“I’m struggling with the idea that if Charlotte hadn’t been murdered, we wouldn’t be together. How can anything good come out of something so awful?”

He doesn’t initially respond. Even though we’d never expressly discussed it before, I’m certain that other comments I’ve made over the past few months have been sufficient for Gabriel to surmise that I find this cause-and-effect link a harbinger of our future unhappiness.

“And Allison told you not to think of it that way, but as a gift?”

“Yeah. She’s a glass-half-full kind of shrink, apparently.”

“You know she’s right, don’t you?”

Do I know that Allison’s right? Isn’t that a self-answering question? If I knew she was right, I wouldn’t be raising the issue in the first place. On the other hand, of course I know she’s right. I don’t believe that everything that occurs in the universe is because of me.

All I can muster in response is a shrug.

“Well, even if you don’t know, I know,” he says. “Allison is right, at least partly. Maybe I’m not a gift for you, but you are certainly the best thing that has ever happened to me. And . . . I didn’t have to suffer a tragedy for us to come together. The tragedy for me would be if somehow I lost you because you thought you couldn’t be happy with me on account of the way we met . So . . . how does that work with your worldview?”

“It hurts my head to think about it. Let’s table the discussion about my tortured psyche for now, if that’s okay. Tell me about your day?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrow. That’s his way of saying that the discussion about my tortured psyche is only going to be just that—tabled. It won’t be forgotten.

“It was a big one, actually. First we met with McKenney, who claims he hadn’t heard about Lauren challenging him. He flatly denied getting into any kind of yelling match with Richard Trofino.”

Gabriel had previously shared with me Richard Trofino’s claim of a profanity-laced shouting match with the District Attorney, with McKenney making threats. I took it with a grain of salt. Richard could be counted on to use whatever means necessary to cast suspicion on McKenney.

“Just a flat-out denial?” I ask.

“Yeah. McKenney says it never happened. He doesn’t just deny that he made threats. He denies that the conversation with Trofino about Lauren running for DA even occurred.”