“So, it’s gone then?” Atlas asked. “Officially?”

“The closing is later this month, but the terms are agreed on and the contract is signed.” Cricket had had reservations about the listing price, but the agent with the pencil skirt and trendy glasses said that if we wanted to move fast, as with the lake house, we had to tender a bargain. “The money is gone, my father is, too. What’s done is done. But I can’t help feeling like I should’ve done something to stop my parents’ marriage from unraveling. Maybe then he wouldn’t have gone off and had the affair. He’d still be dead, but at least he’d have his dignity.”

“I mean this in the kindest way,” Atlas said, “but it’s really unreasonable to find fault in yourself.”

“Of course it is. It’s completely illogical.” That didn’t mean I couldn’t still blame myself.

“Well.” He looked at me fondly. I hoped, at least, it was fondness and not pity. “Then I guess you’ve settled it.”

I could’ve used a pet just then, a cat, maybe, to leap between us. To give me something to caress thoughtfully as I was processing hard things. Instead, all I had to clutch was my knobby old couch blanket.

“What’s your plan?” he asked. “In the short term, that is?”

When I worked for him, my father, when bored, would sometimes come into my office and tell me stories about his childhood with Grandduff. Look, Daisy, he had said once, maybe a year into my tenure with him. I’ll give you the same advice your grandfather gave me. Want to be a success? Don’t be an idiot. Get to the center of photos. Give as many attaboys as you get. When you find yourself at the right place at the right time, you’d better not blink.

And, I’d said, do some good.

Yeah, Gregory had said, that, too.

“I’m going back to work,” I told Atlas. “I’ll try to recalibrate, undo my father’s damage. Do some good and redeem myself.”

“Redeem yourself after a crime you didn’t commit?”

“Exactly!” I said, remembering the snarl of the man who had shown up at P. “Have you met America?”

“I’m so sorry,” Atlas said, “I don’t have any more words except those.”

“Coming from you,” I said, “those words are plenty.”

He draped his long arm over the back of the couch. “I want to talk to you more about this, but before we go on, I do have to tell you something,” he said, fiddling with a piece of thread unraveling from the upholstery.

You’re marrying your girlfriend. She’s pregnant. Your children will be beautiful and brainy and charming. You’re moving away and I’ll never see you again. I’ve had something in my teeth this entire time. “What is it?” I asked.