She shakes her head, unreasonably delighted. “I don’t know any florists who deliver before seven in the morning—and I was on time today. Scout’s honor.” She holds up three fingers in the okay gesture, which I’m pretty sure is not the Girl Scout pledge. “They were sitting by the back entrance when I got in.”

“Probably the foundation or something,” I say. “Or the city. Who knows.” I’ve already shifted focus to the local newspaper displayed beside the vase. I blow pollen from the front page.

“That’s poisonous to cats, you know.”

“Hm?” There I am above the fold, dancing to “Lady in Red” and being kissed on the mouth by my wife.

“Lilies,” she’s saying. “Lily pollen will kill a cat.”

The headline: “CITY TOASTS CITIZEN OF THE YEAR: DR. ROBERT HART.”

“So sad. Good thing we don’t have cats in the office, huh?” She laughs and pats me on the shoulder. “Congratulations again.”

“Thanks, Simone,” I say without taking my eyes off the paper. At the bottom of the front page is a full-color picture of my family, which would be a point of pride had some idiot editor not chosen the shot with Nick as our surrogate son.

“Oh,” Simone says, pivoting to face me. “Forgot to tell you: I think I found your diamonds.”

“Hm?” I didn’t know I’d lost any diamonds.

“The anniversary diamonds? There’s a gorgeous pair of earrings at Jamison’s Jewelers across town. You need to go look at them when you can. Wes is expecting you.”

“Oh.” I glance back and forth between Simone, so eager to please, and this photograph that feels threatening, somehow. On the front page of newspapers distributed all over town, my wife’s fingers grip the shoulder of a boy who is not my son. That boy’s arm cradles Elizabeth’s waist. A terrible chill rises up the back of my neck, and I finally give Simone my full attention. “You know what? Maybe diamonds are too showy after all. She wanted tin. Let’s give her tin.”

Now it’s Simone’s turn for suspicion. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.” I leave the newspaper on the table. It can wait. There’s work to do now, patients to see, a reputation to live up to. “If anyone can track down an elegant piece of aluminum, it’s you, Ms. Bristol.”

She beams with the satisfaction of knowing her role is essential in my life, and it is. “Okay. I’ll let Wes Jamison know you changed your mind. Aluminum it is.”

I turn my back on poisonous lilies and the photograph actively etching itself in my mind.

Simone hands me a leather-bound iPad with a clipboard on its case. “Jeremy Levy will be in soon for his seven thirty,” she tells me. “Acid reflux and Botox.”

7.