At the same time, Cathy seemed to realize something and stopped midchatter. After an awkward moment of silence, Fred nodded stiffly to them and stepped back to the group.

Maja looked at Cathy questioningly, but she just gave a little half smile. “Not everyone is a morning person,” she said, peering down the street as the bus slowly made its way toward them. Maja glanced over her shoulder at Fred. He was the right age to have kids in high school, she thought. She didn’t recognize him from the school board meeting, but there’d been a lot of parents there.

On the bus, Maja chose a seat by herself near the back. She felt unsettled as she thought about her soon-to-be neighbors. Once she and Ted moved, she realized, awkward meetings like this could happen at any time. It was a small town, and a lot of people were bound to know kids who’d been at the party, or their parents. Maja had just assumed that people would feel bad for her, or angry on her behalf, as Cathy had been—at first. It had only dawned on her, after the school board meeting, that others might feel very differently. Like Cathy said, people were willing to go to great lengths where their kids were concerned.

When they arrived at the Port Authority, she made her way downtown to their apartment so that she could get changed before work. She didn’t need to be at the gallery until noon, so she stopped on her way and picked up a few groceries. There was something that she needed to talk with Ted about tonight, and she thought that cooking his favorite meal couldn’t hurt.

By the time she got home, it was nearly ten-thirty. She dropped her bags on the kitchen counter, glanced through the mail piled there, and then headed back to the bedroom to change. As she rounded the corner, she ran right into Ted and let out an involuntary scream.

“Holy shit! What was that?” he asked, alarmed.

“I’m sorry!” she said, laughing and catching her breath. “You scared me. What are you doing here? I thought you’d already be at work.”

They walked into the kitchen and Maja noticed that Ted was still in his boxers and hadn’t shaved yet. “Everything okay?”

He busied himself with boiling water for coffee. “I’m feeling a little under the weather. I thought I’d just go in late.”

“I thought things were crazy at work right now. You told me that you didn’t have time to meet with the new contractors.”

“They are,” he said irritably. “If it’s so important to you I’ll go right now. You can make your own coffee.” He banged the coffee press so hard on the counter that Maja was surprised that it didn’t break.