She opened the refrigerator and took a bottle of white wine out of the side compartment. She poured herself a large glass. I enjoyed wine as much as she did, but I knew she wasn’t going to offer me any, because I was Natalie’s babysitter and now the surrogate for her baby. After Natalie went to bed, I planned to have a small glass, not enough that anyone would notice.

Amelia swirled her wine in the glass and raised it toward the light to observe the streaks, then downed all of it quickly and set her glass in the sink. Several minutes later she and Fritz walked out the door. She hadn’t changed her clothes or even brushed through her matted hair.

After her parents left, Natalie and I played Scrabble and watched The Hunger Games. By the time she went to bed, she’d moved on from the subject of surrogacy, at least for the night.

I awoke to Amelia’s hand on my shoulder.

“Delta, darling,” she said.

I looked up and saw her face inches from mine, so close that it was distorted. I could identify the individual hairs of her eyebrows. I had a strong urge to kiss her. I sat up on the leather sofa in the media room, embarrassed to have fallen asleep. I didn’t sleep very deeply or very much. In my youth, I’d learned to sleep with one eye open, especially when certain members of the family were visiting.

I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke. “Stay downstairs tonight, in the garden apartment. It’s so late.” Bells sounded in my head. I’d intuitively understood that the surrogacy and the apartment were cosmically linked, only I hadn’t known which would happen first, or if the two things would happen simultaneously.

“Our tenant moved out last week,” she explained.

A triumphant refrain from Aida replaced the bells. The apartment’s vacancy was official. (I already knew Gwen had moved out, and, to some extent, I’d orchestrated the move. In addition to occasional puddles on the floor, I’d been rearranging her belongings in subtle but unsettling ways. A month earlier I’d noticed flyers from an open house on the kitchen counter. Then she’d started to pack, and a week later everything had disappeared.)

“Don’t worry,” she said, “we have brand-new sheets and towels. You won’t get cooties.” Amelia’s mood had shifted dramatically over the last three hours. She was a different person. She’d miraculously pulled out of a spiraling dive.

Fritz appeared in the doorway, still wearing his coat. “Please, Delta.” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“OK.” I could smell the alcohol on Amelia’s breath.

“Have breakfast with us in the morning?” Amelia said.

A few minutes later Fritz walked me down the steps, unlocked the garden apartment, and turned on the recessed lights in the front hall.