Her sister looked around to see if anyone was listening. She leaned across the table. “I go to meetings. You send Jason as my watchdog, remember? Don’t worry, Frankie, I get my dose of humiliation every week.”

“The meetings aren’t intended to humiliate you. They’re to keep you alive.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to go to them, do you? Be a good girl and stand up in front of the losers and tell them that I’m an even bigger loser. I’m sorry we can’t all be world-class physicists and psychiatrists and neuroscientists. Some of us are just human beings.”

Pam waved her hand, which collided with her martini glass and spilled her drink across the table. Pam swore and stood up to flag Virgil to get another. Frankie sopped up the puddle from the table with a wad of napkins. She was always cleaning up Pam’s messes.

Ping.

Another e-mail. She grabbed her phone to read the message. It was the same sender:

I see you.

Frankie’s head snapped up. Zingari was packed with customers shoulder to shoulder. Light was low, and she struggled to see the faces. Her eyes shot from person to person, looking for someone in the crowd who was looking back at her. Someone she knew.

There was no one. She realized that her hand was trembling, and she could barely hold her phone.

Across the table, Pam sat down again, her face tight with anger. She wouldn’t look at Frankie.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie murmured.

Pam said nothing.

“Really, I mean it, Pam. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to run your life. I know sometimes I act like I do.”

“You’re just like Dad,” Pam retorted, knowing it was a low blow.

Frankie held her tongue, despite the temptation to start the argument all over again. “Okay, you’re right, Dad was always on your case, and I don’t want to be like that. He drove me crazy, too, just not in the same way. He was difficult.”

“Difficult?” Pam said, as if the word didn’t begin to describe him. Which was true.

“The thing is, Dad and I made some progress when we were at Point Reyes. Before the accident.”

“How nice for you, but you didn’t want me there, remember? You said all I’d do is get in the way.”

Frankie hesitated. “Of course. I just mean—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is.”

Virgil leaned between them. His smirk, as always, was plastered on his face. He knew they were arguing. It wasn’t the first time. He’d seen worse in the year they’d been coming here. The server carried a glass of pinot noir in his hand, and Pam frowned when she saw it.

“I wanted another martini, V.”