“Clare,” Simon interrupted them. “Will you come with me? I thought we could make a night of it.” He moved in to pet Charlie’s belly and tried smiling at her. “I’m sure we could still get a last-minute table for Ms. Collins at a good restaurant.” He wanted to turn this around, be fun, convince her to come out with him, leave the house, enter into the world. “We can stay the night at the condo. We’ll take Charlie with us. And tomorrow, we can get up and have breakfast at that cafe on the corner you said you loved. They have that outdoor patio. We can walk Charlie to the dog park on Blake—he’d love that.” He was begging her. He wasn’t even trying to play it cool at this point.

He needed to get off this desolate rock. They needed it.

He was so goddamned lonely out here.

Chapter 9

Clare

Two years before her death

When she turned, she had seen Simon holding up his hands, both sorry and surprised. Roberto had finished and left already, not wanting to disturb her. Now Simon was trying to coax her out of the house and into the city for the night. He was even using Charlie as bait.

His desperation, it hung all over him—she found it nauseating.

Clare looked at the stacks and stacks of journals littering the coffee table and floor, her notes—the beginning of her new book. “Why don’t you go ahead?” She placed her hand on his cheek for a moment before returning it to Charlie, cradled in her arms. “I’ve started something new. I don’t want to get distracted right now. I don’t want to lose this thread.” She turned away from him and stared out the glass wall, the sky darkening so that the lights of San Francisco to the south reflected off the Pacific in the distance.

When she turned back around, he was staring at the piles of papers and books. “You’ve already started,” he said.

Clare sighed. “Yes. It just hit me. You know how it is—creative feast or famine.”

He turned to face her. She knew he wouldn’t press her to come with him. “You’ve never had a famine,” he said, trying his best to smile. “Don’t get me wrong, I love your books as much, probably more, than anyone. I just miss you when you’re working on them. I guess I thought we might have a bit more time, you know, before.” He gestured to the mess.

“I’m sorry, Simon. Really.”

He shook his head. “How ridiculous that my most lucrative client apologizes for making money.”

Clare shrugged. “I guess that’s one of the problems that comes with shitting where you eat… Isn’t that what your mother warned you about?”