“Okay, BD!” I say, laughing. “I get it, but what’s the point?”

“That no one person can fulfill every single one of another person’s needs. Which is why book clubs and grandmothers exist. I’m sure Irwin would have liked a more enthusiastic audience for his efforts in verse. Whereas I would have preferred the poetry of his fingers to the poetry of his . . . poetry. I would have liked him to pick up a novel once in a blue moon. There was this wonderful couples book club at the JCC we never got to join.” She takes my hand. “I do wish you could have known him.”

“Me, too,” I say, and give her hand a squeeze. Irwin died before I was born.

“My point is no marriage gets it all right, honey, but I hope that in choosing Ryan, you have found someone you can turn to when you have a problem, when you really need a steady heart.”

“Of course,” I say, too quickly. “And I will tell Ryan. At some point. When I have a better handle on what I’m going to do.”

“When’s that going to be?” she asks. “It won’t get easier to tell Ryan, especially if you have more interactions with Noah.”

“I’m screwed, okay?” I say, surrendering dramatically. “Did I mention Noah told me he’s used up New York, that there’s nothing fresh for him to write about? Why did he have to choose now to get writer’s block?”

“Very selfish of him.” BD nods as the waiter clears our plates. “This is supposed to be your moment to shine.”

“I don’t know what to do.” I reach for the bill in the middle of the table, because it’s one way to seize control, and because if I lose my job, I won’t be able to treat BD to lunch for long. “How would Mom have dealt with this?”

“Your mother believed in the hair of the dog. She’d look for a way to solve this problem according to its nature.” BD takes out her golden snakehead compact mirror and reapplies some bright magenta lipstick. She looks at herself in the mirror, seeming pleased. “What about Fifty Ways to Break Up Mom and Dad?” she asks after a moment.

“What about it?” I say.

I think about my favorite scene, where the characters go hang gliding. The moment just before they run off the cliff.

Life’s greatest mystery is whether we shall die bravely.

I read this scene aloud to Ryan once. I was just about to tell him how it made me think about my mother, when he’d teased me—“So suicide is sexy now? That’s the message?”