I stepped past the bookshelf to the sideboard, and a row of happy snaps—family shots, mostly, and a couple where I picked a much-younger version of him out of a crowd of schoolkids. Smiling. Relaxed. Alive. So alive, in every shot. Tom in a graduation gown between two people I assumed were his parents, grinning with pride. They looked—perfect. Like he’d picked them from a catalogue, like the family in a car commercial. I’d teased him about it, more than once. One with his dad, right near the front.

At the end, under a small bowl full of change, was a single photo frame, lying face down, that I’d never noticed before. I moved the coins and picked it up. It was a shot of Tom with his arm around the waist of a woman in a green dress, a string of pearls around her neck. Sophie. She was nearly as tall as he was, with long naturally blonde hair curling over her shoulder, every strand in place, everything about her … in place. Perfect. Smart, funny, gorgeous. A perfect girlfriend smile, her perfect body arched perfectly into his. He was smiling too, wide and careless.

It was dusk, the light giving everything a golden glow, and they were leaning against a brick wall that came to his elbow. Just over her shoulder I could see the unmistakeable outline of the Empire State Building in the background.

A hard, painful lump formed in my throat and when I tried to swallow it down it doubled in size. I put my fingertip on the glass, touched her face. It felt warm and I was cold and when I pulled back I’d left a smudge.

Fiji. The States for a wedding. Tokyo for a week.

I hadn’t asked where in the States.

We never talked about New York. When we talked about places to go, he mentioned South America or Europe or remote parts of Asia. Not the States.

Not New York, because he’d already been there.

I felt the air go out of the room suddenly, and I couldn’t breathe. I put the photo back, bowl of coins on top, went back outside and rolled myself another cigarette, touching the filter to my lips twice, tapping on the end when I was finished, smoked it, then another. And another, so fast my head spun. The balcony railing seemed suddenly too low, too flimsy.

He’d told me, he just hadn’t told me everything—didn’t know there was anything to tell, had no reason to think it mattered—but still, anger and hurt sparked deep in my gut. The sky was blue but the city looked cold and alien and flat.

Dead.