Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at Dodger Stadium. Brian makes three loops around the jam-packed parking lot before finding an open spot that doesn’t totally scream “door-dings galore.” The car turns off on its own and the seat belts retract automatically like a ride at Six Flags has just come to the end, proof that I’m never getting over the novelty of this vehicle from the future.

“Hey, Char? Slight suggestion. You might want to leave the beach tote in the car,” he says as I sling my Birkin over my shoulder.

“This is not a beach tote. This is a Birkin,” I say to him, leaving out the part about it being a Chinatown fake as if the statement would carry the same weight to him as it would with the interns.

“That’s great. It’s really nice, and big, and all. But Dodger Stadium has a strict no-bag policy. Sorry, I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. They’ll confiscate that thing at the gate.”

I brought the urn in case Debbie the thief scaled the sides of my apartment building while Casey and I both aren’t home tonight, not to have it sit locked in a car that screams “please, smash my Tesla windows because I have money, and if you look hard enough, there’s a Birkin and a set of golf clubs in here.”

“Everything okay?” he asks as I rub my hands together and stare into space.

“Yeah, it’s just that...”

“You’ve got the urn with you and you don’t want to leave it in the car in this giant stadium parking lot. I totally get it.”

There aren’t words to describe how embarrassed I am to be caught toting around the ashes of my dead husband like I’m trying to smuggle my own snacks into a movie theater. Bringing him to Alfred’s was fine. I passed that off like I was simply making good on Brian’s request to visit the urn before I take it away for good. And when we went to Pala for the farmers’ market, he was locked in my trunk in Brian’s building’s secure gated garage. But now I’m just a deer in the headlights, unsure of my next move.

“How about this: we lock Decker in the trunk, I turn on the security system that’s linked to my phone, and we drop the car off with the valet instead. I’ll tip the guy a twenty right off the bat for safekeeping. Any funny business, and my phone will light up. We can leave right away. Do you feel okay about that, Char?”

It’s been a really long time since anyone—guy, girl, coworker, family member, you name it—has stopped to ask: What is Charlotte missing? What does Charlotte need? And right now, Brian has identified the thing that’s causing me would-be crippling anxiety and proposed a solution.

“I’m good with that.”

I’m no sports aficionado, but I will say it’s a perfect night for a baseball game. The sun is setting in the kind of way that turns the whole sky into a field of pink-and-orange cotton candy. The sticky summer air is transitioning into something that’s finally warm and comfortable, and there’s a glow in the night that will make everyone look their personal best, even under the bright stadium lights. This is the kind of night that needs no Snapchat filter.