“It was more a way we had of being together. You’ll see when you meet her, Frances is just an intensely charismatic person.”

Cate looks around, suddenly awkward at having this conversation in a public place, but then she notices the hanging glass panels, some elaborate baffling system. The other customers exist somewhere else on the dining matrix, all of them in parallel, convivial but hushed universes.

“This is kind of—well, you know—unusual.”

“I didn’t mean to shock you. By now I see it as something small and far behind me. A tiny part of someone I was for a little while.”

In some precisely measured time frame, the vessel (something between a bowl and a plate) that held the sorbet or granita or whatever is taken away, replaced by a nubbly deck-of-cards rectangle. Sesame-crusted tofu striped with two sauces, pale pink and yellow. The server extends white-gloved hands toward Cate. The hands, palms up, hold a napkin, which in turn surrounds a heavy silver eating utensil with which Cate is completely unfamiliar. As Cate takes this narrow, flat, shovel-like implement, she sees the waitress look for a couple of nearly invisible but definitely extra clicks of time at Cate’s hand, her left. By now, she has a full repertoire of deft moves to replicate the functionality of a complete hand. But having only the first two fingers and a thumb to work with makes this particular gesture look like the claw in a game machine, picking out a toy. This doesn’t bother her. One thing Cate is not self-conscious about is her hand.

The esoteric sauce shovel makes a surprise second appearance after dinner when they’re in the car and Maureen pulls it from her coat pocket. Cate can’t help looking appalled at it; she can feel her eyes bulging.

“What—?” she says.

“Shh shh,” Maureen says, placing it in Cate’s lap. “Just a little souvenir. Now, should I turn left or right? Say you’ll come home with me. I don’t think we can go back to your place.”

“I think I need to go back, though. Graham’s been so down. Sometimes he forgets to walk Sailor.” Graham is living with her in a temporary way after getting tossed out by his latest wife. Cate was his first wife, a million years ago.

“Is that situation starting to bug you?”

“He’s so depressed. I can’t just show him the door. And he’s really no trouble. He mostly stays in his room. He hired a cleaning person. He orders in for us from Dean and DeLuca. I eat more Italian artisanal cheese than anyone outside Umbria.”

“It just seems like a peculiar arrangement is all.”

Like the arrangement where your head was between your sister’s legs? Cate thinks, but doesn’t say.