But when she was still missing at the end of the fourth, I worried something might be wrong, and went to find her. Maybe she’d gotten a phone call from our lawyer. I couldn’t imagine she’d break her own cardinal rule and leave without saying goodbye.

I made it up the many steps, ignoring the rows of spectators on either side of me, to the concessions area, and noticed her sitting at a table by the ice-cream cart. “Cricket!” I called as I strode over.

She looked up, forlorn. “Daisy?” she said. “I can’t go back in there, Daisy.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding, trying to mute the warning siren blaring in my head.

“Everyone knows I was married to a criminal. They probably think I abetted him. That’s what they all think. I have zero credibility.”

She hadn’t ever talked about Gregory, or herself, in these terms. I pulled out the chair across from her and gingerly sat.

“I lost him, then I lost everything,” she whispered, clinging to her watch, twisting it around her wrist. She’d removed her sunglasses, and her eyes darted nervously. “So what good am I, now?”

I noted our surroundings, still too stunned to formulate words. At a table nearby, an older couple gobbled soft-serve cones that were all but melting down their arms. By the entrance, a father struggled to calm a tantruming toddler. While on the field, powerful congresspeople were flaunting their lack of hand-eye coordination. And Cricket didn’t feel good enough? I gave my best attempt. “Cricket, I don’t think—”

“They’re all judging me!” she said, and pointed to the park. “I can feel it.”

Our presence at the game had certainly registered, but there hadn’t been any stares I would classify as mean or gawky. Especially compared to what we’d faced all winter. I had thought this would be a fun diversion, but maybe the memories of past years, the contrast of where she was now and where she’d been, had gotten to her.

“Do you want to go home?” I asked, leaning in with my elbows on the table.

“No,” she snapped, and I drew back, not sure what to make of the unfamiliar woman before me. “What would that say? That I fled? That I wasn’t strong enough? That I should be ashamed?”

Inside the park a ball cracked into a bat, and I tried to tune out the sound of the crowd. “Cricket,” I said again. “You don’t want to go back in. You don’t want to go home. What do you want to do?”

“What am I supposed to do, Daisy?” she asked gravely. Then: “No—forget I asked that. You’re my daughter. I’m supposed to be taking care of you. I’m not going to make you solve this problem.”