She chooses a pair of aquamarine earrings and carries them with her, patting my cheek as she leaves the room. “Twelve minutes.”

I dress in a suit and tie. From the hollows of my walk-in closet, I ask Elizabeth if she’d like to join me in checking out speedboats this weekend.

She asks, “You’re really doing this, huh?”

“Deal’s almost done. My Lucia will be captained by a retired mogul in Fort Lauderdale come Monday. No regrets.”

She sings, “If you say so,” then appears before me, jewelry in hand. “You about ready?”

I tell her I am and follow her downstairs. It is a good house, our house. I briefly considered satisfying the HOA with a rooftop remodel, but that would nearly eat up my whole speedboat budget, determined by the sale of My Lucia, so instead, I changed the lock, sealed the door. Good enough.

In the kitchen, Elizabeth transfers her wallet and makeup from one bag to another. I eyeball a stack of mail. Flipping over a large open envelope, I ask, “What’s this?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth moves close to me, leaning in as she fastens an earring. Her skin smells warm. “Those are the proofs from those portraits that photographer took at your banquet. I asked her to send them before everything went to shit, obviously. Thought they’d make good Christmas cards, but that’s probably a little morose now.”

I shake the contents from the envelope and scan a glossy sheet of thumbnails, honing in on two images circled in red crayon. Elizabeth stays by my side, staring at the pictures too.

“Those were her favorites, I guess,” she says.

In the first, Nick Carpenter, alive and reasonably well, grips Elizabeth’s arm. It is the very same photo published in the newspaper two months ago, when all I saw was Nick’s hand on my wife. I’d been blinded by a diversion. The second picture is of just the three of us: me in the middle, my wife on one side, my child on the other. We are close and we are laughing, digitally captured in a state of joy and intimacy.