“I brought the urn with me to the client dinner and it fell out of my bag midmeal. Caused a bit of a ‘scene,’ some might say.”

“I guess that is a snafu, huh? I take it the big boss lady didn’t know Decker was back?”

“She didn’t know I was ever married. So, yeah. She wants me to take some time off to collect myself. Or, at least, that’s the politically correct version of how the company is responding to what happened last night. And now here we are. They even blocked me from my work email and our Slack channel. I’m totally off the grid.”

“And how does that feel?”

“Why? Are you my therapist now?” I ask, mentally noting that all that’s missing are his clipboard and stethoscope.

“Sorry, sorry. Asking probing questions is just a pesky bedside habit. But look at it this way. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to take some time off and clear your plate a little bit, you know? I mean, how’s it going with rehoming the urn and all?”

“I’ve got the Google search result for some five-story mausoleum breaking ground on Gower Street pulled up on my computer. Other than that, Debbie showed up at my apartment trying to steal it back last night.”

“She what?”

“Yes. You heard that correctly. Casey said Debbie found her way into the lobby of our building and was harassing the doorman, wailing about Decker. In fact, that’s what made me bring the urn to the dinner in the first place. If she wasn’t so insanely invasive, maybe I could have actually felt comfortable leaving him behind for a few hours.”

“Well, what did you think was going to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like if she made her way to your apartment. Little five-foot-nothing, midsixties Debbie Austin was going to barrel your door down and tackle you for the urn?”

I can’t tell if the question is rhetorical.

“I wouldn’t sweat it, Char. Remember, grief works in mysterious ways. I’m sure it was just a little onetime flare-up.”

Even though Brian’s not one to judge, I honestly was expecting him to bandwagon hate on Mrs. Austin. But his response is actually rational.

“So, let’s move forward. What can I do? How can I help? Surely there has to be something. What’s one task related to this whole urn thing that you don’t want to do? Like, at all. That’s the one I’ll take off your plate.”

“You’re about a day late and a dollar short. The part I didn’t want to do was tell Debbie and clearly that’s been checked off the list.”

“Perfect! That’s out of the way, then. What’s next?”

Brian’s always had an extreme go-getter mentality. Sometimes I look at how a guy like him—kind of loud, always eager, a little too in your face—could ever even be friends with a quiet, methodical, reserved guy like Decker. But they had a good dynamic. Someone had to buy the keg, someone had to pump it.