to the conservatory, which was located a few minutes away. I parked my car and looked through the windshield at the brightly painted building. Like Playthings, it was clearly a place for kids. I could see the child-painted mural inside made up of bass clefs and off-proportion guitars, a relic from my own childhood, many hours of which were spent in that very building. They gave adult lessons too, they always had, but the whole thing screamed Suzuki Method, and I almost didn’t go in.

But I’d said I would, and so I did.

In a few minutes, I had a lesson scheduled for the next day with Connie. The receptionist had met my tentative request for Mr. Samuels, the kind teacher from my youth, with a blank stare.

Connie was a taciturn Germanic blonde who’d somehow ended up in Springfield. (“How?” I asked early on. “Complicated,” she replied in a clipped tone that invited no further questions. “We work on scales today.”) When she realized that I knew more than basic chord structures, she started giving me increasingly complicated pieces. And once my muscle/brain memory kicked in, I started to make something of them.

I kind of hated Connie in those early days. (I suspect the feeling was mutual.) I complained to Jeff one night, a few lessons in, that Connie had missed her calling as a drill sergeant.

“So quit,” he said as he stripped down to his underwear and climbed under the covers. “If you’re not having fun, fuck it.”

I slipped in beside him, resting my back against the headboard. I flexed my fingers. They were full of a dull ache, like the early onset of arthritis.

“I kind of feel like it’ll be fun eventually. Or maybe that’s the wrong word.” I paused, not knowing how to talk about looking for joy, and how it sometimes felt like it was just a few notes away.

“Well, she can’t be the only game in town, right?”

He was right, but the two younger teachers I tried were so used to the kids-who-were-working-just-hard-enough-to-appease-their-parents that they’d grown soft, their fingers slow. When I sight-read the pieces they’d put in front of me, saying, “Now, this should be a real challenge,” they’d get these funny looks on their faces, like that wasn’t supposed to happen. One of them told me bluntly: “You should be playing with Connie.” The other simply “forgot” our lesson one day and never called me to reschedule. Either way, I got the message.

So back I went and here I am, sitting on the hard piano bench in a room with perfect acoustics playing Debussy’s Reverie. Connie’s standing next to me, waiting to turn the page. My right foot’s working the damper pedal, my left heel’s keeping time. As the haunting melody tumbles out, I lean in, like I’m trying to catch the notes, gather them close. And now there’s un poco crescendo and the music’s flowing through my fingers, into my chest, suffusing my brain. The world is receding, receding, and yet I feel, for lack of a better word, alive.

When I get home around five, Seth’s at the dining room table pretending to do his homework. But our in-need-of-replacement TV is still emitting that strange, staticky sound it does for the minute or so after it’s been shut off, so I can tell what he’s really been up to. Now what I need to decide is whether I’m going to call him on it.

Letting Seth be home alone for the hour or so between when the bus drops him off and when Jeff or I get home is a new thing we’re trying since he turned twelve in February. He lobbied hard for the freedom, showing us that he was old enough, responsible. He kept his room clean, his grades went up, and he actually put down his PS-whatever-they’ve-gotten-to-now when we asked him to. We agreed to it on a trial basis until the end of the school year. If he doesn’t screw up, we’ll talk about making the arrangement permanent.

It’s nice to have the extra money, though I miss the chats Ashley (Seth’s long-term after-school babysitter) and I used to have at the end of the day, the updates she’d give me about how Seth acted when Jeff and I weren’t around. As Seth gets older, the opportunities to observe him when he isn’t aware of it are few and far between. Teacher-parent interviews, reports from his grandparents, my chats with Ashley, that’s about it. Now, if I want to know what my son really thinks, I’ll have to resort to spying.

Seth raises his head slowly and gives me the smile that melts my heart every time I see it. I’ve steeled myself against it to a certain extent (I had to), but it’s worked on babysitters and women in grocery stores his whole life.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, buddy, how was school today?”

“Same.”

“You have a lot of homework?”

“The usual. I’ll be done soon.”

“It needs to be done before dinner,” I say in a tone that’s way too close to my mother’s.

“Mom, jeez, it’s Friday.”

I raise my hands in surrender and head to the kitchen, thinking about what’s in the fridge, wondering whether I should cook or if we should go out for dinner. Jeff mentioned something last night about having to fire someone today, someone he was upset about. Did that mean he’d rather go out or stay in? Out is a distraction; in might mean him drinking too much and brooding about it.

Out it is, then.

I pick up the phone and dial his work number. When he doesn’t answer, I try his cell. It rings and rings and then goes to voicemail. I glance at the clock. It’s five fifteen, about the time he usually gets home on Fridays. Maybe his meeting went long; firings are never easy. And it’s such a nice day out, he might’ve decided to go to the driving range and hit a few balls first. He doesn’t like bringing bad work energy home if there’s a way he can leave it behind.

I spend the next hour working on a new piece Connie’s given me (Haydn’s Sonata in F Minor), working out the fingering, letting the notes linger in my brain as I tap them out silently on the kitchen table, and now it’s a quarter after six and Jeff really is late. Another round of calls to his cell and work phone get the same result as before, so I dig my cell out of my purse and text him: Home soon? I hold the phone in my hands, waiting for his reply, but none comes. Eventually, it powers down, like it’s tired of waiting.

I feel a small trace of annoyance, but I brush it away. He often gets lost in whatever he’s doing. His focus is something that astounds me still after all this time. Getting mad about it would mean I was mad at something fundamental about him, which I’m not.

But I am hungry. “Seth, do you want to order in?”

Seth comes bounding into the kitchen like an eager dog, lunging for the drawer where we keep the takeout menus. After a small skirmish, we decide on pizza, Seth promising that he’ll eat at least one slice of vegetarian so he gets some vegetables today.

Jeff still isn’t home by the time the pizza arrives, so we eat at the kitchen table while I gently probe Seth about his week. He dodges my questions like he always does, his mouth full of food, his answers a combination of “Jeez, Mom, honestly,” “Dunno,” and “All right, I guess.”

I try not to take it personally. I try to remember how I was at that age, the secrets I kept.

I let Seth take his last piece of pizza into the living room while he finishes his homework. I bring our dishes to the sink, which sits in front of a window overlooking our front lawn. I’m washing the dinner plates when I notice that it’s almost seven thirty, and now maybe I am mad that Jeff hasn’t even bothered to check in.

A police cruiser slows to a stop in front of our house. There are two uniformed officers in the car. The one I know, whose name I can’t bring to mind though we went to high school together, is sitting behind the wheel. He’s gripping it like he’s girding himself to do something unpleasant. I watch them, curious, as they slowly exit the car, two burly men. I wonder if the neighbors’ teenage daughter is in trouble again, but it isn’t their walkway they’re lumbering up; it’s mine. My mind jumps to Seth. What could he possibly have done that’s worthy of police attention?

Then my heart clenches with the sudden knowledge of why they must be here. My hands sit in the sudsy water, turning gently to prunes.

They’re at the front door, and still I can’t move. They don’t look my way, just straight ahead, and push the bell, harder than they should. The chiming gong bounds through the house, a brassy sound I’ve never liked.

All this happens in real time, not slowed down or speeded up, only the time it takes for them to walk to the front door and ring my bell, but it’s enough time.

“Mom!” Seth yells. “You going to get that?”

My brain is screaming Go to the door! Don’t let Seth be the one who answers it! but I can’t bring myself to move. In this, of all moments, I can’t bring myself to protect my son.

“Really,” I hear him mutter as he clicks off the TV and shuffles toward the front door.

Now my feet are moving, my mouth is open, but I can’t get the words out. I don’t beat Seth to the door, which is swinging open, revealing the officers. And my son, my beautiful, intelligent son, sees the unpleasant task in their faces, gives me a look of horror, and runs.

CHAPTER 2 How the Promise Gets Broken

“Have I got this right, Tish?” my best friend, Julia, asks in a distracted tone. “You’re saying you haven’t heard from this guy in a couple of days?”

I’m lying on my dining room floor, the phone receiver cradled under my ear. I can feel the itchy wool rug beneath me, and the hardness of the wood floor it covers. There’s a string of old spiderwebs dangling from the plaster cornice on the ceiling. I have no idea how long it’s been there. I don’t usually lie on my dining room floor. I don’t usually have a reason to. But my heart feels like there’s a hand holding it, and that hand is squeezing, squeezing, so:

“It isn’t the number of days, really, but that he hasn’t answered my email—” I stop myself before I add an “s.” I have to be careful here.

There’s a hint of movement on my leg. It’s a small black ant. A line of them is marching across the floor from the kitchen. I don’t know where they’re going, but I seem to be in their way.

“I still don’t get it. What’s the big deal?” Julia asks. Her three-year-old calls for her in the background. His father shushes him.

And that’s the million-dollar question, because the big deal is what took me four hours to place this call. The big deal is what I’m still not sure I can say out loud, though I’ve got to say something now that I’ve got Julia on the line.

“Tish,” she says when I’ve been silent too long. “This really isn’t a good time…”

Here’s my out. I could let her go, give in to the fact that she doesn’t really want to know what I called to tell her. She might even forget we had this conversation. The taste might remain on her brain, but the substance would be gone, like the thought you have right before sleep, the invention, the perfect line, the thing you ought to write down and never do.

I could let her go, but I don’t. Because I’m drowning here, on the floor, with the ants marching across me, the phone slick in my hand. If someone doesn’t pull me out, I may be lost forever.

“Please. Don’t hang up.”

“All right. Give me two minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

I almost laugh. If I could go somewhere, anywhere, I’d already be there.

I hear the phone click onto the kitchen counter, and the brief negotiation with Ken about taking care of Will for a few minutes.

“Yes, it’s important,” she says, followed by a mumble of assent.

I listen to Will’s wail as his mother leaves the room, and Ken’s curse and immediate apology, like his three-year-old son would be mad at him for swearing.

“Okay,” Julia says a minute later. I can hear the silence behind her. “I’m in the study with the door closed. What the hell’s going on?”

I felt the first flutter of worry Friday night.

After dinner and a movie with Zoey on the couch while Brian worked late, I realized Jeff had never written to say how the firing had gone. He’d been fretting about it so much, I was sure he’d be eager to tell me all about it. But when I checked my email, there was just the message he’d sent earlier in the day.

How’d it go? I typed, and waited a minute for his response. When it didn’t come, I put my phone down and gave my attention back to Zoey, who was impatient to tell me the problems she had with Letters to Juliet, the movie we’d watched.

Brian got home while Zoey was on point #7.

“And why do the main characters always have to hate each other at the beginning of the movie? Like, hello, red flag. It’s so obvious they’re going to get together.”

She stopped her tirade to run to the door and jump on Brian’s back, insisting he take her for a lap around the house even though, at eleven, she knows she’s kind of too old for it.

Brian dropped his medical bag and complied. Zoey whooped with delight. I followed them through the kitchen to the dining room, and up the stairs to her bedroom. It was getting late, close to ten, and Brian ended his tour by dumping Zoey on her bed and pointing to the red, glowing numbers on the clock next to it.

“You need your sleep, kid,” he said, his voice gravelly from a long day. “Big weekend.”

“I know.”

He rumpled her hair, and I kissed her cheek. Together we said, “Don’t read too late,” then we laughed, the three of us, the laughter following us down the hall to our bedroom.

The sight of our soft king-sized bed made me exhausted. I began to undress.

“Late one tonight,” I said.

Brian loosened his tie. “Sorry about that. Harry’s kids had croup again.”

“You must be the last doctor in the world who still makes house calls.”

“I hope not.”

I gathered my clothes together and dropped them into the hamper. Brian came up behind me and slipped his arm around my waist, placing his lips against my neck. I leaned against him, briefly, trying to summon the energy to return his kiss, finish loosening his tie.

“I’m exhausted,” I said.

“I can be quick.”

I looped my hands around his neck. He was smiling, but I knew he meant it too.

“Why don’t we wait until it doesn’t have to be quick?”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Good.” I kissed him, pressing my lips tightly against his to seal our deal. “You coming to bed?”

“I think I’m going to eat something first, watch the news.”

“Don’t stay up too late. Big day tomorrow, right, kid?”

He smiled. “It is.”

We kissed again briefly and separated, me headed for my nightly ritual in the bathroom, he to the leftovers waiting for him in the fridge. A few minutes later I slipped between the cool sheets and rested my head on my pillow. I didn’t even bother reaching for my book. Instead, I curled onto my side, and the last thing I remember thinking is I hope Jeff is doing okay.

Saturday morning passed quickly while I made sure Zoey and Brian had everything ready for their overnight trip to the Spoken Word Regionals, a three-hour drive away.

Zoey’s dress needed a last-minute ironing, and she’s always pretty particular about what she eats on competition days. It was almost eleven by the time they’d packed themselves into the car. Brian was going to have to drive faster than I liked to think about to get there on time. I watched him back out of the driveway, waving at them through the kitchen window. Zoey had that determined look she always gets, her game face I call it. Brian was wearing his game face too, a mixture of nervousness and pride, similar to my own, I expect.

They navigated successfully down our street and their fate was out of my hands. I went to the hallway and dug around in my purse for my phone. I had three new emails, but none from Jeff. I felt a tinge of disappointment, surprise, then that worry again.

I racked my brain, trying to remember if he’d told me about something that might explain the absence of an answer. I hesitated for a moment before texting him because we almost never do, but I was worried the firing had gone badly, that he was taking it too much to heart.

Everything go okay? I typed, listening to the words whoosh away from me. Again, I held the phone in my hand for a minute or two, waiting for a response, but there was nothing. I put it down eventually and tried to put it out of my mind. He’d answer when he could.

But he didn’t.

I spent most of the day cleaning the house with increasing obsessiveness. The air smells very clean as I lie here, trying to tell Julia enough to justify this phone call without telling her everything.

As the hours crept by, I began to carry my phone around like a talisman. My heart leapt every time it pinged with an email or text, but they were never from Jeff. A few were from Brian and Zoey, updating me on their progress, letting me know they’d gotten there, that her first round had gone well. These I responded to. The rest, I ignored.

But what I couldn’t understand, and can’t explain to Julia, is what made me so worried, why that worry grew as the hours passed, why it became so all-consuming. All I can come up with is that it isn’t just the silence but its quality. Something about our usual connection seems missing, and that absence is tugging away at me. Part of me knows I’m being completely irrational, and the other part is terrified I’m not.

My phone pinged for the last time last night around nine. My breath caught. It was a Google Alert for Jeff Manning. My hands shook as I opened it, but it was nothing. Some other Jeff Manning was getting married. How nice for him. My panic subsided, and I smiled as I remembered setting up the alert in the first place.

It was right around the time of a big mine disaster that dominated the news. In the buzz of media attention, it came to light that one of the miners had a wife and a girlfriend. Jeff and I were emailing about it at work.

Not the best way for something like that to get out, he wrote.

Uh, no. “Something like that.” Funny.

I’m glad I amuse you.

I keep thinking about the girlfriend.

What about her?

Well…and okay, this may be stupid or paranoid or whatever, but…I keep thinking about how the only reason she even knows what happened to him is because it’s this big media event. If he’d disappeared or died for some ordinary reason, it’s not like anyone would tell her.

I sense a deeper thought here.

Yeah, well…how would I know if anything ever happened to you?

Inter-office memo.

Ha!

I went back to work, but the idea stuck with me. How would I know if something ever happened to him? Not that anything should, but still.

Have found a solution, I wrote a few days later.

Solution for?

Miner’s girlfriend problem.

You worry too much.

Like you’re the first person to tell me this?

What’s the solution?

Google Alert.

You think technology is the solution to everything.

Because it is.

So I’d set up a Google Alert for Jeff Manning, the theory being that my friend Google would crawl the net for me and send me a message any time his name was mentioned online.

It ended up being a joke between us. Turns out there are a lot of Jeff Mannings out there. One won a blue ribbon at a state fair for having the biggest pumpkin. One was a professional downhill skier who liked to party when he wasn’t in training. There were even Jeff Manning obituaries once in a while, old men dying peacefully or after a long illness. And once, tragically, a young boy.

Whenever there was a particularly funny one, I’d let Jeff know what his namesake was up to. If one of them died, we’d hold a minute of silence, or make an anonymous donation to the charity specified in the obituary. A really big one in the case of little Jeff Manning.

But underneath, there was always that niggling worry, one I couldn’t even explain to myself, especially since it was so close to the feeling I had about Zoey sometimes, particularly when she was a baby and I was sure I was going to drop her at any moment.

After getting the false Alert, a weariness passed through me, the product of tension and little food. I chewed my thumb, contemplating whether I should send one more message. In the end, I couldn’t help myself from emailing: Worried. Please answer whenever you get this. I didn’t bother waiting for a response. Instead, I brought the phone upstairs with me and left it on my nightstand.

If it buzzed in the night, I wanted to know.

Today, I woke with the sun, exhausted and certain in the knowledge that there was no message.

Lying there in bed, I flipped through the possibilities like they were index cards. One or two of them made me angry, and the rest made me so sad I’d flick them away only to have them return moments later. Others seemed irrational, but what if they weren’t? I don’t possess any special immunity against bad things happening to someone I care about because I can’t handle it.

And all the while, I couldn’t help thinking about the deadline, still weeks away. Clearly, I’m not ready for it. Maybe he figured that out? Maybe this is like agreeing to count to three, but dunking your kid on two, so they don’t see it coming? Well, fuck that. If this ends up being some kind of test, I’m going to kill him.

A final check of my phone confirmed what I already knew. He hadn’t answered. Again, I couldn’t keep myself from emailing: Really worried. Please, please reply. After I sent it, I didn’t know what to do with myself. All I knew was I had to talk to someone. I had to try to steal someone’s rationality. But talking would mean telling, and I struggled with that for the next several hours as I wandered aimlessly around the house. Eventually, I decided I didn’t have a choice. Someone had to be told, and Julia was the only possibility.

So here I am, on the floor, phone in hand, putting out as few words as possible, trying to downplay, to couch, to duck and cover. But Julia isn’t stupid. And after I hem and haw, she asks the question I was trying to avoid all along.

“Tish, are you having an affair with this man?”

CHAPTER 3 Homecoming

I met Claire soon after I moved home from college.

I grew up in Springfield, an almost-a-city town set in the middle of a vast plain of flatness. They used to grow wheat here a century ago, before the land was used up and the farmers moved farther west. Old barns and grain silos still dot the landscape, empty now except for the history they hold.

My parents’ house was equidistant between the only wooded area in town—called, imaginatively, the Woods—and the public golf course. I spent an equal amount of time at both, allowed by my parents to roam free with my older brother, Tim. We learned to swim in the cold pools in the river, and played Pirates, Capture the Flag, and a game of our own invention called “You Can’t Get There from Here” in the Woods.

When Tim tired of me, I’d sling a bag full of my dad’s cast-off clubs over my shoulder and walk to the golf course. Everyone knew me there, and many of the grown-ups would let me join them, cheering me on if I made a good shot, helping me search for my ball in the tall grasses that waved along the side of the course when I didn’t.

Winter meant snow forts and snowball fights, skating on the rink my dad made in the backyard: Fueled by his dreams of having at least one son in the NHL, he’d be out there late most nights smoothing the surface by applying a fresh layer of water with a garden hose. It also meant shuffling to the golf course to look out over the snowy undulations and frozen water hazards, waiting longingly for spring.

When it was time to apply to college, Tim was already in his second year at State, but I decided to cast a wider net. I had good grades, so why not? And if the schools I applied to tended to have less winter and be in proximity to affordable golf, or have—nirvana—their own golf course, all the better.

I got into a smaller liberal arts college several degrees latitude south, and my parents were amenable to helping me out, so that’s where I went.

I came home six years later.

I knew a few things about myself by then. The first and foremost was that I was never going to make the PGA Tour. Okay, I already kind of knew that, but a guy can dream, can’t he? But I also knew I didn’t want to be anything I’d imagined being as a boy—fireman, teacher, lawyer. What I really enjoyed was numbers, the certainty of 2 + 2. In my junior year, I’d switched from history to accounting, stuck around for a few extra years to get my CPA, and worked on how to make “I’m going to be an accountant” sound intriguing enough to get a couple girls to go home with me.

As much as I’d enjoyed my time away, I also knew I wanted to go back to Springfield.

Maybe I was homesick, but I felt like I knew that most of all.

After I got back, I spent enough time living with my parents to change my leisurely plan of looking for an apartment while I set up my accounting practice into a thing of urgency, then borrowed some money from them to buy a condo in a newer building close to what passed for downtown in Springfield.

And that’s how I met Claire.

I needed a lawyer to work out the paperwork for the condo, and to set up my new business. A bit of asking around told me that James & Franzen were the best, so I called to make an appointment. The receptionist asked me if I minded working with one of the newer members of the firm.

“Sure, that’d be fine.”

“Great. Claire James has an opening tomorrow at eleven thirty, would that do you?”

The name seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “It would.”

The next day I put on a pair of pressed khakis and a sport coat—a hand-me-down from my father that had the golf course’s crest embroidered above the right-hand pocket—and strolled across the town square. As I passed person after person I knew, and smiled and nodded and said, “Yup, I’m back for good, you need an accountant, you give me a call,” I wondered what it was about the name Claire James that was so familiar, but I still couldn’t get there.

I cast those thoughts aside as the Claire James in question came out to meet me. She was about my age, maybe a bit older, and pretty. Wearing a navy-blue skirt and jacket, she had chestnut hair that touched her shoulders, pale blue eyes that were a little close together above a straight nose, and medium-full lips covered in a light gloss. She smiled and her whole face lit up, exuding warmth and confidence.

I felt tongue-tied as I followed her down the corridor. Although I was still in the process of breaking up with my college girlfriend, Lily—she didn’t want to move to Springfield, but we weren’t quite prepared to give up on the idea of us having a future together—I knew immediately that I really wanted to ask Claire out.

But first, we had some business to attend to.

“Did Tim give you my name?” she asked as she sat down behind her desk, kicking off an uncomfortable-looking pair of high-heeled shoes. “You don’t mind, do you?”

My brain fogged with confusion until I realized she was referring to her stockinged feet.

“No, of course not. But how do you…”

Her face fell as memory clicked into place. Claire James. Shit. This was Tim’s law school girlfriend, who happened to be from Springfield too. The one I didn’t meet because Tim and I never seemed to be home at the same time anymore. The one I never met before that because she went through the private school system and was Tim’s age. And, most importantly, the one Tim broke up with around graduation and had been tight-lipped about ever since.

“Oh,” was all I could manage.

“I’m guessing that means Tim didn’t send you?”

“I’m sorry, I called the general line and they put me on to you.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“For not making the connection, I guess.”

“That’s all right. Have you heard from Tim lately?”

She was trying to act casual as she asked this, but the way her neck flushed gave her away. Problem was, I hadn’t spoken to Tim lately. None of us had. He’d fucked off a few months after finishing law school to take a “spin around the world,” and his communication since then had been infrequent and short. In Spain read one postcard, sent from Seville and depicting a bullfight. Old buildings.

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

“If this is going to be awkward, I’m sure I can find someone else to handle my stuff.”

“No, no,” she said, and waved off my suggestion. “That’s all done with. And it’s not your problem.”

But it was.

When I was twelve, my dad decided it was time to give me the Talk.

I’d been caught folding my stained Matchbox-car sheets into the washing machine early one Sunday morning. I stood there, frozen, while my dad watched me over his coffee cup with a look of deep understanding. My ears went hot, feverish. I thanked God my mom was a late sleeper.

He beckoned me into the kitchen, poured me a small cup of joe, and stumbled his way through a version of the facts of life that was so alien to what I already knew from TV and the schoolyard I was pretty sure he didn’t know what he was talking about.

When he finally let me go hide in my room, Tim came to find me. Tim was fourteen. He’d grown. I had not. The weight of him as he sat down on the side of my bed reminded me of my father. But his voice still cracked.

“Nice try, loser.”

I pulled the sheet down. He was smirking at me, but in a friendly way.

“Ah, fuck off.”

“You gotta wait till they’re out of the house.”

“I was kinda figuring that out.”

“Dad talk to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Predictable.”

“Whatever.”

“Bet you can’t wait to get a girl now.”

His mild sarcasm made me wonder whether what my dad had said might’ve been accurate after all.

“No way. Girls are gross.”

“Right. Till they aren’t.”

“Huh?”

“What do you think you were dreaming about, dummy? Unless…”

I picked up my pillow and threw it at him. “I’m not a homo.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not.”

“So girls won’t be gross forever, then.”

I thought about the girls in my class. How my friends and I made fun of their “best-friend” necklaces. How they held hands when they walked down the hall. How they’d cry over the breakup of their friendships.

Who needed that kind of drama?

“Maybe.”

“Trust me.”

“What do you know about it?”

“More than you, Mr. Matchbox Car.”

“I’ve asked Mom like a thousand times to get me new sheets.”

“Well, maybe she will now that you’re a man and all.”

My stomach clenched in panic. “Dad’s not going to tell Mom, is he?”

“I think you can count on it.”

I pulled the covers back up over my head. Tim left me in my fortress of embarrassment wondering whether what he’d said about girls was right, but it soon became clear. Almost overnight, girls stopped being “girls” and became Sara, Allison, and Christie. And the scuffle that resulted a couple months later from John kissing Brendan’s “girlfriend” led us to adopt the Rules.

Well, there was just the one rule, really: Once a girl was stupid enough to go out with one of us, she was off-limits.

Forever.

Because forever seemed like a real thing then, something that had to be respected.

Loyalty to my brother—and the certain knowledge that acting on my growing feelings for Claire would be a gross violation of the Rule—kept me from asking her out for months.

I held it in check while she helped me buy my condo and set up my business and became a friend. I worried that becoming her friend would mean I’d lose my chance to be something more. I spent way too much time thinking about the whole thing, to be honest, which really wasn’t like me. With the exception of Lily, I’d flitted in and out of relationships without much thought, and had been attracted to girls who I instinctively knew would tire of me in short order or wouldn’t be that upset if I tired of them.

So I knew I was in trouble.

I just didn’t know how much.

In the midst of all this thinking, I finally broke up with Lily, driving twelve hours to do it in person. Six hours there, a two-hour prolonged and tearful—on her part—conversation, then six hours back, knowing I’d done the right thing but still feeling shitty. Would I have tried harder to work things out if Claire wasn’t in the picture? But Claire wasn’t really in the picture, so why was I acting as if she were? My brain wheeled round and round until I took the exit off the highway for home and my spirits began to lift.

I was twenty-four, free, and half in love with my brother’s ex-girlfriend. I did a few stupid things to try to get her out of my system. Like hanging out in the local hookup bar, taking home girls I knew I was never going to ask out again, who’d become someone I avoided in the grocery store. I was having fun, but I was brooding too. Assuming Claire did want to go out with me, how was I ever going to get past the Tim factor?

Then she did it for me.

About six months after we first met, we were having lunch at a deli that had opened recently near her office.

I’d received a postcard from Tim. Welcome to Coolangatta it read, with the words Learning to scuba written on the back. I had to look up the name to figure out he was in Australia. It was in my pocket, and I was fingering it nervously, wondering if I should show it to her. I eventually decided to do it, and tried to act casual as I pulled out the slightly moist card and slid it across the counter.

“Heard from Tim,” I said, taking a large bite of my sandwich.

“Oh?”

She picked up the card, staring at the azure ocean, the cloudless sky, the red sand beach. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she turned it over and read the words on the back.

“Well, that’s that, then.” She pushed it back to me.

“What’s that?”

“Tim wanted to go to Australia. That’s why we broke up.”

“You didn’t want to go?”

She shook her head, looked away.

“I know how that feels.” I took a sip of my Coke to wet my drying throat. “Lily, I told you about her, right? Anyway, she didn’t want to move here. So…”

“So?”

“We broke up.”

“I heard.”

I wondered what else she’d heard. Not too much, hopefully.

“Small towns.”

She played with her napkin. “The funny thing is, I would’ve gone with him if he’d really wanted me to, but the minute I expressed some reluctance he blew it up into this big thing, like he was looking for an excuse to break up.”

“Idiot.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, my brother’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, well, some things aren’t meant to work out. I mean, if he really loved me, we would’ve figured it out, right?”

Did that mean I hadn’t really loved Lily? Because I thought I had. It certainly felt like love during the good parts. But one thing was certain: Claire loved Tim enough to move around the world for him. I’d better put my dreams away if I knew what was good for me.

She put her hand on my knee. Thoughts of Tim receded.

“You won’t tell Tim about any of this, will you?”

“Of course not.”

“Thanks, Jeff, you’re a really good friend.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, then pulled back, looking confused. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I…I’ve wanted that for a while now.”

“You’ve wanted me to kiss you on the cheek?”

“Among other places,” I said, hoping I was striking the right flirty tone, my heart racing against my chest.

“Well, then, maybe we should do something about that,” she said slowly.

“What did you have in mind?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Do you like Asian food?”

As I stood in the shower two nights later, a riot of rationalization skipped through my brain. He broke up with her. She’d asked me out. He’d barely communicated with any of us for months. Maybe he was never coming back. Besides, if I even wanted to ask his permission, he’d made that impossible. We had no address, no phone number, no way of contacting him. He’d untethered himself from us. How could he complain if things happened? How could he be surprised if life moved on?

I toweled off and climbed into fresh clothes: a new pair of jeans, a collared shirt, and my trusty blazer. Maybe it was too dressy for the occasion, but it felt like a time to dress up.

I drove to Claire’s, wishing I’d taken the time to clean out the inside of my beat-up Toyota. She was waiting on the stoop—something I took as a good sign—wearing a wool skirt and a turtleneck sweater. She had on some makeup and her hair was shiny. I was glad I’d gone with the blazer.

We went to dinner at the only Thai restaurant in town, and the conversation flowed in an easy way I hadn’t felt in a while, maybe never. She teased me about my lack of knowledge of Asian cuisine, and I ate whatever she put in front of me, struggling with my chopsticks. Some of it was slimy, and some of it was too spicy for my taste. I washed it all down with too many Chinese beers, and by the end of the meal I was slightly drunk.

After dinner, we took a walk through the town square. The bare trees had lights strung through them, a leftover from Christmas. They glinted off Claire’s hair, and to me, she looked perfect. It was coming on spring and the air was warm, though there was still some snow on the ground. A gentle breeze blew through the trees, and I breathed in the loamy smell of wet earth, dead grass, and old snow. I’d be golfing in a month if I was lucky.

I felt light on my feet and happy.

Happy in my soul.

Claire strolled next to me, her hands clasped behind her back, like she was keeping them to herself. I wanted possession of her hand—I wanted more than that, but the hand would do for now—so I said something silly to distract her, and it worked. Her arms fell to her sides and I seized the opportunity. She started slightly, looking down at her soft white hand encased in mine, then up at me.

By the smile on her face, I knew we’d be kissing soon.

Any moment now.

Any moment now.

CHAPTER 4 A Shot through the Heart

One of the police officers (the one I can’t place) tells me he’ll check on Seth. The other leads me to the couch, giving me the barest of details before asking if he can call anyone for me. I mutter something about the emergency contact list taped next to the kitchen phone. And all the time I’m feeling stunned, detached, a million miles from the tragedy that’s unfolding in my house like space after the big bang.

Time passes. People start arriving. My mother. My father. My doctor. Friends, friends, friends, until the house is full, there have never been this many people in the house, I couldn’t get away from them if I tried.

At one point I begin calling Seth’s name and my mother, I think it’s my mother, shushes me and says Seth’s fine, Seth’s being taken care of, what do I need? I give her a look that says, Are you seriously asking me that? She knows what I need. Everyone knows what I need, but I’m not getting that again. Not ever.

More time passes, and now I have to go to the bathroom, but I seem glued to the couch, kept there by the prison of people talking low, some fighting back tears, some crying openly. They all want to hug me, but the feel of their skin on mine, the words they say in my ear, make me feel worse. I’m convinced in this moment that if I choose to, I can leave my mind and never come back again.

A family friend and my lifelong doctor, Dr. Mayer, sits next to me and presses something into my hand. Pills. I don’t want to take them, but he guides my hand to my mouth and gives me a glass of water to swallow them down with. I do it and he nods approvingly. He takes me by the elbow, maneuvering me through the throngs of people (do I really know this many people?) and up to my bedroom.

Without asking, he takes me into the bathroom and suggests I use the facilities. He leaves me alone long enough to pee, and to register, as I stand up, that whatever he gave me is acting fast, that I really am in space now.

I wobble as I come out of the bathroom. Dr. Mayer catches hold of me and walks me to my bed, removes my shoes, pants, and sweater. He folds me into the covers, and in an instant all is black but the stars.

I spend most of the weekend in bed, in proper pajamas now, courtesy of my mother. Every couple of hours someone comes to check on me, or bring me food I can’t swallow, or more pills, which I reluctantly do. My bedroom’s been transformed into a hospital ward, all the comings and goings, the checking on the patient. It reminds me of the days I spent in the hospital after Seth was born by emergency Caesarean. It was too loud to sleep, and food and meds were pushed on me there too. All I wanted to do then was hold Seth, and that’s the same now. He’s spent the last two nights sleeping next to me, in Jeff’s place, his body in the same half-pike position his father sleeps (slept, slept, it’s slept now, Jesus) in.

My sister, Beth, arrives Sunday night. I can hear her downstairs talking to my parents, asking how I’m doing. Unlike everyone else, she makes no effort to talk low, despite my mother’s shushing. Instead, she takes the stairs two at a time and, in an instant, she’s climbing into bed next to me fully clothed, curling onto her side like we used to do as kids.

“You look like shit,” she says.

“God, Beth. Jeff—”

“It’s awful, so awful, I’m barely functioning myself. But I think you might feel better, I truly do, if you get up and take a shower, maybe change into some real clothes. Eat something. Mom tells me you haven’t had anything since Friday.”

“Not hungry.”

“Will you try, sweetie? For me?”

I glance at the bedside clock behind her. Two more hours until someone arrives with the magic pills that keep the world at a safe distance.

“Funeral pills,” Dr. Mayer called them yesterday when I asked what they were. Then he went bright red, like he couldn’t believe the words had escaped his mouth. He apologized, but I told him it was okay. I mean, it wasn’t, it was never going to be okay, but there’s going to be a funeral, and as much as I thought I was done with taking pills, it’s clear to me now that I’m going to need them to get through it.

“I don’t have anything to wear,” I say to Beth.

“Of course you do, hon. You’ve got a closet full of clothes.”

“I meant for the…” I pause to gulp in air, not sure I can get the word out. “Funeral.”

Beth brushes my tears away. “Oh, Claire. I’m so, so sorry.”

Sunday night is a fog of drugs and bad, vivid dreams. Seth’s still sleeping with me, and though he hasn’t said much, his sleep speaks for him. He thrashes and kicks and moans, behavior I’ve never seen before, not even when he was a tiny thing. I rest my hand on his chest, above his heart, and it seems to calm him. But if I drift away and my hand follows suit, it’s only minutes until he’s back at it again, a whirling dervish of grief who doesn’t have access to the medicinal solace I’ve been allowed.

When I asked Dr. Mayer if something could be done for Seth too, he told me it wasn’t standard procedure. Kids are resilient, he said.

Meaning what? I almost asked.

And if I need the drugs, what does that make me? Weak? Pliable?

All I know is that we’re both broken and it’s too soon to tell if it’s beyond repair.

I open my eyes in the early light of morning. Seth’s face is inches from mine. He’s also awake. He looks so like Jeff in this moment, same chocolatey-brown eyes, same dark, unruly hair. I stop myself just in time from using his name.

“Were you having a bad dream, baby?”

Usually this term of endearment is met with an eye roll and a reminder to never call him that in public, but today all he says is “Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah.”

“Maybe if you told me, it wouldn’t seem so bad?”

“Don’t think so.”

“How do you know if you don’t try?”

A tear rolls down his face. “Because when I woke up the dream was still true.”

Whatever pieces of my heart that are still intact break in this instant. I can’t make things better for my son. I can’t take away his nightmares because life is a nightmare now.

Jeff, Jeff. How could you leave us like this?

“I’m sorry, baby.”

He buries his head in my neck. We lie there like this for a while, the room brightening around us, the day marching on, even if we’re frozen.

Around seven, Seth sits up abruptly. “I want to go to school.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not yet.”

“But there are so many people here, all the time.”

“Won’t school be full of people?”

“I’m used to that.”

“Things might be different now.”

“I think I’ll feel…better there than here. Can I? Please, Mom?”

I nod. “Don’t feel like you have to stay if things are hard, okay?”

“Okay. Are you going to be all right?”

“Beth’s here.”

He kisses me on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”

Seth gets up. I stay in bed, wishing he hadn’t wanted to go. I keep imagining what it will be like for him, wondering (because I can’t keep my mind from going to dark places) whether it will be like my first day back at work after we lost the baby.

About four years ago, we got pregnant again. We’d been trying for years. We never intended such a large gap between Seth and our second. We’d even discussed having three, but we tried and tried and nothing happened. We saw Dr. Mayer. He tested both of us and found no medical reason for my inability to conceive. These things take time, he said, sometimes. We shouldn’t stress about it. In fact stressing about it would be a bad thing. Stressing about it could make it not happen.

But how do you not stress about something like that? Especially when it’s your body you’re constantly looking for changes in. Do my breasts feel sore today, or is it the usual premenstrual soreness I get sometimes? Do I feel bloated? Is this the way I felt when I was pregnant with Seth?

These thoughts would tumble around and around every month until I was sick of it. I didn’t want to try anymore, I told Jeff. It was driving me crazy. He was disappointed but supportive. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think the pressure was getting to him too. And it was so nice to have regular sex again. When we wanted, without thinking about timing and body temperature and keeping my legs in the air for minutes afterward. Just sex. Sometimes good, sometimes great, sometimes rushed in between Seth’s various activities, sometimes languid and slow and tender. Just us, again.

Then we got pregnant.

I didn’t believe it at first. In fact, I never really believed it. Not when my period was weeks late. Not when I finally peed on a stick and the second blue line appeared, or when the doctor confirmed it with a blood test. Jeff was elated, and I pretended I was too, but deep down, I knew there was something wrong. I didn’t feel pregnant. Not like I had with Seth, not even like I had sometimes all those years when we were trying.

Jeff wanted to tell people right away, too early, but I convinced him to hold off until we passed the third month. That way, if something went wrong, no one would have to know. Nothing was going to go wrong, he said confidently, and in his certainty, I almost found belief. Then night would come, and I’d hold my hand on my still-flat belly and wait for that feeling, that flutter, that extra rush of blood that was supposed to be bringing sustenance to the cells supposedly dividing inside me. I never felt it, not once.

The three-month mark came, and Jeff was pressing me to tell someone, anyone, Seth, our parents, our friends. Wait until the ultrasound, I said, it’s only a few weeks away. Then we can tell. He looked at me for a long moment and asked me in a very quiet voice whether I wanted to be pregnant.

“Of course I do. You know I do.”

“Then what is it? Why won’t you tell anyone?”

“I’m just worried—”

“No, Claire, I don’t want to hear that again. There’s nothing wrong with the baby.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You weren’t like this with Seth. Why are you so convinced…what’s going on, really?”

I gathered the breath to tell him, to confess to my nightly vigils, but in the cold light of day it sounded absurd.

“It’s nothing. I don’t know why I’m so…we can start telling people, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Who do you want to tell first?”

We told Seth, my parents, his, our friends, and soon it felt like the whole town knew. They were all happy, so happy, for me, for us. I accepted the congratulations, the hugs. I told myself that the night flutters would come, that everything was fine.

Then, one of my friends would say in a certain tone of voice, “You don’t even look pregnant,” and a shot of doubt would go to my heart and stay there, joining the others, building, building.

As the ultrasound drew nearer, I started sleeping less and less. I know now that I was in the first throes of depression, but somehow, in the daylight, I was able to put on a happy face and keep it all inside. I was pregnant at last. No, we didn’t want to know the sex, we preferred the surprise, thank you, thank you, oh, right, I’m sure I’ll be blowing up any day now. Any day now.

On Ultrasound Day I woke up at four. I turned my head away from Jeff’s and watched the darkness shift to light. When it was a passable hour to get up, I pulled off the covers and hid in the shower. Looking down at my still-flat belly, I counted out the hours like the beats on a metronome until I’d know what I already knew.

Our appointment was at eight. We were in the waiting room at a quarter to, me almost catatonic, Jeff’s knee bouncing up and down with excitement. The nurse called us in. I put on one of those awful hospital gowns and lay on the table.

Dr. Mayer entered the examination room—“Morning, morning”—his technician had called in sick so he was doing the exam himself, and he spread the cold, thick gel across my abdomen.

I cringed reflexively as he moved the wand around. We were all staring at the screen, me, Jeff, Dr. Mayer, looking for that rapid, whooshing heartbeat, that cluster of cells taking on a proto-baby shape. After the longest minute of my life, he frowned and held the wand in place, staring at a dark spot.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually.

“Sorry?” Jeff said. “What do you—”

I took Jeff’s hand in mine. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

It always struck me, afterward, that he was supposed to be reassuring me, but I never gave him the chance. I’d had so much longer to prepare, you see. I was ready, in a way.

Or so I thought. Dr. Mayer booked me for a D & C the next day, and then, at his and Jeff’s urging, I took the rest of the week off. The message (abnormal cells, no heartbeat, etc.) spread through our family, our life, our town. A week was enough time, everyone said, for me to move past it, to resume my life, to forget. I agreed with them because what else could I do? Tell them I’d had three months and three weeks to get over it? That now, when I put my hand on my stomach at night, I finally felt the flutter I’d been searching for, for so long?

Of course, I couldn’t. When Monday morning came, I put on a suit and ate a banana and drove my car to my office. I made it through the front door and started walking down the hall, aware of the stares, the murmurs. I felt like an arrow moving through the building, sharp and lethal.

The people around me felt my lethalness, I’m sure they did, because they moved out of my way as fast as they could. No one reached out. No one tried to stop me.

Before I knew it, I’d walked the length of the building and was outside again, through the emergency exit, gasping for air next to a big green Dumpster.

And as I count out the minutes it will take Seth to get ready, sling on his backpack, and climb onto his bus, I can’t help but wonder, Will my son be that arrow today? Or will he attract the support he needs, rather than scare it away?

CHAPTER 5 Safety Minute

After I get off the line with Julia, my phone remains eerily silent for the rest of the day. I can usually count on several emails from some overeager newbie working on a Sunday, and the inevitable reply-alls that follow, but I don’t even get any spam. The only message I receive is a straightforward text from Brian. She won! Heading back now.

Instead, I ride an emotional roller coaster, cursing myself for calling Julia in the first place. Jeff is fine, he is, and there’ll be some explanation, some funny, crazy story, about why he hasn’t answered me. We’ll laugh about it, and I’ll keep this weekend to myself.

Feeling like I’m going to jump out of my skin, and knowing the golf course doesn’t open for another week, I decide to take a hike up the mountain behind my house.

The mountains were the first thing I noticed about this town, twelve years ago, when Brian and I were trying to decide where to move when he was setting up his practice. The first thing I noticed, that is, once I could see past the sameness of the houses, the gently curving streets meant to slow down traffic to keep the children safe, the blond Scandinavian look most of the denizens seemed to have.

I already felt like my darker features made me stand out, like a Hungarian invader. And I wondered if I could ever feel at home in a place so different from the concrete modernity I’d grown up in.

The town is built in an ancient caldera, created when a meteor crashed into the earth long, long ago. The result is a round, flat plain, surrounded by mountains that must once have been craggy and sharp but are now smoothed and tame. Mountains that change with the seasons, the time of day, that cup the light and fill the eye in every direction above the asphalt roofs of the never-ending three-bedroom split-levels.

“What do you think?” Brian asked me as we stood on the steps of the fifth nearly identical house we’d seen that day. This one had a spider plant hanging from a hook at the edge of the porch roof. The Spider-Plant House, I thought, had a slightly different bathroom configuration from that of the Eggplant-Appliances House or the one with that strange smell in the third bedroom.

I gazed past him at the mist clinging to the mountains, thinking dreamily about how my best words always came while I was hiking somewhere, pushing my body toward something.

“I think…this is it,” I said.

“You sure?”

I kept my eyes on the mountains, mapping out a ski route on a particularly inviting slope.

“If you are.”

“I am.”

“You sure you don’t want to take that research position in Toronto?”

“Nope. Or the ER position in Chicago. Not interested.”

We’d lived in both places for a couple of years while Brian finished his training and built up his skills to the point where he felt he could go out on his own.

I smiled at him indulgently. “All you’ve ever wanted to be was a real doctor. A small-town jack-of-all-trades. Like your dad.”

He hated the anonymousness of the big-city hospitals, never seeing the same patient twice except for the chronic hypochondriacs and the drug-seekers.

His face lit up. “Imagine all the good I can do, really getting to know my patients, following them through their lives. But…I want you to want it too. I don’t want you to give anything up to move here.”

I let this thought trickle through my brain. Would I be giving anything up? Although I’d paid for college through a sports scholarship, golf was over for me. Natural ability and no drive, my coach always said, pun intended. And though I loved to write, poetry mostly, I wasn’t going to make a living writing shaky lines about the way my heart felt either. The words were already coming less often, the tumult of teenage-hood giving way to the prosaicness of my mid-twenties. I’d had four jobs in four years. I was directionless. I needed an anchor, something, someone, to hold on to before I drifted any further out to sea.

And Brian, sweet, smart, determined Brian, was the steadiest person I’d ever encountered who wanted to put up with directionless me.

“I’m not giving up anything,” I said.

And in that moment, I thought it was true.

After the hike fails to calm my heart, I do the only thing left I can think of. I slip into Brian’s office and root through his medical bag. I gave it to him when he started his practice, soon after we moved here, making some joke about him being the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s stamped with the words Dr. Brian Underhill in faded gold letters. My fingers probe through its contents until I find the bottle of Ativan he keeps in it. I hold it in my hand, wondering briefly which act is worse: the stealing of the medication or the reason I need to.

I press my palm into the safety cap and twist until it releases. I shake out four pills, hoping Brian won’t notice their absence from the almost-full bottle. I hesitate for a moment, but I can’t go on feeling like this, so I swallow one down with a glass of water and tuck the remaining pills in my pocket, just in case. Then I lie on the couch and wait for the pill’s effects to start. After a while, I feel my heart start to slow and a sleepy calm comes over me. My eyes slide shut, my thoughts float away, and I know I’m asleep the moment before I am.

I’m still like that, my head to the side, a bit of drool running down my chin, when Brian and Zoey get home. I make a half attempt to get up, but Brian puts a practiced hand to my forehead and professes me slightly feverish. He raises me enough to slip an aspirin and some water into my mouth, then eases me back down and pulls a blanket over me, like he’s done with Zoey countless times.

Only tonight, I’m the one who’s helpless.

I wake early the next morning feeling groggy and disoriented till it hits me, the dread rushing back like water released from a dam.

Brian’s already up. I can hear him rattling around in the kitchen, making coffee, toast. I push my hand into the pocket of the jeans I slept in. The pills are still there. I feel relieved and ashamed, but that doesn’t stop me from breaking one in half and taking it in the bathroom after I brush my teeth.

Up in my bedroom, I dress haphazardly with the first things I come across. I twist the half pill into a Kleenex, shoving it into the pocket of my skirt, and hide the remaining two in my sock drawer.

When I go back downstairs, Zoey’s sitting at the breakfast table, the newspaper propped in front of her while she munches on a piece of toast slathered with butter and jam. She’s wearing her school uniform. Her long dark hair flows across her back in a messy tangle. I sit down next to her and apologize for not having been up to hearing about how the competition went the night before.

“ ’Skay,” she says between bites of toast. “Feeling better?”

“A bit.”

“You should eat something,” Brian says, plunking down a glass of juice and a plate of toast in front of me. “It’ll settle your stomach.”

I bite off a small corner of the toast, and wash the cardboard taste out of my mouth with a sip of orange juice.

“Was it fun, Zo? Were you happy with how it went?”

“I screwed up a line in ‘Trees.’ I said, ‘The way is gracious / when your leaves tumble down’ instead of ‘The gracious way your leaves tumble down.’ ”

“I kind of like the new version better.”

“But that’s not what we’re being graded on. You have to stick to your original poem exactly.”

“You’ll nail it next time, Zo,” Brian says.

“And it’s not like it kept you from winning,” I add.

“Mommmm, that’s so not the point.”

Zoey was born forty weeks and a day after we moved to the “other Springfield,” as it’s called at work. She’s the result of the second honeymoon feeling that consumed us the minute we went into escrow.

Zoey was a beautiful baby. With my black hair and her father’s blue eyes, she looked like I always imagined Sara Crewe did when she was still A Little Princess. But mostly, she was an incredibly observant child. Able to hold her head steady from an early age, she would follow us around the room with her eyes, as if she was trying to figure out how we did whatever it was we were doing.

Turns out, she was. Zoey’s first word wasn’t a word, it was a sentence.

“I want milk,” she said clearly at eleven months. I nearly dropped the plate I was holding, certain I was hearing things.

Then she said it again: “I. Want. Milk.” Then she paused and added, “Mama.”

Brian was extremely excited. He’d never admit it, but he had that fear a lot of smart people have that their children won’t exhibit the same kind of intelligence they possess. So her precociousness was a relief. She spoke in full sentences before she was one. She was obviously a genius!

I met this news with wonder and trepidation. I’d been a quasi child prodigy myself (at golf), and I knew that wasn’t always a good thing. It marked you out, kept you from hanging out with your friends, and came with expectations. At some point you grew up, and what you did, whatever it was, wasn’t remarkable anymore—unless you lived up to your full potential, which I hadn’t, not by a long shot. Another pun intended from my college golf coach. He had a bag full of them. Ha!

I read somewhere that many adults with advanced IQs are often less happy than those who test average. Like how there’s this optimal money/happiness equation. Once you pass a certain amount of household income, life isn’t any better.

Apparently, money can’t buy happiness, or it does, but it costs less than you imagined it would.

Anyway, Brian was excited, I was happy but cautious, and Zoey was, well, Zoey. She’d observe, listen, absorb, then issue these comments on what we’d been doing. First in short, declarative sentences (“Mama opened the fridge.”), then increasingly in an almost lyrical way (“These blocks are beautiful.” “The sky is floating.”).

Brian taught her to read and write when she was three, and she produced her first poem at age four years and seven months. It’s framed and hanging in the stairway in between shots of her at various ages. Written in orange crayon, it reads, The rain falling against my window / is scratchy / It makes the world / blurry / It’s hard to sleep / when the rain is falling / against my window.

Four-going-on-five Zoey wasn’t Shakespeare, but she delivered her poem with amazing force, standing in the party dress she’d insisted on wearing before reading it to us, her shiny Mary Janed feet a body-width apart, keeping her steady.

And what do you do in this day and age when your child performs some marvelous feat? You ask her to do it again, of course, and this time you make sure you have your video camera ready. If you’re me, you email that video to a few friends and family, or post it on Facebook with a proud caption. But if you’re Brian, and you’ve been tracking every sign of prodigiousness since her first demand for milk, you spend hours editing the video, buffing it here and splicing it there. You study how videos go viral, and you make sure this one does.

And you don’t tell your wife because, well, you say sheepishly when she learns what you’ve done by overhearing two people talking about it in the grocery store, you thought it would be a nice surprise, you weren’t sure it was going to work. Isn’t it amazing that it’s up to ten thousand views already?

And he looks so excited, so proud, this man you love, who loves your daughter more than anything, that you squash down the anger that’s been building since the produce aisle and you smile and say, of course it’s a great surprise, and wow, that’s amazing.

So that’s what I did. And I did it again when he showed me the spoken word competitions he’d found, a couple of them really close by. They weren’t beauty contests, he was quick to assure me. No tiaras. No spray tans. Only the spoken word, spoken by our daughter. He was excited, she was excited, I couldn’t say no.

We went. Zoey back in her party dress, her hair French-braided, our video camera at the ready.

She lost.

I was worried she’d be devastated, but instead of putting her off the whole thing, which I think I was secretly hoping for, it made her more determined. I’d find little scraps of paper scattered around the house full of misspelled words and half-rhymes written with thick colored markers, and it wasn’t long before she started winning those competitions, her room filling up with ribbons and trophies.

I’m not sure when I became less involved. Maybe it was always essentially her thing with Brian. I went to those early competitions, my stomach clenched as she spoke. I dried her tears and shared her joy. But it was Brian who planned for the next one, who knew the other competitors, who strategized her rise through the ranks.

The irony of it being Brian who was the one who encouraged her writing came up during our first interview with the local morning news show. Zoey was eight. She’d just won the National Spoken Word Competition in her age category. We were sitting on a three-seater couch, the arc lights above us casting a hot glow. The host, who looked handsome and young for his age on television, but grubby and older up close, leaned forward.

“I understand Zoey gets her talent from you, Mrs. Underhill?”

I blinked a few times, caught off guard. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Aren’t you the poet in the family?”

“No, I—”

“You were the editor of your college poetry journal, right?”

“Yes, that’s true, but—” I stopped myself from saying, “She’s so much better than I was.” I’m not sure why, exactly. Maybe I wanted to protect the teenage/college me.

“Yes?” the interviewer prompted.

“I meant…I can’t take credit for what Zoey’s done. What she’s doing. She does it all on her own, truly.”

I could see the skepticism in his eyes, could tell he believed me to be the worst kind of stage mother. But until that moment, I’d never connected my poems, which I hardly ever wrote anymore, with Zoey’s. She was passionate, directed, focused, while I started and abandoned career after career.

There was no contest, really.

Brian drives me to the office, worried about me in my weakened state. He drives slowly, cautiously, and I’m almost late for an early department meeting. There’s another round of cuts coming, Art Davies was just the beginning, and we have to establish what our severance strategy will be.

Why we have to have a meeting about this every time we start a round of layoffs is beyond me. Our severance strategy is always the same. Offer enough money so the majority of the employees being cut will accept the offer, no questions asked. Set aside a contingency fund for the small percentage who seek legal advice and demand more. Have a firm ceiling above which you cannot rise during your negotiations with said lawyers. Make it clear that you will see them in court if necessary. Chance that someone will institute litigation, according to the consultants: 0.02 percent.

I wish I could skip the whole thing, but what choice do I have? So here I am, completely freaked out, half an Ativan in the bag, skulking into the conference room with the rest of my department.

I take a seat next to my supervisor, Lori Chan, a tiny woman with straight black hair who’s been at the company about as long as I have, just in time for the Safety Minute presentation—the SMP.

If these meetings are pointless, the SMP is in a category all its own. Implemented two years ago when, as Jeff would say, the consultants started taking over, every meeting begins with one. A minute-long presentation about safety in the workplace. It’s why all the cars are parked ass inward in our parking lot. Why you’ll see employee after employee swing their legs out of their car and make sure both feet are planted firmly on the ground before exiting their vehicle. That, and an infinite number of other acts of conformity that are supposed to make us safer, but only make me think of the Two Minutes of Hate in Nineteen Eighty-Four every time I’m forced to listen to one of them.

I’m sure I’m being subliminally programmed for something; I’m just not sure what.

As Casey Durham, today’s lucky contestant, rises to tell us about water fountain safety, my mind drifts to the one fun Safety Minute I ever attended.

I don’t know how, but Hector Valenzuela knew he was about to get whacked. But first, he had to deliver his SMP. And boy, did he go out in style. He was supposed to be speaking about how to avoid paper cuts, but instead, he gave a very instructive, and very graphic, presentation on how to skin a moose. Apparently it depends on what you want to use the skin for, and all kinds of other things I never absorbed because I was laughing so hard thirty seconds in that the laughter took over my whole body. I was nearly crying by the time I told Jeff about it…

Is this what my life is going to be like after the deadline? Every little thing reminding me of him, and not being able to tell him about any of it?

Where is he, where is he, where is he?

I can feel my throat closing up and my head starts to spin even before it happens. Lori stands to thank Casey, then she gets this look on her face, this fake sad look, and says she has something else to add before we begin.

“I’m not sure how many of you knew him, but it’s my unfortunate job to inform you that Jeff Manning, of the other Springfield, died tragically in a car accident on Friday…”

No. No!

“Tish, are you okay?”

I didn’t realize I spoke out loud. Screamed. I think I might’ve screamed out loud.

“I…” I stand on wobbly legs and move as quickly as I can for the door.

The handle’s slippery in my hand, but I have to get out of here. Then I’m out, and the bathroom is only two doors away. I’m in a stall and I’m leaning over the toilet, heaving, choking, until there’s nothing left in my stomach, not even bile.

I knew it, I can’t stop thinking. I knew it.

CHAPTER 6 The Sweet Spot

A couple years ago, I was invited to the company’s annual retreat in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

I took it as a positive sign about my performance as the new head of the accounting department, but mostly I was happy it was slated to take place at a pricey golf resort, and that spouses were invited along for the ride. Claire and I hadn’t had a trip without Seth in a while, and it was nice that we were being forced to take the time. That we needed it was one more reason to be happy to go.

My parents eagerly agreed to stay with Seth, and I brought my clubs up from the basement, dusting them off and taking practice swings in the living room. I hadn’t played a round in four months, and I was feeling itchy. Not a golfer, Claire was looking forward to getting away from the dull gray winter we’d been having and seeing a bit of sun.

I don’t usually think of myself as the sort of person who’s affected by the weather, but I felt lighter the minute we deplaned. The sight of all that pristine grass, broken up by sandy-white bunkers and indigo water hazards, as we drove through the resort added to the bubble of happiness welling up inside me. I could tell that Claire was feeling happy too. She had a sort of perma-smile on her face, something I hadn’t seen in a while.

The resort was plush, spread out over endless acres bounded by the choppy ocean. Our suite was in a building next to the newly built clubhouse. The first one we’d been in since our surprise, paid-for-by-the-family honeymoon, the suite had a large living room, an even bigger bedroom, and a bathroom that was grand enough to house a Jacuzzi. The colors were light and airy. Sunlight flowed in from the massive windows that gave never-ending views of the kelly-green golf course.

“Maybe I should go to the pool?” Claire said, flitting around our room, unpacking. “Or, I saw tennis courts. Do you think I could find someone to play with me?”

“I think you could find someone to do a lot of things with you.”

“Flirting!”

“Can you flirt with your own wife?”

She rested her hands on my waist. “You certainly can.”

We started kissing, pressing against each other. Thoughts of the golf course drifted away. I had my shirt off and was working the buttons on hers when the phone next to the bed rang shrilly.

“You better get that,” Claire said.

I put my lips against her neck. “It’ll take a message.”

She swatted me gently as it rang again. “It might be one of the bosses calling.”

She was right. John Scott, the VP in charge of my department, wanted me to go to the driving range with him, had heard I could help out a guy who might have a “slight” slice. I wondered how he knew that, but then I remembered some passing conversation we’d had months ago about how I’d worked as a golf pro for a couple summers when I was putting myself through college. Drinks had been involved in this conversation, of course, because the truth was that I’d worked for the golf pro while I was putting myself through college. But I couldn’t tell him that, so I agreed to meet him in the lobby in fifteen.

“Sorry, honey, but duty calls,” I said as I hung up the phone. “I have to go to the driving range.”

“Since when has someone ever had to convince you to do that?”

“It shows the power you still have over me.”

“Now you’re feeding me lines! What’s gotten into you?”

I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like it had gotten into both of us.

I hoped it would last past golf practice.

“I feel happy.”

“You know what?” Claire said. “Me too.”

I met John in the lobby twenty minutes later. He was standing underneath a large blue banner that read Welcome! and was dressed like my grandfather used to, in a pink polo shirt, madras golf shorts, and tan socks pulled up to his knees. He was chewing on an unlit cigar, his shaven head glinting under the harsh overhead lighting.

“Jeff, my boy,” he said, shaking my hand firmly, “let’s do this thing.”

He slapped me on the back and led me outside, where a white electric golf cart was waiting for us. I had started to strap my bag in when a young kid in a dark blue polo shirt and chino shorts mumbled, “Let me help you with that, sir,” in nearly flawless English and snatched it from me, then did the same for John.

Having been in this kid’s position, I wanted to tip him for his efforts, but I’d left my wallet in my room. John took it as part of the included service, and placed his rather large behind into the golf cart. It listed to the side under his girth.

I mumbled an apology to the kid and climbed in next to John, surprised he was letting me drive. Until he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a silver flask. He unscrewed the top and took a long pull.

“Would you like a snort?” he asked, holding it out to me.

“I’m good.”

I pressed the pedal and followed the signs for the driving range, wishing I hadn’t answered the damn phone. Wishing the golf cart went faster than ten miles an hour.

These thoughts retreated when I caught sight of the nicest range I’ve ever been on. The grass looked like no one had ever hit a ball off it. The wooden pickets separating each practice area were whiter than the puffy clouds above, whiter even than the pristine balls filling the plastic baskets next to them. No chits, no ball machines, no marked-up, mangy range balls, just ones that looked like they’d been cracked out of their packets moments earlier. If making it to the majors meant real baseballs for practice, this was the Show of golf.

A different kid in the same uniform took our clubs and set them up. I mumbled another apology, and he thankfully placed me far enough away from John that his curses and frequent whiffs wouldn’t distract me.

I spent a few minutes watching his swing—hunched over, not coming back far enough, head lifting at the moment of contact—searching for some polite phrases that might actually help him without getting me fired. In the end, I suggested he stand taller and position himself differently to the ball, and he hit a few shots that didn’t arc into the woods. Satisfied, he waved me off, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Left alone with my golf bag and enough balls to ensure I’d be in need of a session in the Jacuzzi later—hopefully with a slippery and happy Claire—I got into a zone while I worked my way from my pitching wedge to my five iron, ten balls each. When my muscles felt loose, I took out my driver and used it to stretch my arms above my head.

As I twisted my body from side to side, I noticed that John was sitting on the grass in his pen, his legs splayed out in front of him, flask in hand. He was watching the only other person on the range, a tallish woman wearing a white polo shirt and cropped khaki pants. A long black braid of hair poked through the back of her white baseball cap.

I rested my driver on the ground, leaned against it, and watched her. She had, very possibly, the most natural golf swing I’d ever seen. She was using an iron—her seven, I think—to deftly flick a ball from the green plastic basket and up onto her tee. She drew the club back and—whack!—it flew off the face in a perfect arc and landed within feet of the fluttering blue flag a hundred and fifty yards away. I realized that she was, incredibly, making a ring around the flag. In a few minutes, there was more white than green in its radius.

I’m not sure how long I watched, but I remember feeling like I could watch forever. This woman was amazing. She should be on the tour, she should…

“That girl has a perfect ass,” John said, slurring his words and talking, I was sure, loudly enough for her to hear.

She turned in our direction, her features shaded by the peak of her cap. “Excuse me?”

“I was admiring your ass,” John replied unabashedly, all politeness washed away by the contents of his flask. “Your golf swing really shows it to its best advantage.”

Her iron swung in her hand like she was getting ready to use it. “And who are you?”

“I’m John Scott.”

From what I could see of her expression, she clearly wanted to tell John Scott to go fuck himself, but something was holding her back. Then it occurred to me—she must work for the company too. She couldn’t tell him to fuck off any more than I could.

I walked over to John’s pen. “Maybe we should get back? Isn’t the reception soon?”

“What? Oh, yes, I suppose you’re right.” He struggled to get himself into an upright position. The woman shot me a grateful look.

“Will we see you there, little lady?”

“Indubitably,” she said, and went back to her half-empty basket of balls.

When I got back to the room, I found Claire sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a plush taupe towel. The room was thick with steam, and her hair was wet and slicked back from her face. Pale skinned, she already had a slight sunburn across the bridge of her nose.

“Damn. If only I’d gotten here a few minutes earlier.”

She looked away from the television and grinned. “One-track mind.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

I walked toward her to give her a kiss, but her attention was drawn back to the screen. I followed her gaze. Anthony Bourdain was biting into what looked like a raw sea urchin, plucked from the crystal ocean behind him.

“Where is he this week?”

“Sydney.”

“Australia?”

“Yes.”

I watched the screen for a moment, listening to her breathing, feeling the stillness expand between us.

“It’s beautiful,” I said eventually. “No wonder Tim loves it there.”

“Shouldn’t we get to that cocktail party?” She stood, hugging the towel around her tightly.

“You’re right, we should.”

I walked past her to the bathroom and showered quickly, trying not to think about Claire and Australia and Tim. Eventually, I shifted my thoughts to the driving range as a distraction. And it worked, after a fashion.

I told Claire about John as we dressed.

“He’s a jerk,” she said. “But you shouldn’t let it bother you.”

“Wouldn’t it bother you?”

“Of course. But a lot of the old guard are like that. You have to roll with it.”

“Are you saying you get treated like that?”

“I used to. Sometimes.”

“By who? And why haven’t you told me that before?”

“Because I knew you’d want to beat the crap out of them, and that wouldn’t have been good for my career, now would it?”

“I might’ve taken some pleasure from it, though. Seriously, who talked to you like that? Was it that Ed guy?”

“It was no one in particular; part of my old life. Now come on, we’re going to be late.”

I stifled my annoyance and finished tying my tie.

Outside, we walked along the path to the clubhouse. It was dusk, and as we walked, a set of lanterns stuck into the lawn snapped on, illuminating the path. Bugs and birds buzzed and twittered in the trees above us. The air smelled like freshly mown grass and new paint. Venus was rising, bright above the horizon.

Claire curled her fingers into mine. After a moment’s hesitation, I squeezed her hand.

“Is this going to be excruciating for you?” I asked.

“Of course not. I’m sure I and the other wives will spend the night talking about our kids.”

I laughed and felt lighter because of it. “I do work with a few women.”

“Maybe I’ll talk to them, then.”

The clubhouse had a long wraparound porch. Little white lights were strung through the balustrade, and the din of cocktail conversation spilled into the night. We collected drinks from a waiter and spent the next hour winding through the crowd, having those brief exchanges you always have at these types of events. “Where are you from?” “What department do you work in?” “This is my wife.” “This is mine.” “Isn’t this place great?” “It really is.” “Do you work for the company too?”

Claire kept an eye out for the waiters passing with canapés, and by the end of the hour we had a good drink-to-bite-sized-food ratio going.

When the Milky Way was a streak above the now nearly invisible golf course, a gong sounded, calling us in to dinner. We searched the seating chart for our table and found out that we were sitting with John and his wife. I knew Claire actively disliked both of them, and I was pretty sure she’d hate John by dessert.

Hell, we might both hate him by dessert.

When we got to the table, John and Cindy were already seated, making inroads into a bottle of red wine. His face had a florid, other-side-of-sober look to it. He patted the seat next to him when he saw Claire. She sighed, and I whispered to her that she didn’t have to sit there if she didn’t want to. She told me she could handle it and sat down, her shoulders squared as if for a fight. I took the seat next to her, introducing myself to a middle-aged woman in a cocktail dress who was the chief operating officer’s wife.

The COO was deep in conversation with a very pretty, very young woman, the newly acquired wife of our sixty-year-old CEO. She was the talk of the company, her “modeling” photos circulating around the office. Some of them had been enhanced and/or captioned. You can imagine. I hoped the guys behind it weren’t on the outs with IT.

The seat next to hers was empty, for the CEO presumably. I couldn’t for the life of me understand how we’d ended up sitting here.

“What are we doing at this table?” Claire murmured.

“I was wondering the same thing.”

“I see big things in your future, young man,” she said, squeezing my thigh under the table. “Big things.”

The thought of that possibility made me nervous, and I decided to switch to water. Drinking as much as I wanted to seemed like a bad idea in the circumstances.

The first courses of salad and soup passed slowly. The COO’s wife was very nice, but we had less than nothing in common, and I began to regret my no-drinking decision. When the waiter came to refresh our drinks, I decided to allow myself a glass of wine. One glass with each course ought to keep things reasonable but bearable.

The main course was set up as a buffet against the back of the room. As we rose to take our place in line, Claire told me to go ahead, she’d meet me back at the table. I suspected she was going out for a smoke, but I didn’t call her on it. We had a sort of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy with respect to her smoking.

I tucked into line behind a woman whose long, wavy black hair hung loosely over her bare shoulders. We waited next to each other at the turkey station, while a man in a chef’s hat carved to order. The woman glanced at me when I asked for a large helping of dark meat.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

“Do we…?”

“You were with that John guy, right? On the driving range?”

“Still am.” I nodded toward my table. “Sorry about that.”

“Forget it.” She rolled her eyes. They were a dark green, the color of the dress she was wearing. It was a kind of loose, flowy thing made out of a fabric I didn’t know the name of. “I assume he’s not a friend of yours?”

“God, no,” I said.

The chef handed her a plate of juicy white meat with a crisp brown layer of skin lying across it. She waited for me to accept my own plate, and we moved down the line.

“Which branch do you work at?” she asked.

“Springfield.”

“Me too.”

“You new with the company?”

“Nope.”

“Then how come we don’t know each other?” The office was big, but not that big.

“You must be at the other Springfield.”

Johnson Company had recently acquired another company, located about five hundred miles away, in another town called Springfield. The name duplication was already causing problems. Mail had gotten lost, emails misdirected. There was a rumor that the CEO had tried to get the other Springfield, as we’d taken to calling it, to change its name.

The actual town.

Seriously.

“That’s too bad,” I said.

“How so?”

“It’d be nice to have another golfer in the office.”

“There must be tons of guys who play where you are. Isn’t it some golf mecca?”

I rolled my eyes. “Three courses and counting.” I leaned in so I wouldn’t be heard. “They’re mostly a bunch of duffers, to be honest. But you, Christ, you really schooled that flagpole. You taught that flag a lesson.”

I stopped, realizing I might be speaking through one too many glasses of wine.

“That wasn’t my intention but…thanks.”

“Did you play professionally?”

“College.” She paused, considering. “Scholarship.”

I spooned some stuffing onto my plate. She took a generous helping of cranberry sauce.

“And after college? Sorry, I don’t normally ask this many questions.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t good enough to take it anywhere, so I gave it up.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Lots of people can hit it at the flag on the range. It’s bringing it together on the course that matters. Besides, you should see me putt. I suck at putting.”

“I highly doubt that.”

She shrugged as she ladled gravy over her meat. “You’ll never know, right?”

“How’s that?”

“You live in your Springfield, I live in mine. Never the twain shall meet.”

“But we’re meeting now.”

“One-time thing. I have it on good authority these types of shindigs are going to be cut in the next budget.”

“That’s too bad.”

We’d reached the end of the line. I searched for something else to say.

“What department do you work in?” I asked lamely.

“HR. You?”

“Accounting.”

She raised her eyebrows, two dark slashes in an alabaster face. “The two most hated departments in the place. Anyway…”

“We should be getting back.”

“We should.”

“It was nice meeting you…I never got your name.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Never the twain shall meet, remember?”

“All right, then. It was nice not meeting you, whoever you are.”

“It was nice not meeting you too.”

CHAPTER 7 Six Feet Under

Tuesday morning, and Beth is insisting that I get out of bed, out of the bedroom, out of the house.

“Out of the house?”

“Yes. The great outdoors. Have you forgotten about it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

“That’s the first emotion I’ve seen you express since I got here. Those pills Dr. Feelgood has you on are too strong. I think some anger is what you need.”

I tuck my knees under my chin. “What I need is for this all to be some sick joke.”

“But that’s not going to happen, so what are you going to do about it?”

“Hiding in here seems about right.”

“I had another plan in mind.”

Beth’s plan involves shopping for a dress to wear for Jeff’s service, and some secret mission she won’t let me in on. And because she’s my older sister, and I’ve been programmed all my life to follow her instructions, I get up, shower, and come downstairs to face the rest of my family in the bright daylight streaming through my kitchen.

My mother and father are sitting at the breakfast table with Jeff’s parents. Our house seems to have become Grief Command Central, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. Thankfully, the other onlookers or well-wishers or whatever I should be thinking of them as have left, back to their lives, leaving only their Tupperware behind. God knows how many casseroles there are in the freezer.

The one person missing is Seth, who’s gone to school again. He wouldn’t tell me how it went yesterday when he got back, simply grumbling that it had been “fine.” This seemed like a good sign, a pre-Jeff-is-gone kind of behavior. But his troubled sleep continued, all thrashes and moans, and I held him like a baby, rocking him until he finally quieted.

After rising to hug me and tell me how glad they are I’m going out, my parents start bickering over the sections of the newspaper, as they have all my life. I feel a wave of embarrassment at their lack of tact in front of Jeff’s parents, one of those couples who give the impression they’ve never had an argument. But they act oblivious, hug me, and start on the dishes, Mr. Manning washing, Mrs. Manning drying, their grief etched in their faces, their meticulous movements.

I slump into a chair next to my mother, resting my chin in my hands, and stare out the window at the sunny day. Beth plunks a bowl of cereal in front of me, Seth’s special-occasion Froot Loops. I eat them, my hunger emerging after a few bites. Froot Loops are better than I remember.

“Josie called for you again,” my mom says.

“Okay.”

“Are you going to return her call?”

Josie’s one of our closest friends, but I haven’t been calling anyone back.

“Eventually.”

“Jesus, Mother,” Beth says. “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s a normal question. Why do you have to be so harsh all the time?”

Beth mutters something under her breath about her that, thankfully, only I hear. Or maybe my father hears it too. I notice a smile creep onto his lips, which quickly disappears when my mother gives him a quizzical look.

I eat the rest of my cereal, then bypass Jeff’s parents and put the bowl directly into the dishwasher. I always have to (had to, damn it, had to) remind Jeff to do the same, part of our normal married banter, the little rubs of everyday life.

“We’re going shopping,” Beth announces to no one in particular, then leads me out the door. My car’s parked on my side of the driveway, where I park it every day, where I parked it Friday.

Before.

Jeff’s side of the driveway is a blank expanse of cracked asphalt. It was on our list of things to try to fix this summer, if we had the money. His car must still be in the company parking lot. Should I ask Beth to pick it up? Do I even want it picked up, another reminder of his absence? Maybe I should give it to my parents, who’ve lived my whole life with one car, although they’ve never wanted to go to the same place.

I hand my car keys to Beth without speaking and buckle myself into the passenger side. I can feel anxiety creeping through my body, starting near my heart and radiating outward. The thought of actually being behind the wheel seems inconceivable. How can I ever be responsible for the tons of metal and plastic, the bumper, the hood, the windshield? The instruments of Jeff’s demise?

I shudder and pull on the seat belt so it slaps tight against my shoulder. It’s going to be fine, I think as Beth backs carefully out of the driveway, willing myself to believe it. Just fine.

The mall’s nearly empty. It’s early, and it’s Tuesday, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow I am. On the way here, I imagined being swept up in a sea of people, jostled, slightly claustrophobic, normal. Instead, it simply smells clean, and like there’s more air in it than usual. One more reminder of how different today is. How I shouldn’t be here.

“What do you think our best bet is?” Beth asks.

“Huh?”

“For an outfit, for—Christ, you’re not going to make me say it, are you?”

“I’m sorry. We should go to Stacy’s, I guess.”

“Don’t apologize. Please. Speaking before thinking. You know how I am.”

“Sure.”

“So Stacy’s is…?”

“This way.”

I angle in the right direction and Beth matches her stride to mine. She reaches down and takes my hand, and despite the numbing drugs, I’m almost in tears. I squeeze her hand and slide mine from hers. It’s something I’ve noticed, these last few days. Aside from Seth, anyone else’s touch, a kind word even, brings me close to the breaking point.

Beth doesn’t say anything as we pass by the jumble of clothing, knickknack, and electronics stores. When we get to Stacy’s, we weave through the racks of summer lines and frothy prom dresses. I don’t see a dark outfit anywhere, only a riot of color.

But Beth’s the older sister for a reason. She directs me to the fitting rooms, and before I have time to strip off my clothes, she’s back with three black dresses slung over her arm. They all look similar, black sheaths devoid of any personality other than widow. If I slap on the strand of pearls I got for my sixteenth birthday and a pillbox hat, maybe someone will mistake me for Jackie O, time-warped to the future.

“I think this one will fit you best,” Beth says, handing me one of the dresses.

She hangs the other two on the hook on the back of the door and pulls her sweater over her head.

“What are you doing?”

“I need a dress too, you know.”

“There’s a whole line of empty rooms.”

“Are you getting modest on me? We used to do this all the time.”

As she reaches down to undo her pants, flashes of similar occasions spring up. The first outfit I was allowed to buy without my mother (a pair of green striped pants I instantly regretted); my first formal wear (a turquoise gown with puffed sleeves); my wedding dress (a strapless A-line dress because Beth said you never regret the strapless A-line).

“Come on, slow coach, off with your clothes.” She pokes me in the stomach as she says the word clothes.

I pull back instinctively. “What the hell?”

“You don’t want to be here all day, do you?”

I definitely don’t, so I finish undressing and slip the stiff fabric over my head. It itches where it meets my collarbone, but that seems fitting somehow. I don’t want to feel comfortable on the day of Jeff’s funeral.

“That looks like it will do,” Beth says. “What about me?”

I look up at Beth. Four years older than me, her short hair is shot through with gray and there are lines on her face I’ve never noticed before. Her dress fits her well enough, but it looks uncomfortable too.

“You look like Hester Prynne,” I say.

“About to face my accusers? That’s exactly the look I was going for.”

Back in the car, Beth clicks on the radio, but I quickly snap it off. The low bass notes feel like an assault. I expect Beth to take us home, but as she drives in the opposite direction, I remember that we still have to complete the “secret mission” she won’t let me in on. I’m imagining all kinds of possibilities, but the place we actually end up didn’t even make the list.

“No, Beth. I can’t. I can’t go in there,” I say as we park outside a sprawling house with a conservative sign on the lawn that reads ANDERSON’S FUNERAL HOME.

Beth pulls on the parking brake. “You have to. It’s going to suck. It might suck worse than anything has ever sucked, but you have to be strong for a bit, okay?”

I gulp for air. My heart feels like it stopped beating a few moments ago, and I don’t know how to get it restarted. I bring my fist to my chest and press it hard to my breastbone.

“What is it?” Beth asks. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“If I go in there, then…all of this, all of this is real.”

“I feel like a complete shit for saying this, okay, but all of this is real. You can’t get any more real than this.”

I clutch my purse in my lap, feeling the bottle of pills beneath the supple leather. The car clock says it’s thirty minutes past when I’m allowed to take another pill. I’ve felt thirty minutes of pain I didn’t need to feel, but I also feel more awake than I have in days. More present. I leave the pills in my purse.

“Okay,” I say to Beth. “Let’s go.”

We walk up the cement walkway to the mortuary’s front door. The new lawn is minty green, cut short and even, not a blade out of place. There are bunches of tulips poking out of the ground, light pink, almost white, tasteful. I take a deep breath, searching for the scent of spring, but the air is odorless. Antiseptic almost.

Inside, a young woman dressed in a conventional black dress that could be the twin of the one I just bought is sitting behind a spare mahogany desk with her hands folded in her lap. Her light hair is cut blunt to her chin. She seems to be waiting for us.

“Mrs. Manning?”

“Yes.”

She rises. I expect her to offer her hand but instead she tucks them both behind her back like a museum docent. Maybe she understands about the pain her touch might cause.

“I’m Karen Anderson. Would you like to accompany me into the parlor?”

We follow her into a very formal living room plucked from the Victorian age. The Air from Bach’s Suite no. 3 in D is playing on an iPod resting in a set of speakers on a side table, the one incongruous object in the room. We sit on a pink brocade couch. The fabric feels stiff and slippery. I hold on tight, in case the seas get rough.

Karen sits across from us in a wingback chair and opens a plain black notebook.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you and Mr. Manning ever discuss what kind of arrangements he’d like in this eventuality?”

I feel an overwhelming urge to ask her to speak in modern English, but there’s something oddly soporific in her formal words, the way her tapered fingers hold the fountain pen that’s hovering over the blank lined page.

“We talked about…we never talked about this part.”

“Would you like to go with one of our standard packages, then?”

“What does that…involve?”

She opens a drawer in the table next to her and hands me a thick piece of cardboard. It’s a menu, a funeral menu, with two headings: Religious and Nonreligious. I skip down to the nonreligious option: a little Barrett, a little Browning, space for speeches from family and friends if that is “desired.” The music’s all wrong, but I can fix that myself.

I hand it back to her. “The nonreligious will be fine.”

“Good. Do you know what day you’d like to hold the service? We have an opening tomorrow.”

“No!” I say way too loudly for this cloistered room.

Beth places her hand on my knee. I take several deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” I say, “it’s…his brother. His brother isn’t here yet. He has to be here.”

I’m not sure what it is that makes me think of Tim at this moment. I’m not even sure he’s been told. I’ve abrogated that responsibility, like so many others. But, of course, he must’ve been. Jeff’s parents must have called him. And despite everything, I know with total certainty that Tim will cross the distance and come. I just don’t know when.

“His brother lives in Australia. I’m not sure when he’s getting here.”

“He’s arriving on Thursday,” Beth says.

I let that sink in. Tim is arriving on Thursday.

“Would Friday work, then?”

I want to scream No! again, but instead I look at Beth.

She nods and speaks for me. “Friday would be fine.”

“Perfect.” She scratches out a few words with her pen. “Is eleven a good time?”

Beth nods again.

Friday at eleven is three days from now. And then what? “If you’ll follow me into our display room, you can choose the casket you desire.”

I don’t have to scream this time for Beth to grab my hand and hold it tight. Karen bows her head, waiting patiently for me to collect myself. She must be used to this. Has she become immune to grief? Does she slough it off like I do the petty slights of three- and four-year-olds?

Several minutes pass before I come back to myself. I can hear the soft tinkle of the Bach, feel my fingers mechanically playing the chords against my knee, and Beth’s warm hand covering mine.

“We can do this another time,” Beth says. “Or I can—”

“No, I should do this. I should be the one.”

I rise unsteadily. We cross the wide hall to a set of large wooden doors with glass panels, which are covered by opaque curtains, hiding whatever lies beyond.

Karen opens one of the doors and stands aside. Beth’s clutching my hand so tightly she’s almost cutting off my circulation. I want to make a break for it and run, but that would mean having to come back here.

Karen flicks a switch and we walk into the showroom. I blink under the bright lights. The large, octagonal room has an assortment of caskets arranged a tasteful distance apart, each illuminated by a bright spot.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Karen says. “Let me know when you’ve made your selection.” She closes the door behind her with a discreet click.

I walk toward a casket on the left, and Beth goes right. The large room is full of options. How am I supposed to make a choice? What criteria are even appropriate?

“Can you believe the price of these things?” Beth says after a few minutes, fingering a tag that hangs from the handle of a shiny casket made of rosewood.

“Shh! She’ll hear you.”

“She knows they’re overpriced. Why do you think she left the room?”

“To give us some privacy?”

“You think that if it makes you feel better.”

I shoot her a look. She’s chastened for about thirty seconds, till her eyes land on the name of the casket she’s standing next to. It’s an imposing metal affair that looks like it comes from the future.

“Time Capsule?” Beth says. “Are they freakin’ kidding?”

“You made that up.”

“Come see for yourself.”

I cross the room till I’m close enough to read the card. That’s really its name, and the description seems to imply that the contents will be so well protected that the occupant might be brought back from the dead, should science head in that direction.

“That’s appalling.”

“Especially at that price.”

I look at the tag. The casket costs more than my car by a wide margin. “I can’t afford that.”

“Of course you can’t, honey. But don’t worry, we’ll find something that works.” She looks around the room slowly, sizing up the other possibilities. “That simple one there isn’t too crazy.” She points to a rosewood casket. “And it’s kind of classic. Or you could always go with a pine box. It’s going to molder in the ground anyway.”

“Beth!”

“Sorry. No filter today. What do you think Jeff would’ve wanted?”

“He never said, but something tells me he’d say something flip like ‘Lay me out like Darth Vader and light me on fire.’ ”

Beth smiles at me as if she’s seeing someone she hasn’t seen in a while.

“Pine box it is, then.”

CHAPTER 8 BackOffice

Lori helps me out of the bathroom and since I am carless, drives me home. She keeps glancing at me, slumped against the car door, as if she wants to ask what’s going on, but she doesn’t. Maybe she’s figured it out. Maybe she already knew. Something. But then why wouldn’t she have called me when she heard? Why didn’t she pull me aside before the meeting? Why did she let me listen to that stupid Safety Minute presentation if she knew the whole time?

She pulls up in front of my house, bringing the car to a careful halt. The neighbor’s four-year-old is playing on the lawn, pushing a dump truck around in the dirt, making beep, beep, beep noises. I watch him for too many seconds.

“You going to be okay?” Lori asks.

I don’t quite look at her. Eye contact doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“Thanks for driving me home.”

“I should’ve told you before. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” There’s a question in that pause. A chance to confide. But that’s the last thing I can do. I’ve already done too much.

“No, it’s okay. I only met him twice…it was…a shock. He emailed me recently for some advice, and I’ve been sick all weekend, and…I don’t know why I reacted like that…”

I’m babbling, producing the opposite effect of the reassurance I want to give, the downplay I’m attempting.

“I’ll be fine tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“If you need to talk or anything…”

“Thanks.” I unbuckle my seat belt. It flies into its slot with a zippery sound.

I hesitate before I get out. I want to say, “Please don’t talk about this at the office. Please don’t make me, us, the subject of gossip,” but there’s no point. I can’t stop what’s going to happen any more than I could stop what’s already happened.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

I walk to my front door, smile at the boy with his truck, feeling Lori’s eyes on me the whole time, her car idling like it’s midnight and she’s dropped me off in a bad neighborhood. I pull my keys from my purse, unlock the door, and glance over my shoulder, giving her a wave. I slip inside, close the door behind me, and slide down to the floor, my back pressing against its hard surface.

And now the tears are coming. I’m not sure they’re ever going to stop.

I spend an hour on the floor, maybe more. It must be more because the shadows shift across me, flickering through the curtains that partially cover the window next to the door.

Time’s a funny thing. Yesterday, each second was a thousand, each minute an eternity. But now it’s slipping past me at the speed of light and I don’t know how to slow it down.

When I can’t stand the floor anymore, I drag myself up the stairs, climb into bed without taking anything off but my shoes, and pull the covers over my head. And in this half-suffocating environment, I eventually fall into a fitful sleep.

I wake suddenly when the front door bangs open in the way only Zoey does it. Her bookbag crashes to the floor with equal emphasis. She clomps up the stairs as if she were punishing them. My daughter is not a heavy girl, slight even, but she’s always made more noise than she should.

I should rise, leave this oasis, greet her and ask her about her day.

But I can’t. I can’t. Oh, Jesus.

“Mom?”

“I’m in here,” I say, my throat scratchy and dry like I’ve been in the desert.

“Mom?”

“In here,” I say again, louder.

Clomp, clomp, clomp. My door crashes open and in comes the light from the hallway, illuminating Zoey, her hair in its end-of-day mess. She spends most of her classes hiding behind it, countless teachers have told us, we should really get it cut. When I ask her about it, she says she likes it back there. It helps her think. And since her grades are more than they should be, we smile and nod at the teachers, year after year, and let her hair be.

“Why are you in bed? Are you still sick?”

I prop myself up, hoping I don’t look like I’ve spent the last six hours crying.

“Yes.”

She walks over and launches herself into the bed on Brian’s side. It bounces up and down, making my stomach flip over.

“Easy, Zo.”

“Sorry.” She shuffles toward me carefully. “Is it your tummy?”

“Among other things.”

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

This almost brings on the tears again. She hasn’t called me “Mommy” in a dog’s age.

“Thank you.”

She puts her head on my shoulder and rests her hand on my stomach gently.

“You look sad.”

“I am.”

“How come?”

“Mommy’s…a friend of mine died.”

“Today? Do I know her?”

“On Friday. And no.”

I’m not sure why I don’t correct the pronoun. It’ll come out eventually, but for these few moments with my daughter, a change of pronoun is the distance I need.

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“How come I don’t know her?”

“You don’t know everyone I do.”

“Yes I do.”

I shift so I can see Zoey’s angular face. She has these amazing eyelashes, dark and long. She’s had them since she was a baby. They were the first thing I fell in love with.

“Not this time.”

She shrugs. “Will we be going to the funeral?”

A shiver runs down my spine. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh well. I kinda like funerals.”

I let this one slide, not quite sure if she’s being serious, especially since the only one she’s been to is my father’s.

“Would you like me to be quiet now?” she asks.

“If that’s okay.”

“Course.”

So we lie there like that, my daughter and I, in the quiet, quiet house, and my heart feels a little less broken.

We’re still lying there when Brian comes home a couple of hours later. Somewhere along the way, we both fell into a half-doze, Zoey’s snores sometimes jerking me from sleep. I shake her awake when I hear Brian moving around downstairs, telling her to go greet him, I’ll be down in a minute. She obeys me without protest for once, and I change out of my wrinkled clothes into jeans and an old sweater. Then I wash the tears off my face, careful not to look at myself in the mirror. I feel light-headed from the lack of food, too much sleep, and grief, but somehow I make it downstairs, kiss Brian hello, try to act normal.

I pull together a supper made up mostly of leftovers, some pasta, some Chinese takeout, a salad, and the dinner hour passes away much like it always does. Brian tells a funny story about one of his hypochondriac patients, identity protected, though I’m sure it’s Mrs. Garland by the sounds of it. Zoey tells us about her day once we’ve asked sufficient questions to get her past her usual reluctance. I remember feeling the way she does, like it was my life and why did I have to be cross-examined about it, but it always feels as if it’s the right thing to do, so we do it.

After dinner, Zoey and Brian go to the living room to prepare for her upcoming competition. I clean every inch of the kitchen as if my life depended on its spotlessness. When I’m done, the room smells of disinfectant and the skin on my hands is cracking along the knuckles. I’m rinsing out the kitchen sponges when Brian wanders in for a glass of water.

He’s distracted and wants to get back to Zoey, so this is my chance. I take a deep breath and manage to tell him that a colleague of mine died, sorry if I’ve been in a bad mood.

“You’ve been fine. Someone I know?”

“No. Unless you met at that corporate thing? You remember that getaway we went to a while back?”

“In Mexico? Two years ago?”

“Yeah.”

“What was her name?” He makes the same assumption as Zoey.

I wipe at an imaginary spot on the counter. “Jeff Manning.”

“Doesn’t ring any bells. He live here?”

“In the other Springfield.”

“Young guy?”

“About my age. Thirty-nine. Married. A kid.”

“Ugh. Was he ill?”

“Car accident.”

“That’s terrible.”

I think I might be sick.

“It is.”

“You know him well?”

“Sort of. We’d been…working on some projects together in the last year or so.”

Brian squeezes my shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Thanks.”

He’s expecting me to face him, but if I do I’ll collapse against him, I’ll be sobbing again, and if there’s one thing I can’t do today, it’s rely on Brian for solace.

Another half an Ativan taken out of Brian’s sight helps me fall asleep, but I start awake with my heart galloping at two in the morning. Oh my God, I’m thinking before I’m fully conscious, the emails.

I bolt upright and move as quietly as I can. Brian twitches and shifts position, but I’m not really worried about waking him. Doctors are programmed during their residencies to sleep deeply whenever they’re prone, and he’s never outgrown the habit.

I feel around in the dark for my clothes and take them into the hallway. Zoey’s reading light casts a glow along the floor. I should stop and put it out, but that might wake her and I can’t have that. I’ve behaved strangely enough today.

I tiptoe down the carpeted stairs, being careful to avoid the third from the bottom, which always creaks ominously. I throw on my clothes, slip on a pair of running shoes, and grab my car keys from the table by the door. The air outside smells wet and springy, like it does after a rain has come and gone in the night.

My heart starts racing again when I reflexively hit the automatic unlock button and my car chirps, too loudly for this quiet street. I ease open the door and close it behind me as gently as I can. More heart palpitations when I start the engine, but no lights snap on in the house as I back out of the driveway, almost hitting the garbage can that Brian dutifully put out. Maybe I should’ve parked my car ass-in, but I buck all company policies as often as I can when not on company property.

I drive through the 2-a.m.-dead neighborhood, being careful to stop at the lights, obey the laws while getting to the office as fast as I can. I don’t bother parking in a space. I simply stop the car by the front doors and run to the entrance. I swipe my pass and jerk open the glass door. Moments later, I’m seated in front of my computer, waiting anxiously for it to boot up. When it does, I click on the BackOffice program and start running the protocol we have for dismissed employees or ones who are under investigation. I wait impatiently for it to collect all of Jeff’s emails, then sort them by name. Sender: Patricia Underhill. Sent to: Patricia Underhill.

I scroll down the list, and there they are: the emails and emails and emails we’ve exchanged over the last year. I open one at random.

I think I need some more training, he wrote at 11:52 a.m. six months ago.

Uh-huh.

No, seriously, I can’t remember if we’re supposed to be compassionate and caring, or caring and compassionate. I need to do module 3 again.

I could explain it to you on the phone.

That wouldn’t be any fun.

I’ll see what I can do. The training center’s pretty booked this week.

I have faith.

You gotta have faitha, faitha, faitha.

You have terrible taste in music.

I click it shut. I press the buttons to highlight them all, my finger hesitating over the Delete key.

I can’t do it.

I reach into my desk drawer and remove a USB key. I transfer the emails to it, then erase the originals from the server and then the offline backup, a real delete this time. The USB key has a lanyard attached to it, which I loop around my neck. The metal feels warm and dangerous against my skin.

Now I have one thing left to do. Because erasing the emails from the office’s system doesn’t affect whatever he’s kept in his personal account. Maybe there’s nothing there, but I can’t take the risk. I go to his email service, type in his address, and take a guess at his password. His middle name is Michael but that’s not it. I try his birthday in all combinations, his address, the name of his favorite football team. Seth’s birthday. Claire’s. Nothing works.

Then my eyes track to the “forgot your password?” prompt. I follow the instructions to have a password hint sent to jmanning@johnson.com, and wait the anxious seconds before the email arrives. It pings into place and I open it. I almost laugh out loud. Jeff’s password hint is fuck off.

It would be. I type fuck off into the password space, and still nothing.

Goddamnit. My only hope now is, if I can’t figure it out, maybe no one else can either.

A faint hope indeed.

Twenty minutes later I’m home again and crawling back into bed, though sleep is an impossibility. The lanyard is still around my neck. I clutch the USB key in my hand like it might contain some part of Jeff that’s still alive. His beating heart. His gentle brain.

“Did you go out?” Brian says, startling me.

“I, uh, remembered I hadn’t sent a report to Mr. Keene that he needs first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Couldn’t you have sent it from here?”

“Something’s wrong with the remote server.”

“Sorry you had to go out.”

“That’s okay.”

“You know you don’t have to work there if you don’t want to.”

“I know.”

He pulls the covers up to his shoulders. “I should get back to sleep, and so should you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

His hand snakes to my thigh under the covers. “I won’t ever stop.”