But then, this shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s not like I walked into this situation blind. About a year ago I briefly dated a boy who was cute, stupid, and incredibly low maintenance. He would have been content hanging out all day shooting hoops, playing pool, and making idle small talk about pop culture. But that’s not why I went out with him. I went out with him because I wanted to get to know his sister, a nice, middle-aged woman named Sara who had just gotten a job as a day-care provider in Brooklyn. Before that she worked as a nanny for a wealthy couple who lived on the Upper West Side: Jessica and Travis Gable.

“That’s one fucked-up family,” Sara had slurred more than once over the beers I bought her at the pool hall where we watched her brother play every Friday night. “I had to drag the kids from one activity to another just to keep them out of their parents’ way. And the girl’s just a baby, so I mean how many activities can I come up with for her, right? Oh, and the wife, Jessica? She’s suicidal, and I think her husband wants her to do it too.”

“God, what makes you say that?” I had pressed.

“Lots of reasons . . . But I guess the biggest one is that I once walked in on her holding a knife to her wrist.”

“What?” I swiveled back and forth on my bar stool, trying to figure out how I felt about the woman who helped set up my mother for murder committing suicide.

“Yep, I accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom and she was just standing in front of the mirror with this glassy stare. In her hand was a kitchen knife, and she just had it, you know, resting against the underside of her wrist as if she was still making up her mind about whether or not to go through with it.”

“Wow,” I whispered.

“Yeah, It was freaky. And when she saw me she just put the knife down on the counter and walked out of the bathroom, like I wasn’t even there. Later when I asked her about it she said that it never happened. She called me a liar, and when I tried to push it she slapped me across the face so hard it actually left a mark. Then she accused me of sleeping with her husband. Said I was nothing more than a common whore.” Sara shook her head, seemingly still amazed by the memory. “The woman is just totally out of her mind. So then I tell her husband about the knife incident . . .”

“And?”

“And he thanked me for telling him and said he’d take care of everything. But here’s the thing. He actually seemed happy about it.”

“Happy about . . . Wait, what was he happy about?” I had asked, genuinely confused.