That night I did not go upstairs to see Cricket. Wallis called me. She knocked on my door. But she couldn’t find me because I was outside, crouched on the curb outside our building, my face all but in the gutter. Because where else do you go if your phone won’t stop ringing all day? Where else do you run when you are sure the floor will collapse under your feet, when you are positive your home will turn to rubble around you?

Wallis discovered me, eventually. She shook my shoulders. She told me to breathe.

“I’m fucked,” I gasped. “I’m finished.”

She knelt in front of me in the gutter, in the runoff and the leaves. “No, you’re not,” she said, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “Daisy. No. You’re. Not.”

The force of her, the certainty behind her words, momentarily consoled me. I met her eyes, and she waited, silently imploring me to say All right, yes, I believe you.

The night stretched before us. Our breath came out in frosty clouds. Sirens, the sounds of go-go music a block over.

I couldn’t give her what she wanted.

Yet still she waited.

Fifteen

The Monday after what I’d come to think of as The Afternoon I Dug My Own Grave, Miles called a staff meeting. All eyes naturally turned to him, sitting at the head of the conference table, his sleeves rolled to the biceps, impatient to get started. He had been in rural Western Maryland when he saw the photo, parading down the main street of a charming small town celebrating its sesquicentennial, waving flags and shaking hands, holding babies. I’d answered his texts, which ranged from irate to disappointed, from my bed, trying my best to apologize and explain, then ate dinner, lukewarm noodles washed down with a big glass of dread, and finally fell asleep around three in the morning, fitful, my dreams full of nothing.

“We’ve been off to a slow start this year,” Miles began. “As a result, we’re not getting visibility on the right things.” His eyes flicked to me. “What are we doing to get back on our feet? I want ideas. And if someone tells me to rename a post office, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Tariffs, someone said. That domestic violence act, said someone else. A good plan to get on board with the marijuana decriminalization act. That one is popular. Student loan forgiveness. Honeybees.

“Daisy,” Miles said. “What have you got?”

“Could ask DOT for more money to get high-speed rail running,” I said. “Northeast corridor runs right through Maryland.”

Miles narrowed his eyes in concentration, clicked the button on his pen. “High-speed rail?” Click, click. Click, click. “Wasn’t that one of Gregory Richardson’s pet projects? I remember he was an early evangelizer. And investor, no?”