Taking off his glasses, he set them on the nightstand and began gathering up the papers spread out around him. Without looking up, he said, “Tully tells me you’re still mad at her.”

Kate could tell by his voice and the studious way he avoided looking at her that he’d wanted to mention this for a while. Men, she thought. You had to be an anthropologist, studying clues to know what they were thinking. “She’s the one who hasn’t called.”

“But you’re the one who is mad.”

Kate couldn’t deny that. “Not crazy-mad or pissed off, just irritated. That crap she pulled with Marah’s modeling . . . she could at least have admitted she was wrong.”

“Tully, apologize?”

Kate couldn’t help smiling. “I know. I know. But how come I always have to be the one to let things go? How come I always have to make the first call?”

“You just do.”

It was true; always had been. Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.

Kate went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed with him.

He turned off the bedside lamp and rolled over to face her. Moonlight shone through the window and illuminated his profile. He held his arm out, waiting for her to snuggle up to him. She felt a surge of love for him that was surprisingly sharp, given their years together. He knew her so well, and there was a cashmere comfort in that; it wrapped around and warmed her.

No wonder Tully had so many sharp angles and harsh edges; she’d never let herself be softened by love, wrapped up in it. Without kids or a husband or a mother’s love, she’d grown selfish. And so, yet again, Kate would let go of her anger without an apology. She shouldn’t have let it simmer so long anyway. It was remarkable how quickly time passed. Sometimes it felt as if they’d just had the blowup. What mattered now was not the words, spoken or withheld, but rather the years of friendship.

“Thanks,” she whispered. Tomorrow she’d call Tully and invite her over to dinner. Like always, that would put an end to their fight. They’d move effortlessly back onto the road of their friendship.

“For what?”

She kissed him gently, touched his cheek. Of all the views she loved, this man’s face was her favorite. “Everything.”

On a gray, drizzly morning in mid-November, Kate turned her car into the middle school parking lot and joined the snakelike line of SUVs and minivans. In the stop-and-go traffic, she glanced to her right.

Marah sat slouched in the passenger seat, looking surly. Her expression and her mood had been dark ever since the blowup over the modeling class in New York.

Before, Kate now saw, there had been bricks between her and her daughter. Lately there was a wall.