They hadn’t talked about Edith’s death since the night it had happened. As soon as Alice, having watched her mother choke to death, had turned to find Jake watching her, she’d immediately said, “We need to call an ambulance,” and Jake had gone to the wall phone and dialed 911. After hanging up he rushed to Edith’s side and pressed two fingers against the side of her neck.

“She was like this . . . she was like this when I got home,” Alice said, her whole body beginning to tremble.

“When did you get here?” Jake asked.

“Just now. Just a minute ago. How long have you been down here?”

Jake took Alice by her shoulders and moved her backward away from her mother’s body. “I thought I heard something and came down the stairs. I’m so sorry, Alice. Your mother was drinking, and I shouldn’t have left her down here.”

“No, no. I shouldn’t have even left the house tonight.”

“Shhh,” Jake said, pulling Alice into his arms and holding her while her trembling turned into uncontrollable shaking.

When the EMTs arrived, one of them asked Alice if this was how she’d found her mother.

“She wasn’t moving,” Alice said. “She was just lying there.”

After dessert, Jake said, “Let’s stay here tonight. I can’t face going back home. I’ll get us two rooms.”

“Okay,” Alice said.

He left Alice alone at the table while he went to the front desk to book the rooms. She wanted to tell him that he could get just one room, but her voice had stopped working. He came back with two keys. The front desk had also sold him two toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste.

Both of the rooms were nice, but one of them—the one that Jake insisted that Alice take—faced the ocean and had an outside deck. Jake had bought a second bottle of wine from the restaurant to take upstairs, and together they sat on the deck, the night getting cooler, and drank it. Alice took small sips, not wanting to get drunk, not wanting to be like Edith had been, but the wine tasted good, and was making all her muscles tingle and relax.

“You were brave today,” Jake said.

“Was I? I didn’t do anything.”

“No, but you were there. You came. How are you feeling?”

She thought for a moment about what to say, then decided not to lie. “I feel nothing. I feel cold.”

“Cold isn’t nothing.”

“No, I feel cold right now. It’s cold out here.” She laughed, and so did Jake.