“But really, nobody was a winner coming out of that kitchen. I’m made of something different now and it’s not just stronger, it’s way bleaker. And Neale, I can see her folding in on herself, and I hate that. And I can’t help. I know she loves me and appreciates my taking time out of my busy day to save her, but also I’m the only witness to her humiliation. If I weren’t around, she could put it all away more easily.”

“I think your friendship is so much bigger than what happened. I think you just have to give it time to recuperate.”

And then Dana is quiet. This is one of the things Cate likes best about her, that she doesn’t have to fill pauses. She can sit inside them.

After a while of letting the water roil around them and the aroma machine pump out little blasts of vetiver, letting Dana’s cell phone stream Nina Simone’s cover of “Here Comes the Sun,” Cate says, “Let me take you to bed. A giant bed.”

They have plenty of time for everything. Sex and foreplay and afterglow. Now they are searching for small scars and the stories behind them. Dana inspects Cate’s finger stumps in detail, then comes up with a way Cate can put them to use. They make love naked. Naked is rare, given their usual opportunities where even horizontal is a bonus. With her clothes off Dana is impressive. Thick in a way that’s about muscle gravity, like a gleaner in the Millet painting. Cate closes her eyes and trails her fingers over hard calves, little trapezius bumps at the top of Dana’s shoulders. But it’s not so much about parts as about the whole, the way Dana occupies herself.

Dana says, “You miss the traction of those potato sacks under you.”

But Cate has lost the ability to see their connection as lighthearted and storeroom-specific. “I feel too much in this. I’m emotionally ridiculous. What we have is totally concocted. Stolen moments. Midnight meetings. Sex that has to carry all the freight because we don’t have any regular everyday connection. We’re not building a history together. Affairs don’t have a history. They’re on the calendar in invisible ink.”