Marigold sits back down across from me, wakes up her monitor, and lets out a huff as she reads an email.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, thinking something bad has just bombed Monica’s inbox.

“I left my Louis Vuitton in our hotel in Punta Cana last week. And now the manager just wrote that the housekeepers never saw it. That purse was, like, three thousand dollars. I loved that purse.”

Marigold starts crying and leaves her desk for the intern pod, where she will undoubtedly be comforted by others who actually believe a missing Louis Vuitton purse is the most impossible loss one can experience.

Decker has been gone so long. I’m used to life without him by now. But regardless of how much time passes, this morning it feels like the walls I’ve managed to build up over the years are crumbling.

Chapter 7

In the privacy of my car, I put my Apple Watch up to my mouth to tell it to make a call, but I get stage fright and nothing comes out. So I fish for my phone and do things the old-fashioned way. I scroll to the contacts listed under the letter D.

Debbie Austin comes up first. I click her name and the phone gives me the option to call, text, or FaceTime. Before pulling out of my TIF parking spot, I briefly contemplate if calling to say I’m coming over is even necessary. Perhaps Decker’s return is something I can just type in a lengthy but eloquent text message? I even begin to compose one. But then I think back to Decker’s face in my dream. I know it was just that, a dream, but the way he looked at me when he asked me to tell his mom he’s back and he’s okay tells me this is not meant for an iMessage. If this really is a death do-over, per Casey, then I have some responsibility to woman-up and do the hard things I couldn’t before. I can’t let him down. So I take a deep breath and hit the little phone icon.

It rings once. Maybe she’s gardening and doesn’t have her phone handy.

It rings twice. Maybe this isn’t even her number anymore.

It rings three times. Maybe she will pick up and this will go shockingly well.

It rings a fourth time. And right when I think it’s going to go to voice mail, she answers.

“Well, well, well. It’s not every day I see Charlotte Rosen pop up on my phone. How are you, dear?”

To anyone else, that might be a cordial, warm hello. To me, it’s Debbie Austin subtly reminding me that after Decker died, she immediately edited me back to my maiden name in her contacts list. Even though I had yet to legally change it back, I simply wasn’t considered an Austin anymore.

“I’m doing good. I mean, well. How about you, Debbie?” I say, trying my hand at being proper and polite to a woman I know hates me. A woman I haven’t spoken to on the phone in years.