“I don’t know . . .” said Anthony. “We’re sort of on fragile ground right now, I don’t want to push it—”

“Seriously, Anthony, I’m dead serious. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. This could be the answer to everything. I can see it in my mind’s eye.” Shelly’s voice flew up an octave. “And my mind’s eye is pretty prescient, always has been. If he was sort of, I don’t know, laying his hands on you, on your shoulders maybe, like he was giving you absolution. Oh, my God. We could get Annie fucking Leibovitz to take that photo, it would be so big.”

“Shelly,” said Anthony. “No. I really don’t think so.”

“The golden child, tarnished, fallen. And risen again.”

Anthony begged to differ on two of those points, but could find neither the energy nor the vocabulary to do so. “Shelly—”

“Remember when Michael Phelps got busted for DUI? And then he won all of those gold medals in Rio? People eat that shit up.”

Anthony winced and held the phone a little bit away from his ear, but he could still hear Shelly. “They really eat it up,” she added.

“I don’t think he would go for that,” said Anthony. We never really knew about the inner lives of our parents, did we? But Anthony knew enough about his father to know that a photo shoot with Annie fucking Leibovitz and his own tainted son would fall at least in the bottom third of his wish list.

“I bet Cassie would go for this. I bet she could help convince him! I can’t get her to call me back, though—”

“Trust me,” said Anthony. “Cassie is not the way into this.” The night before, during the few wretched hours the Unisom had lurched toward its goal, he’d dreamed about his wedding day. For Anthony and Cassie’s wedding somebody had woven wildflowers in Cassie’s hair and braided the whole mass together, and she’d worn a simple silk sheath that could have doubled as a nightgown. No shoes. (His mother had been horrified.) Her bouquet had been wild and green, more fern than flower. She’d looked wholesome and stunning, like a woodland fairy in a glossy magazine layout of woodland fairies. They’d been married under a wildflower archway. Last night Anthony had dreamt the wildflower archway was falling down during the vows. “Anthony!” cried his mother. “Anthony! Move out of the way! Move out of the way!” But Anthony was confused and paralyzed. He remained where he was, while Cassie ran barefoot into the crowd, saving herself.

He woke sweating under Fitzy’s uncle’s sheets, pulling at the air above him. But even awake he could find no peace: He couldn’t stop thinking about Glen Manning. He imagined Cassie and Glen in bed together, the article in the Times spread out beneath them. “What did he think, he wouldn’t get caught?” said Imaginary Cassie. She threw back her head and laughed long and hard, showing the perfect white pearls of her back molars. “I mean, what was he thinking? Right, Glen? Right?” Laughter, laughter, so much laughter. “Oh, baby,” said Imaginary Glen Manning, the rustic, masculine-yet-artsy stubble on his chin gently catching the nascent sunlight. (It was morning in this scene, but where was Max? Asleep? Awake? Probably with Dorothy.) “You get me so hot when you laugh like that.” He rolled over and made mad, passionate love to Cassie on top of Anthony’s stupid grinning photograph. “Harder!” cried Cassie. She took a fistful of the newspaper and crumpled it. “More, Glen, more!”