“What’s happened to you?” he asked, searching me—for damage, for insanity, for something. So kind, so worried.

I regarded him with clarity. “Like I said on the phone: I made dinner. I have something for all of you. It’s about your lawsuit. It’s like”—I rolled my eyes—“a whole long conversation.” I pointed to the table. “Sit! Food is almost ready.”

Jack, Jes, and Marlin hung back, glancing at each other with wild eyes, alarm bells rattling their faces. I saw Jack pointing to me with the edge of his thumb, a kind of incredulous gesture, and I waved at him aggressively.

“Hello, Jack! Yes! We can see each other. Is it the dress? If it’s bothering you, I can take it off,” I said, reaching up, clasping the teardrop-shaped zip between my fingers. It refused to budge, immovable against the wet fabric, and I reached my other hand to hold the neckline in place. Tyler took my hands and stopped me.

“Don’t do that,” he said, fingers on my wrist, feeling the pulse. Tyler was afraid that something was wrong with me—the way something was wrong with her. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Okay,” I said, shrugging, and then I was in the kitchen, picking up a piece of pasta and throwing it at the wall. It bounced right off.

Tyler stood in the doorway, watching me. Beyond him, Jes, Jack, and Marlin took their seats at the table, and Jes was examining the centerpiece of canisters.

“Those aren’t developed,” I said. “Not yet. Can you wait a minute?”

I checked the clock, then threw another piece of pasta at the wall. It, too, bounced to the ground.

“What is going on?” Tyler asked.

“I know. I know what you did.” I put my fingers in the boiling water, letting it scald me as I grabbed a third noodle.

It sailed past Tyler’s head and stuck on the wall.

“Now we’re in business,” I cried out, ladling the pasta into a colander and shaking it dry. “Can you get five bowls, please?”

Tyler complied, ceramic ringing in his arms. I ladled pasta, then the sauce. It ran to the edges, red and bright from meaty chunks of tomato flesh. He watched me from the doorway with terrified sweetness—as though he were watching a nervous breakdown. At some point, I felt my hands pulling my hair back and knotting it atop my head, securing it with one twist of a pen from the bar top, and then I felt more like myself.