In the scalloped mirror, I took myself in. My hair was a wreck, the curls sticking up straight, and my lips were dyed purple from the wine, but my bruise remained covered. I teetered over to the toilet. I had the feeling I used to have before Davis, that anything can happen feeling. Brooklyn magic, bars open till four a.m., later if you tipped the bartenders well, people bouncing from street to avenue, all thrumming with possibility. It was a feeling I hadn’t had in a long, long time, one I certainly shouldn’t have with my new, married neighbors, one I shouldn’t have with anyone, really, not in my current state. The sort of feeling that got you in trouble, that led to drunken moments recorded for posterity, but it lured me all the same. Fish, meet hook. I washed my hands, then used a little of the water to scrub the wine off my lips and tame my curls. A knock on the door made me jump.

‘You okay in there?’ John asked.

‘Fine,’ I called. ‘Be out in a sec.’

He was there when I opened the door, big and strong in his button-down, a Brawny man or Mr Clean with more hair, or one of the myriad grocery-item mascots that told us what we should look for in a man. I felt myself wobble, and John reached out to steady me, grabbing my elbow. ‘You really sure you’re okay?’ he asked.

I nodded, shrinking away from his grasp – no man had touched me since Davis.

Besides, I shouldn’t have let myself get so drunk, not when I was just beginning my new life, when I still didn’t know who in the world I could trust.

‘You know,’ John said, weight shifting from foot to foot, obviously picking up on the change in my demeanor, ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything, saying my wife is obsessed with you. I guess it sounds a little nuts … but like she said, she’s been eager to meet someone new. She’s been really upset since everything changed.’

Rachel. The photos flashed into my mind, pushing my other thoughts aside. They’d seemed so intimate, I’d thought the guy in the pictures must have been the boyfriend of the woman who’d lived in the cottage before me. What’s more, Vera’s eyes had turned to John almost every time she’d spoken about her former friend.

It couldn’t be, I thought. Even in one night, I could see that John and Vera were in love with each other. It practically oozed off of them.

‘Did something … happen between them?’ I asked. ‘I mean, between all of you?’

John sighed. ‘You know, Vera can be very black-and-white in the way she sees the world.’

‘What do you mean?’