That was why I’d always liked talking to Vivian. I didn’t know anybody else who would make such observations.

She was a solid-framed woman who wore business suits that were crumpled enough to show she didn’t take herself too seriously. She looked healthy; I knew she used a gym, and as a mother of two small daughters her home life must be active enough. Her hair was close-cropped over a broad face, with a small flattish nose and pale brown eyes. She had no cheeks, no chin, and would never have been called beautiful save by a lover, but in the frankness and humor of her gaze I had always known I was in the presence of a solid, grounded personality. To put it another way she was one of the few human beings to have slipped through Hyf’s recruitment filter.

I said, “My father never had a cell phone. Didn’t need one, he said, even though I tried to give him one for emergencies. You know, in case he fell . . . Didn’t have a computer, either. Enjoyed his DVD, though.”

“He wasn’t a Luddite like you, then,” she said.

“No. He was just selective.”

She sloshed her wine around her glass. “My parents died a few years back. Ten years ago, actually.”

“How?”

“Car accident. It was a mess to sort out, as they’d gone together. Their wills were out of date . . . Well. I think I know how your sister feels. I wanted to just run from the whole thing. But oddly, it wasn’t such a bad time in the end. People come together, you know.”

I tapped my thumbnail against the bottle’s foil label. “You’re not counseling me, are you, Viv?”

“No. Just telling you how I felt.”

“But it was different. You were younger. I feel—shit, I suddenly feel old. It’s as if now he’s gone, the lid is off my generation, antiquity-wise. Do you know what I mean?”

She laughed. “So what do you want to do?”

I snorted. “What can I do? I’m trapped.”

“By what?”

“By my routine. The choices I’ve made, good or bad, that have landed me here. By the way I’ve slowed down.” I slapped my belly. “By this. The way I get out of breath, and ache in the mornings. Even the way I get pissed on a couple of bottles of beer at lunchtime. I’m trapped by myself.”

“There are always choices, George.” She put her glass down on the table and leaned toward me, rumpled, kindly, earnest. “I wasn’t counseling you before, but I am now. I think you need to reconnect. I went back to face what had happened to Mum and Dad.”

“I did go back.”

“Well, I think you need more. Take some time off. I bet you’re owed some vacation. And you wouldn’t be missed for a while,” she said dryly. “Maybe you ought to talk to—uh—”

“Linda?” My ex-wife. We’d divorced before I’d come to work for Hyf; Vivian had never met her. “Don’t think so.”