He smiled at me. It was a secret moment he wanted to share with me. A cue that he was down with having fun. I did not find it sexy. Instead, I wondered if Bobby had ever said that to another woman when we were married.

“Here she is,” his wife said. She stumbled over with another woman, and I got up to make room for them. They didn’t want me looking at their vacation photos.

I walked across the lawn and saw the host, my friend, cooking in the kitchen through the back window. I avoided the window and walked down the side of the house that led to the driveway and onto the street. The house was warmly lit and filled with friends, couples searching for sameness. I walked down the street, breathing in the cool night air, and looked for my car.

22.

There was a time when I could get prescriptions for Xanax and Klonopin that could last me several months—ninety pills at a time, even—but the opioid epidemic made doctors taper off their lavish prescription and refill policies. At least that’s what I told myself about why Dr. Kassell suddenly was cutting me off at thirty pills max, with a visit necessary for any kind of refill so we could “talk.” Bobby had been kind enough to keep me on his insurance through the rest of the year, and I felt I needed to take better care of myself, because after that I was on my own. I scheduled a physical, but my main concern was making sure I could sleep through the night. I didn’t have cable anymore, so I spent my nights wandering my apartment looking for things to clean. It was an immaculate space no one ever came to see.

In Dr. Kassell’s office, I stared at the pictures on her wall of far-flung places that she liked to hike through. The big mountains that kill people from time to time. She had mastered them all and wanted patients to see evidence of her healthy living. I gave her my ready spiel about getting a divorce and maybe being depressed but mostly being anxious. Dr. Kassell asked, “But don’t you feel free?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“You don’t have kids, right?”

“Definitely not.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Why?”

“I stayed an extra ten years because of my kids.” She wrote some notes down on her chart and said, “It’ll get better.”

“I’m not unhappy,” I said. “I’m just scared of the noises outside my window at night.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she said.

“It sounds like snarling.”

“It’s L.A. I’m sure it’s a coyote or something.”