It doesn’t matter that it’s unfair, he’d declare with a pointed finger. If life were fair, people like us would be unemployed, and in my head I hear his resonating voice. It demanded attention no matter what he was saying or to whom. But keeping my knickers on wasn’t in the cards, and Briggs wasn’t solely motivated by his strong moral sensibilities, no matter what he claimed.

He had feelings that went back to our very earliest days. We both did, and it took but one kiss, one protest that we should stop, and then we didn’t. I remember the sounds of our breathing, the pattering rain. I’ll never forget when he turned the headlights off as we sat in his ruby-red Karmann Ghia in front of the shabby stucco building where I lived with a toxicologist. Her name was Lola, which is Spanish for Dolores. It means sorrows, and that suited her to a T.

We were so young and inexperienced, recent hires at the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office, where Briggs was my supervisor, and Lola was never happy, especially with me. I disappointed and annoyed her constantly and didn’t understand it then. No doubt it was out of spite that she wouldn’t always tell me when she was coming or going, as if she might make me jealous. But that rainy windy night I knew she wasn’t home and probably wouldn’t be for a while.

Ironically she’d made sure to rub it in as if to imply that she had quite the life and I didn’t. Briggs asked me about her because he found her peculiar and abrasive. What was it like living together? Did I worry she might poison my cereal? When would she be coming home, and then the heavens opened. We laughed at the deafening drum roll overhead, at the flooded glass, and he turned the wipers off. Surrounded by a deluge, we fogged up the glass, wiping it off to steal glances up at the second floor, at the empty unlighted window of the cracker-box apartment I had to share because that was what I could afford.

It was obvious no one was home, obvious why Briggs wanted to walk me up with the umbrella and see me in safely. He wasn’t being a gentleman, and I was no lady. It was a perfect storm of circumstances and had been from the start when my rattletrap car with its worn-out clutch happened to break down on Dixie Highway after dark.

Lola happened to be out with an ex, she made sure I knew. My sister Dorothy happened not to answer the phone, and neither did my mother. Briggs happened to be the only person I could reach after I’d hiked along the shoulder of the highway to a gas station pay phone. He happened to drive me home, and afterward he happened never to tell Ruthie the truth.