I expect Elizabeth to have fallen back asleep, or maybe to be reading in bed while waiting for the bathroom, but she’s not here, and even after I’ve dressed and made the bed, she hasn’t returned. I hear her voice, though, on my way downstairs. She’s speaking in a soft, low whisper to someone else speaking just as soft and low.

“Robert,” Elizabeth says when she sees me. She’s sitting on the countertop by the sink, holding a mug of coffee between her knees. “Did you know we have a master angler in the house?” She’s not wearing a bra.

“I did not,” I say.

She tells Nick, “Show him the Northern Pike.” Elizabeth hates fishing. She wouldn’t know a pike from a guppy. I bet the only reason Nick showed her pictures was to get her to lean close to him with her shirt draped low.

“You’re up early, Nick,” I say.

He tilts his head. “Old habits from military school.”

“Ah, that’s right. I forgot. Military school. That must have been interesting.”

“I guess. It’s all I knew.”

“Robert fishes,” Elizabeth says. “He used to, anyway. He’s hardly gone out on the boat at all this year.” She says it to Nick, but she says it at me.

“We had a late spring.” It occurs to me that Elizabeth hasn’t taken a shower yet. I move close to her and breathe her in.

“Well, we’re having a beautiful summer now,” she argues.

Nick looks at me like it’s my serve on the tennis court. Most people would pretend to be doing anything other than hanging on their hosts’ every loaded word, but Nick is shamelessly entertained. Strange one, this kid.

“The shower is all yours,” I tell Elizabeth. “Sorry I took so long.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says.

“Are you sure, Lizzie?” My encrypted glance, coded by ten years of partnership and silent messages in crowded rooms, says, No you’re not. Below that: No really, darling. You smell like sex. She doesn’t read it, though, because she’s busy refilling her mug with black coffee, no sugar.

“Yes, Robert. I’m sure.” She laughs. “Nick, show him that pike.”

It’s a forty-four-and-a-quarter-inch Northern, a beauty by any standard. He’d gone all the way up to Ontario to catch it. He’s telling me the story, but I’m only half listening, because I’m preoccupied by the shirtless figure in the photo—sweaty and tan, classic Ray-Bans, white teeth. So fucking young. What kind of guy shows shirtless photos of himself to another man’s wife in another man’s house?

“Anyway,” Nick is saying, “it was a special trip. Nobody around for miles. Peaceful like you wouldn’t believe.”

“You like the water?” I ask.

“Love it.”

“You didn’t grow up near water, though.”