I back out and keep scrolling, and a file catches my eye: Fertility Eval. A chart, a long list of medical tests and terms. It doesn’t take me long to get the gist. Katherine was infertile, something about ovulatory dysfunction and a diminished ovarian reserve, and I think back to Paul’s reaction on the boat, his obvious joy when he found out he was going to be a father, and an invisible fist punches into my chest and squeezes my heart. Finally something I’ve beaten her at, but it doesn’t feel like a victory. It feels like a tragedy, especially for Paul.

I shake it off and move on to the Memories folder, and it’s pictures. Thousands and thousands of them. Smiling. Kissing. Gazing lovingly into the other’s eyes. Capturing moments from the time they met, in grad school at Cornell, to the weekend before she died. Glamorous shots from their wedding, grainier shots at parties and on vacations, candid shots at home—Paul’s home, the one I can’t quite think of as mine because it’s her hyacinth bulbs that push through the dirt each spring.

I zoom in on a shot of her sunning on my favorite chair on the dock, and she really is lovely. Long and lean, with high cheekbones and eyes so aqua it’s hard to look away. I take her in, but it’s Paul’s face I concentrate on. He looks happy. Relaxed. I measure the edges of his smile, compare them to the one he aimed at me two days ago when I told him I was pregnant. Did he smile bigger with her? Was his face brighter?

And what was it Sam said? All you have to do is take off the blinders.

My eyes flutter shut, and I steel myself against something ugly and dark.

The door bangs open, and I jump so hard my body loses contact with the seat. Chet shakes off the snow and his coat, hanging it on the door handle.

“Deli was closed. Everything is, even the post office. It’s like a ghost town out there. What? What’d I do now?”

I shake my head. “It’s not you. It’s just...” I gesture vaguely to the laptop screen. “I was going through Paul’s computer. I don’t like what I found.”

Chet leaves a trail of snow and ice on his trek across the office, nodding knowingly. “Porn?”

“What? No, not porn.” I frown. “Stuff about Katherine.”

It takes him a second or two to place the name. “Wait—isn’t Katherine his wife?”

“First wife. Was. The wife he refuses to talk to me about, ever. She was loaded, Chet.”

“Well, of course she was. Her daddy was Pete-O-Pedic.” He sings part of a jingle anyone in fifteen counties would recognize: “‘Buy your mattress from a local dealer, get it for a little cheaper.’ Remember those commercials?”