The moan foretold all this and so it went, and it all lasted a couple of minutes. Afterward, Denise’s apartment was silent again, a silence of everyday noises. Denise thought, as she had other times on witnessing this kind of ending, that among all the disadvantages of being a woman, this was one of the worst: faking. Women had the power to fake it.

The epilogue tended to be characterized by the woman’s withdrawal and the man’s need for closeness; he held her neck and caressed her nipples as if he were trying to calm her that way, as if he were spreading Mentholatum on a congested chest. But Denise didn’t stick around for that this time; there wasn’t much to hear.

She got to her feet without picking up the cracked mirror from the floor. It didn’t matter if she left it lying there, the woman would soon return it to her. Denise knew her neighbor would knock on the door of the other bedroom, where Denise was retreating, and she would have the mirror in her hands. Because the neighbor had realized a long time ago, she’d known almost since the beginning, since the first time their eyes met in the reflection. There’d been a fingerprint on the glass, and on that spot of dried sweat, Denise had looked into her neighbor’s eyes. They shone, they held surprise but not anger. Denise had returned the gaze, in the mirror, on the fingerprint. And her eyes had been apologetic and defensive at the same time.

She tiptoed away into the room next door—the French girl’s room. She turned the doorknob slowly, silently, then went in and sat down on the bed.

After a while it came as she’d imagined: the knock on the door. A soft knock. Denise got up to answer, still on tiptoe. There was the neighbor, her eyes fixed on the floor. Denise moved aside and the woman hunched over a little as she came in, as if she were entering a low tunnel or making a kind of bow. She had the mirror in her hands, and she walked over to the bed and stood there wearing her patient expression. She handed Denise the mirror with its cracked edge, and Denise took it and put it facedown on the bed, the reflection turned to pure darkness.

“We’re not going to come anymore,” said the neighbor lady in her usual diffident voice.

“Yes,” said Denise, “I understand.”

They looked each other in the eyes, just as they had on other occasions, in the mirror.