My guilty conscience was thumping from beneath the floorboards. In a way, I envied the person I’d been before, the version of me who had sat through classes and lectures, enjoyed meals with friends and office hours with professors, delighted in books and readings, blithely unaware of how my father had paid for it all. I even looked wistfully on the Daisy of a week ago, who recognized the disgraceful side of her father, but didn’t yet understand how it had benefited her directly. But now I knew, and I couldn’t unknow, and measures needed to be taken to make up for it.

My father was gone, and so the entirety of restitution rolled forward, onto me. Fine. I was a part of this; I needed urgently to make amends—through work, doing some good. Miles still hadn’t called, but I wouldn’t let a small thing like that derail me.

As motivation, in case I lost momentum or hope, I jotted down what the Judge had said in Charleston: It is easier for men to take things.

To get my job, I’d have to take it.

That’s how I ended up at Union Market on the Thursday after Charleston for lattes with Ari. The workday lunch crowd was there, as was the stroller set. I, in a coat too heavy for the weather, waited for her in the appointed place—an espresso stall selling designer coffee. Naturally, I was blotchy and breathless from the ten-minute power walk from the Red Line. If only I had the courage to dab my cleavage with a napkin, to shrug off my jacket and reveal sweat stains to the neatly aproned baristas and their clientele.

Ari had texted me midweek. Atlas had informed her I was on leave, and she asked if we could grab dinner, she might have something that could help. I had no desire to get to know her better, but I couldn’t turn down the offer of assistance.

There was also this issue of loneliness. I’d been out of the office for almost a month, and other than the trip to Charleston, I hadn’t had a lot of variety in my personal life. Cricket was often gone during the day, and Wallis, as despondent as ever, was still dragging herself to work. There was only so much pleasure one could get by making small talk with grocery cashiers and other strangers forced to interact with you. I couldn’t suffer through a whole meal with Ari, but a coffee seemed reasonable and, at this point, preferable to sending a Hey, long time! text to one of my former friends who’d distanced themselves after—everything.