The waitress is back with our drinks. Gabriel lifts his beer to eye level.

“To it getting better each day,” he says.

“Cheers to that,” I say as I clink my glass against his.

Gabriel orders a steak. He likes them prepared well done. I shake my head every time he utters the words. For my part, I’m not in the mood for red meat. Although I usually think twice about ordering seafood in a pub, I throw caution to the wind and ask for the seared tuna—rare.

“Any more thoughts about an apartment?” he asks as we wait for our food to arrive.

My father wants to buy me an apartment. He first made the offer about five years ago, right around the same time he purchased Charlotte’s place for her at Riverside and 108th. He said it was a good investment for him because he wouldn’t be throwing money away on rent during her undergraduate years at Columbia. Claiming he didn’t want to treat us unequally, he offered to buy me one too, even though I was already gainfully employed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and supporting myself—albeit in far less luxury than I’d experienced as his dependent.

My father still hasn’t put Charlotte’s apartment on the market. It’s sitting dormant, like some type of monument to her life. He dutifully makes the maintenance payments each month, although to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t set foot inside since her death. Neither have I. I think he’s hoping that if he can buy a home for me, it’ll ease the pain of letting go of the one tangible piece of Charlotte’s life that still remains.

“Not really. I just moved . . .” I say.

“Well, that was a matter of necessity. This would be by choice.”

My sister’s murderer went straight from my bed to Hell—right after I jammed a knife into his throat. I never spent another night in that apartment. After a few days of staying in my father’s guest room—a lovely space overlooking Central Park—I returned to the West Village and the “comforts” of a fourth-floor, walk-up, one-bedroom sublet that looks out on an air shaft and smells of curry courtesy of the Baluchi’s downstairs.

My lease expires in six months. At that time, I’ll have to make a decision about where to live. Not just where, but how as well. With Gabriel? Off my father’s charity? In a place I can afford on my own because I’ve cast aside my singing dream and gone back to practicing law?

But as I learned over this past half year, six months is a very long time. The world might look vastly different by then. Mine certainly did six months ago.

“It’ll be an excuse to get new furniture, at least,” Gabriel says with a sly smile.