Victoria had cut her hair short and I wasn’t sure yet how I felt about it. She had large, fabulously expressive features, and her eyes and nose now seemed almost abandoned without her long hair to frame them. Ahead of us, I saw Lisa with her head inclined toward Mike while he made extravagant arm gestures. Watching them walk together, I remembered how much Lisa had actually liked him, before everyone had to take sides.

“I hope Patrick normalizes,” Victoria was saying. “It’ll be hard for him. Otherwise.”

“I was pretty hyper when I was that age,” I said. “He’s a good kid, though. That’s the important thing. Probably.”

“Are you worried about Amanda?”

“I suppose I’m concerned,” I said. “Do you think I should worry?”

“I just know it’s hard to see your kid unhappy,” she said. “It’s our responsibility to provide the opportunities for happiness, but we can’t make them be happy.”

“There’s therapy,” I said. “Drugs.”

“You’ve got to be careful with that, though,” she said. “Once you start trying things—the drugs, I mean—you’re kind of obliged to see it through. It can get really hairy. I mean, whatever, you know I’ve been medicated since I was sixteen, I don’t know why I’m being cagey.” She took off her glasses and pressed her palms into her eyes. “Anyway. Lisa seems better. Right? I’m pretty impressed slash shocked by where you guys are at.”

“We put on a good show,” I said.

“I might murder Michael,” she said. “But I think we’ll probably stay together until then.”

Why? was my obvious follow-up question. But Patrick came running toward us, crying that it was too far for him to walk. Amanda was off by herself, staring at the sidewalk. I left Victoria to deal with Patrick and caught up with Lisa and Mike.

“Do you ever feel this way, Gary?” Lisa said. “Mike was talking about how sometimes he’ll read a client summary that he wrote years before and not recognize it at all.”

“I mean, I’ll remember the act of writing it,” Mike said. “But when I look at it, I can’t imagine being as articulate as I apparently was. It’s kind of interesting.”

I did not weigh in on the likelihood of alcohol-induced brain damage.