“Yeah,” he said. “Ouch. She wasn’t even there when I went home to pick up my car. Whatever happened to loyalty? And trust? And till death do us part?”

“Do you want her back?” I asked.

He closed his eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about the Las Vegas shooting. One of the guards said that when it was over and they’d rescued everybody they could, somebody turned out the lights in the venue. There were bodies everywhere. And then the cellphones started ringing and ringing, lighting up like stars, over and over again. And nobody was answering, because they were all dead.”

He opened his eyes, rubbed tears off his cheeks with the back of his hand. “With no disrespect to those poor people, that’s how I feel. Like I can’t answer. Because I’m dead.”

“But you’re not dead,” I said. “I know you’re really hurting, but imagine what any of those people would give for even one more day to try to figure out their lives.”

A gust of wind rattled the teeny window over the dinette table. Johnny stood up, pulled two old wool army blankets off the bed, handed me one.

I put the blanket on my lap, tucked my hands and feet under. “If I have one regret about Kevin and me . . .” I paused as I realized I was about to say this for the second time today. I mean, really, what kind of crazy world was this? Was it just a matter of time before I had to have this conversation with everybody?

It was the only advice I had, so I went with it. “My one regret is that when things were first falling apart, I didn’t try harder to save my marriage.”

“It takes two to save a marriage,” Johnny said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But one of you has to be the bigger person and get the ball rolling.”

He looked up, not exactly at me, but not at the tabletop either. “What should I do?”

Ask Carol, I wanted to say. Carol would know.

I dove in anyway. “Talk to Kim. Call her up.” As soon as it came out of my mouth, I realized I probably hadn’t said call her up since high school. Apparently the up had gone away like so many other things, when I wasn’t paying attention.

Johnny was back to staring at the tabletop.

I reached for something encouraging. “Who knows? By now maybe her work husband has turned out to have almost as many irritating little habits as her regular husband.”

He squinted up at me without quite lifting his head. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“You know what I mean. If they’ve known each other all this time, they’ll probably fast-forward through the happy horseshit stage. I’m just guessing, but how exciting can it be once the thing between them is no longer forbidden fruit?”