Halting, uncertain if he was prying, he asked what had happened to her mom—“Max said it was a heart attack?”—and she nodded and answered simply, like it was just a fact in the world. “She had an infection that weakened her heart. Any kind of exertion, I mean like showering, getting dressed, it would wipe her out. It was a nightmare, honestly. She couldn’t leave her bed by the end. She had to quit her job. We had insurance, but it wasn’t enough for what she needed.”

That was when she met Max for the first time, she explained—her half brother, her mother’s other child, from another life. She used to imagine what it would be like to grow up a Hewitt in New York City, with enough money to buy the world and never have to work again. She’d even felt angry at her mother, because if she hadn’t left, they’d have been rich. She laughed. “Of course, I wouldn’t exist, either.” The immediate reason for the divorce had been an affair—“Mom had a minor part in Street Scene, and she was screwing one of the stagehands”—but apparently Charles Hewitt was a bastard and their lives would have been miserable together anyway. His lawyers were better than hers, and he got custody of Max, who was still a baby. She moved to L.A. to get into the pictures. But she wrote Max letters every holiday and on his birthday, and he sent back polite replies and thank-yous. When she got sick, he flew out to meet her.

“I thought he was such a square,” she said. “He had on these dumb plaid shorts and a polo shirt, because he thought that’s what people wore in California. I probably wasn’t nice to him. But he was nice to us. I think it moved him the way we lived, the shitty bungalow and all the sand on the floor. That’s Max. His apartment in the Village is a dump. He stayed with us a few days and slept on the couch. He gave us a lot of money. After—I don’t know, it was a few months later—I phoned him to let him know. I guess I was crying. I told him I didn’t have anyone left, and he said, ‘You have me.’ He wired me money for a plane ticket to New York.”

“And here you are,” Henry said.

“Here I am,” she said.

The fire had died down, and he could barely make her face out in the dark. “That wasn’t long ago,” he said.

“About six months,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About your mom.”

She thanked him, and they were quiet for a time.