She glanced at the clock. It was only six. Early yet. She could go and spend the evening with Lukas and Willa and Zurie.

No. It was Tuesday. They were in Poplar, eating with Willa’s family at Pauly’s Pub.

She could take the tube to join them, but by the time she got there, it would be seven. They’d be finishing up, preparing for the hour’s ride home to get Zurie into bed.

Her gaze found the letter. Forcing her to admit that she didn’t really want to visit her brother tonight anyway. She wanted to see Dot.

All right, she wanted to see Drake. Maybe he knew what questions to ask.

Dot wouldn’t mind if she dropped by. Nor would Drake, she was sure. If anything, he’d give her one of those smiles. The kind that said she’d surprised him, and he liked it.

Before she could reason herself out of it, she grabbed her coat, hat, handbag, and keys and left.

The parallel lines of the hallway led to the parallel lines of the banister, which led to the parallel lines of the doorway, and then the curbs on the street. Never intersecting—barring calamity that brought it all crashing down.

She’d thought that’s what she wanted—to track a course parallel to everyone else. Always close, but always separate. Never intersecting.

But even parallel lines intersected in infinity—that was the non-Euclidean theory that allowed for revolutionary thoughts like the ones Professor Einstein proposed. Irrelevant to everyday life here on earth. But crucial in understanding the heavens.

Did she want to be confined to the earthly, then . . . or set her sights on the heavenly again?

She paused at the first corner, less to check for the traffic that wouldn’t be there after dark than to let that question whisper through her soul. It almost, nearly felt like the demand of an equation. Solve for x. Find the thing that was missing. Put it back.

A horn honked somewhere in the distance, and she hurried across the intersection. Habit had her turning into the park when she reached it. The Go board hadn’t been there since that day after Mass two Sundays ago. But she checked every day. It seemed odd that Williams hadn’t been out in so long . . . odd enough that on Sunday Margot had asked Holmes to give her the direction for the building he’d trailed him to. She’d written him a note, just asking after his health and if there was anything she could do for him. Saying she missed their game.

Her feet came to a halt at the little wrought-iron table. The game board was there again, with a fluttering slip of white paper. She reached for it with relief.