I never needed it myself. The law was a more contemplative profession than finance. Poise was valued over speed. Yes, my ability to think on my feet was an asset, but the truth was, there were seldom any surprises in court. I already knew what the evidence would be, because I’d already exchanged all of it with my adversary. The surprises, when they came at all, came to the office, where I had time to react, to deliberate, to strategize.

But even though I didn’t indulge, I didn’t object to David’s use back then, so long as he didn’t bring it home and he was careful about where he got it. And he was—his dealer was the compliance officer at his investment bank.

He gave up cocaine after the Fall, even though that was when he could have used the energy boost the most. Instead his weed usage went up as he spent his days drifting between couch and bed. His alcohol usage went up, too, as he spent his nights drifting between bed and couch.

I could handle his drinking. I’d grown up with drunkards, and everybody I’d ever known had an alcoholic somewhere in their life. They dealt with it and so could I. But then David started disappearing at odd hours of the night, and I started to notice things disappearing, too—a piece of jewelry, the oil painting we bought from a chichi gallery in SoHo, money from my wallet. For a long time he let me pretend it was only alcohol he was abusing. He’d even slosh a little whiskey on his clothes for effect, sip a little to scent his breath. It was our unspoken pact: I’d enable his habit if he’d enable my pretense.

He didn’t bother anymore; he didn’t try to hide it. But still it was a jolt to see the truth laid out so starkly.

I lifted his wrist and checked for a pulse and found it. He might be dead to the world, but he wasn’t dead to me. Not yet, anyway. Carefully I slid the needle from his vein and untied the rubber strap from his arm. I searched each of his pockets, and he didn’t stir, even when I slipped my hand underneath him. In the back pocket of his pants I found his stash: three little baggies of a fine powder. I flushed it down the toilet and wrapped the needle and strap in a garbage bag and put it by the door.

I found his wallet in his other back pocket. There were only a few bills left in it, not enough to do any damage on their own, but I took them anyway. I’d started to put the wallet back when the photo sleeve fell open and I got my second jolt of the day.

My own face looked up at me. It was my last professional portrait, a head-and-shoulders shot in front of a shelf of law books, taken for the Jackson Rieders website. There I was, the golden girl of yore, wearing salon highlights and a Theory suit and a supercilious smile.