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.”

“She’s going to know you better than anybody else. Or go see your sister in Texas.”

“Florida.”

“Wherever. Spoil your nephews a little.” She snapped her fingers. “Why don’t you follow up this business of your missing sister?” I’d told her about that. “A little mystery to solve to occupy that analytical brain of yours—and nice deep family connections to soothe your heart . . .”

I felt uncomfortable. “There’s probably nothing. Maybe she was adopted.”

“Why would that have happened?”

“Or maybe she died,” I said brutally. “And they wanted to spare me.”

“Well, even if so,” she said gently, “you surely want to know.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Ask your sister in Florida,” she said. “She’s, what, ten years older? She ought to know something. And if this kid was three or four in the photo, maybe she’ll have been to school somewhere. A prep school maybe.”

“But which one?”

“I’d start with the one your older sister went to. Du-uh.” She rattled her fingernails on the table. “Come on, George, snap out of it; get that brain working again.”

“But it’s all a mess, Viv. Christ, families. They all lied to me throughout my life. Even Gina!”

“Unresolved issues,” she said. “So resolve them. Reconnect with the past.” There was an edge to her voice now. You’ve had as much sympathy from the world as you’re going to get, George; stop whining.