She used to come here all the time, she’d told me. How different had her life been before everything started with John? How much had this wrecked her, long before John died?

The bartender – Joe – grunted out the limited options, his accent thick but unplaceable, like someone who’d spent a long time in the woods, and Vera ordered two Malbecs.

‘Generous pours,’ she added. ‘You can charge me extra.’

‘Aren’t you driving?’ I asked.

She shrugged me off. ‘We’ll get a cab.’

‘When I first moved here, you told me there weren’t any car services around here.’

‘God, Lucy, I know one, okay?’ She scooted her chair closer to the bar, sat up straight. ‘Sam’s not even here, see?’

‘He could be in the back.’

Vera ignored me as the bartender delivered two glasses, fat and brimming. She dug a credit card out of her bag and handed it to him.

She pushed one glass over to me, sloshing a bit of wine onto the counter, then took a sip from her own. ‘Come on. Drink.’

I rested my hand on the glass but didn’t bring it to my lips. ‘I’m sorry I said anything. I shouldn’t have, so soon.’

Vera shook her head so violently, it looked like her neck might snap. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘I didn’t mean –’

‘I don’t want to hear you say that ever again.’

I froze, staring at her. I feared I’d fucked it all up, just like Rachel had. That I really might have lost her this time. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t.’

Vera sat up straighter and took another sip. ‘Lucy, you know me, I’m a social person. I didn’t want to be some recluse. It’s not my fault that people are obsessed with rumors, but they are, and I am not going to let them touch me, not anymore. I planned on coming up here, making just as many friends as I had in the city. Going to bars like this, eating out in town. Just like you. But –’ She paused, taking a sip. ‘They took that away from me. With their gossip and their looks and now these absurd accusations from Rachel. God.’

She twisted the glass in front of her, almost as if she were inspecting it for cracks. ‘At least in the city,’ Vera went on, ‘if you pissed someone off, you didn’t have to see them all the time. At least you could be anonymous. I played Sam’s stupid game, I played along with all of them, but it didn’t even matter. He still killed John. These people still hate me.’ She took my hand in hers and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘We still had to do what we had to do, didn’t we?’