The neighbor woman is walked out in handcuffs, wearing pajamas. On her pants, Minnie Mouse stands on tiptoe with fingers clasped at her face, hearts of varying sizes exploding in the air around her mouse ears. Jeanette doesn’t know her. Just knows that she works every day, even Sundays. She sees her leave her house always in the same pink smock, with the same caddy of cleaning supplies. Jeanette’s breath creates little spirals of fog on the window. One agent, a woman with a burst of auburn curls, shrugs her jacket closed with one hand while the other holds the chain that links the woman’s handcuffs. No shouts, no screams, no tussle. The agents and the neighbor woman walk in silence to the van, lights still spinning like Fourth of July fireworks. The male agent slides the door shut with a bang. The rumble of the engine. The cloud puff of exhaust. Tiny wires crisscross all the windows, so Jeanette cannot see inside the van, cannot see the neighbor woman as the van drives down the road past every blacked-out town house window and makes a right, disappears. It all happens in minutes.

Jeanette tries to fall back asleep but cannot. She rubs lavender oil on her wrists, takes a tab of melatonin. Lies there, eyes open, for what feels like an hour. Finally she dials the number, making sure to press *67 first to disable caller ID. Mario answers in a sleep-clogged voice. Mario answers because Mario always answers no matter the time of night. And even now, six months separated and six months sober, Jeanette still swallows the rock in her throat as she waits for the click, the familiar voice.

She says: “I miss you.”

No need for pleasantries or pretense. No need to even announce herself. Of course it is her. A sigh on the other side. A rustling of sheets.

“Jeanette.”

“Hi.”

“We can’t keep doing this.”

“I can’t sleep.”

A sound like a snap. Turning on a light?

“That brand of ginger ale that you like,” she says. “The one they stopped selling at the supermarket near our old house? I saw it today where I shop.”

“Where do you shop?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“At least tell me you’re still in Miami?”

Silence.

A sigh.

“Jeanette, how long are we going to play games like this? If you won’t even tell me where you are, do you call just to break my heart even more? Just to make it harder for me?”

She can picture him. He sleeps shirtless and in boxers. She can picture the print of the sheets, the color, the smell of just-washed. The pile of library books on his nightstand. The color of the walls. They picked it out together: Eggshell Bavarian Cream. What’s he reading these days?

He says: “Just tell me you are okay.”

She says: “I am okay.”