“I need help,” I said to Marshall. I pulled out a bill. I wasn’t sure what it was, even, but it was legal tender. I turned to Gabrielle and thrust it at her. “And, God, I need a lawyer.”

She was still staring at Spence’s inert form, stretched out heavy on the green lawn, but the money was in her peripheral vision. It trembled and wavered, and it took me a moment to understand that this was because my hand was shaking.

I’d been married to a lawyer long enough to know that if I told her about dosing Spence, privilege would not apply. We were at a cocktail party, on a dark path winding through shadowed beds and huge living statues. Any number of unseen ears could be nearby. We had no expectation of privacy. So I held the money out like a promise to be honest later, hoping she would help me.

She looked to Marshall first, silently asking something. I found myself looking at him, too, my eyes begging him to trust me. Betsy had, all her life.

“I don’t know what it’s about,” he told her. “But . . .” He glanced at me and then gave Gabrielle a short, sharp nod. Again, it felt so good to be this known, this trusted by him.

She took the bill. “Okay. I’m your lawyer. Let’s get out while we can and go someplace where we can talk.”

We turned and hurried up the path to the exit. My Lyft was just arriving. We all got in, and as we sped away, I heard sirens in the distance. Coming for Spence, I thought. An ambulance or paramedics on a fire truck sent to help him.

Too late.

9

We sat in silence the whole way home, Gabrielle, then me, then Marshall in a row in the backseat of the dark sedan. I could feel the tension in their bodies, a thousand silent questions pushing in on me from both sides.

I was going to answer those questions, too. All of them. As soon as we were alone. I’d stopped acting out of panic and blind obedience. Now I was thinking, deciding, and a vast black calm settled over me. The mother had lied about the pills. Maybe about everything. I could not face the conclusions I was drawing by myself.