“Oh, come on. They’re not bad women.”

“That wasn’t a judgment call. It’s a fact. They were talking about libidos and finances and other people’s children. They drink white wine and discuss carbohydrates and heated tile.”

“You went one time, Elizabeth. Once. Two years ago.”

“Once was enough.”

“I still think you might be generalizing, but if you’re not, that’s all the more reason to throw a wrench in their mediocrity.”

“Why should I volunteer to throw wrenches?”

“Because you are brilliant, Elizabeth.”

She tucks her chin and offers a crooked smile.

“You know I think you’re a damn genius.” It’s true. I do.

She shrugs.

“Go to their stupid club, talk about their damn book, crack open their minds and show them who you are. Give them something new to talk about and maybe they’ll surprise us with brainpower of their own.”

“They aren’t stupid women,” Elizabeth says. “Luna is terribly sharp. She handles Graham’s trust like she’s the head of the IMF, for Christ’s sake.”

“So go show her there’s nothing wrong with having conversations about more substantive matters than curtains and hormones.”

“Hormones are substantive, Robert.”

“Fair enough,” I concede, knowing how close she is to saying yes, knowing she doesn’t like being pushed. If Elizabeth could make more friends around here, she wouldn’t need to search for Nicks to cure her boredom. Her midlife crisis.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

“They should be so lucky.”

The music box theme song of our neighborhood ice cream truck blasts from a bullhorn atop a refrigerated vehicle down the street. Children clutching fistfuls of dollar bills snatched from their parents’ wallets answer the call of a lazy piper. The Entertainer.

“I wonder what they’re reading,” Elizabeth murmurs, and I smile.

This is a small step, and not a comprehensive solution, but I’ve successfully planted a distraction in her mind, and I’ve effectively boosted her softness toward me. All I want is for us to be happy, and so it gives me great pleasure to watch her mull over the possibilities of an idea she now thinks was her own.

10.

My heart-to-heart with Elizabeth brings a peace that lasts through the night, but first thing in the morning, Raymond squashes it by requesting a status report. He texts only a question mark, sufficiently cryptic for anyone who isn’t us, but enough to make me resent him for acknowledging what he knows. I reply, All good, and erase our messages.

It’s not all good, though. The symptoms and risks of Elizabeth’s needs may be clearer, true, but addressing them without addressing Nick is like popping vitamins without removing the tumor. Healthy systems require both prevention and treatment.