“I wasn’t sure.” I was very aware of the muscles in my face.

“Her boyfriend came back. He decided to be the dad.” She studied me, as if anticipating a reaction.

I tried to maintain a semi-neutral expression of detached concern.

She swiveled her stool 360 degrees and then back the other way. “Mom’s dying for a baby. It’s pathetic.” Again, she swiveled and reversed.

Itzhak circled in order to find a comfortable spot near Natalie.

“They don’t need a baby,” she said. “They have me.”

“You’re not a baby.” I envisioned the chaos of any baby compromising Amelia’s desire for order and infringing on her circumscribed life.

“I’m their real daughter,” Natalie said. “Why bring some other gene pool into the house?”

I looked at her face to determine if she was making a joke, but saw no trace of humor.

“I want to say to them: You’re too old for another baby.” She swiveled, then caught herself mid-revolution each time, and pushed off in the opposite direction.

I held her stool in place to keep her from swiveling.

“Your parents adore you,” I said.

“They don’t adore spending time with me.”

I heard a car pulling into the Straubs’ driveway. Itzhak’s ears perked up. He stood, as if he were considering running to the front door out of duty, but then an expression of defeat fell across his face and he lay back down.

I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of forceful wind, along with boots stomping on the doormat. The door clicked shut. Then footsteps in the hall. I recognized the footsteps as belonging to Fritz.

In a baseball cap and jeans, he appeared brooding and intensely handsome. He flicked a switch and every light in the back half of the house was illuminated. He rubbed his hands together. The cold air from the front door had traveled down the hall, toward the back of the house, and even the kitchen felt chilly. It was the last day of March, but the temperature was still below freezing.

“Hi, Delta,” he said. “Hi, Toots.” Fritz kissed Natalie on her forehead. I noticed that his beard had grown in.

“Rough day?” I asked.

“It’s three grand to replace the car’s fucking transmission.” He opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator and then turned away from the open door, distracted, as if he forgot what he was looking for. He removed his baseball cap and threw it across the room, where it landed on the sofa.

“Sorry to hear that.”

The refrigerator beeped to indicate it was still open.

He turned back to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of IPA. “Lucia decided to keep her baby. Did you know?”

I tried to read him. Was he thinking of our conversation from a few weeks earlier? I held my face still and expressionless. “A temporary change of heart, perhaps?”

He widened his eyes. “Amelia’s a disaster.”