I smile. “Well, you did it. I’m impressed.”

“I feel better mentally. Emotionally. It’s empowering to know for sure I’m not dependent on it. Laurie’s still the anomaly.”

“Well,” I say, “congratulations. I’m glad that’s over.”

The first week had not been pretty. Without alcohol to anesthetize her, Elizabeth shuffled around weepy and out of sorts, but then it got better. Then we started talking. Not about Jonah, of course. Not about the Unspeakable Thing, but about Nick and loss and grief and about what the two of us have lost—simply by virtue of staying together long enough to lose eras of infatuation, to witness change in each other, to be changed—and about what we hope to discover yet. In solidarity, I teetotaled too, at first, but she let me off the hook after a few days, and I obliged.

Then came the call from Zebadiah Walsh. Cause of death: blunt cardiac injury as the result of a self-inflicted fall from height. End of story. So my need for a drink declined naturally.

There wasn’t any mention of drug use, as far as I know. Maybe Naomi Miller got the full report, but I’d like to think Walsh spared her. I made the request. That’s all I could’ve done.

Elizabeth buckles her feet into formal combat boots that are somehow also sandals. Half-naked in high heels, she asks, “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

“Yes,” I say, marveling at how, after everything, the messes and worse, this woman still drives me crazy sometimes. I run my fingers along the curve of her waist, slipping my hand under the elastic of her skirt. “Are you sure we only have fifteen minutes?”

She is unamused. “Yes. Hands off. I spent half an hour on this face and hair.” She slaps my wrist, and I release her to disappear into her closet.

“Fine. Later.”

“Yeah,” she says, “later.” She returns wearing a steel-gray dress held up by a chain around her neck. She turns so I can zip her, and I do. “We have to be on time. I told Bess we’d pick her up at six.”

“How is Bess?”

Elizabeth smooths the creases on her dress and digs through her jewelry box. “All right. She and Rick are on the rocks.”

She stops there, daring me to ask for details just so she can say, “Don’t worry about it.” She’s been getting some kind of kick out of hiding the inner workings of a friend-crush on Rick’s almost-ex-girlfriend, Bess. Elizabeth explained, one time, how Bess satisfies something unique for her—something I can’t provide, in other words—and when I reminded Elizabeth of how capable I am of meeting all her needs, she only rolled her eyes, so now I play along. In truth, I think she’s hoping to make me jealous, so it’s sort of cute.