“Quinn,” Emily said. Quinn launched the pebble and then squinted up at Emily. Emily pointed to the card. “Do you see that?”

It took Quinn a moment to spot what Emily was pointing to. She reached for the card and plucked it from the weeds. “Oh my God,” she said as she stared at it. Turned it over and over. Then held it to her chest and started to sob. Emily stood beside her, feeling helpless. She didn’t even have a Kleenex on her to offer. With a screech of its brakes, a train pulled into the station.

Quinn let Emily walk her to a bench. Quinn wiped away tears with the heel of her hand. Water lapped against the shore, and what had to be one of the last inbound commuter trains of the night bleated as it left the station, leaving behind an empty platform.

As they sat there, Quinn talked about Wally. How they’d met at a ball game. How tongue-tied she’d felt when she’d met his wealthy parents. Their over-the-top wedding, paid for by the groom’s family, at a five-star hotel. How the priest who’d married them had been drunk and kept calling her Queenie, and Wally liked to tease her by continuing to call her that. Their honeymoon, a posh Caribbean cruise.

Every so often Quinn paused to check her phone for messages.

Quinn’s first inkling that this might not be the union she’d dreamed of was when Wally spent hours in the ship’s casino, gambling and drinking and gorging on the all-you-can-eat buffet. When their honeymoon ended and she moved into his house, she was blindsided when he wouldn’t let her move in anything but her clothes and toiletries. She’d told herself that, given time, he’d loosen up, but three years later, he’d only become more controlling.

“He was insane about it,” Quinn said. “Completely insane. Every once in a while I’d bring something into the house, just to see if he noticed. He did. Every damned time.” She bit the words off. “It’s like my stuff was contaminated.”

Emily felt a twinge of guilt. In her marriage, she played the spouse trying to keep her partner’s beloved junk from invading their mutual living spaces. But surely she was nowhere near as toxic about it as Walter Newell had been. And Frank’s collecting? Quinn was a piker by comparison.

Just before mosquitoes drove them from the riverbank, Quinn checked her phone for messages one more time. There were none.

It was late when Quinn dropped Emily at her house. On the kitchen counter, Frank had left her a note. GETTING YOUR CAR FIXED. PIZZA IN THE FRIDGE.