“Then I’d better start buying meal sized bags of cat food. You’ll have to feed her every day now.”

“Do we have something she can eat tomorrow?”

“Here.” I give him a can of tuna. “This will do for tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” He takes the tuna and puts it in his work bag.

“What color is she?”

“Stark white. She’s beautiful.”

“Did you give her a name?”

“No.”

“You have to.”

“Okay. She had a regal look, so how about a queen’s name? Victoria?”

“It doesn’t sound like a kitty name.”

“Marie Antoinette?”

“Nah!” I make a disgusted grimace.

“Sisi?”

“Who’s that?”

“The Empress of Austria.”

“Sisi… it has a good ring to it. Sisi the cat—yeah, I like it.”

“Sisi it is then.”

“Now, are you ready for your first homemade meal?” I ask, bringing the fuming pan to the table.

“I look at it this way: at the worst, I already work in a hospital.”

“Shame on you for making fun of me.”

“You always were a good tease, and this smells delicious.”

“I still am a good tease. Open the wine.”

“Yes, madam. But I can’t have more than a glass otherwise I’m toasted in the morning.”

“Who, keg-stander Jake?”

“That was nineteen-year-old Jake; this is an older model.”

“Still gorgeous.”

He gives me a mischievous smile.

“You know, sometimes it’s weird how we’re the same people, but in a different way,” I say.

“You still narrow your eyes when you’re trying to say something deep.”

“And you still pull up the corner of your mouth whenever you’re teasing me.”

He pours the wine and raises his glass. “What should we toast?”

“The same people and new beginnings.”

“Same people and new beginnings.”

As our glasses clink, my phone rings in the background.

I take a sip of wine. “Sorry, I forgot to turn it off.”

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

“Nah, not during dinner. I’ll check it later. It’ll stop in a minute.”

And it does. Only, a second later it rings again. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, worried it could be work. I don’t want to go into the office on my first normal-life night with Jake.

“I don’t mind you picking up,” Jake says.

“But I do. If it rings a third time, I’ll pick up.”

It does. I get up.

“It’s Amelia. I hope nothing’s wrong. Ames?”

“Will’s cheating on me.”

“Oh, gosh. Are you sure?”

Jake raises his eyebrows at me interrogatively and I twirl my index in a later gesture.

“I hacked his computer, I’m pretty sure.”

“What? How? With whom?”

“Some girl in New York. He’s over there right now… I don’t know what to do.”

“You want to come over? You want me to come over?”

“Is Jake there?”

“Yes.”