She spun the sink faucet on and reached for the bar of hotel soap still in its packaging. She unwrapped it gently, as if it were a Christmas gift, then plunged her left hand under the water and rubbed the soap against her ring finger.

Ezra’s grandmother’s ring slipped off after just a few seconds. It was easier than she had thought it would be. She placed it by the soap dish and stepped into the shower, the water nearly scalding now. She leaned into it and let it burn.

THIRTY

Ezra

FIVE P.M.

The sun was setting by the time Ezra and Mimi descended from the room to the wedding shuttle that took them to the Middleton Chapel. Ezra had forgotten how early campus grew dark during the winter months: it wasn’t yet five o’clock, and the shadows were long all around them, the temperatures dipping too. Mimi, it must be said, looked stunning, as if she knew she were putting on a show. An emerald-green dress with a furry little shoulder thing (Mimi informed Ezra this was called a stole, and she’d laughed because she found it adorable that he didn’t know such things, and then she’d kissed him, which alarmed the bejesus out of Ezra because he was now borderline manically both jumpy and furious about the kiss with Frankie), and open-toed heels that seemed ridiculous for the frigid air and the snowy ground. But Mimi, despite her midwestern roots, had never been one for practicality.

The invite had called for New Year’s Eve formal, and Ezra didn’t know how that was any different than regular formal, so he’d packed his tux and thought he’d cleaned up ok too. Back in college, he hadn’t owned a tux—no use for one and too expensive to buy, though he’d rented one for his high school prom, which was all a blur anyway because his mom was sick and like he gave a shit about anything else beyond that. Well, he had given a shit about his high school girlfriend, of course, but she was off to Pomona, and she’d been very clear that they had no future once she hit the state border. Ezra had tried to plead otherwise, but she was firm, and in the end, it had been for the best for him to have a fresh start. He couldn’t see that at the time, but Ezra was beginning to understand that he couldn’t see a lot of things at the time. Maybe that’s what he loved so much about cards: he was fully present, choices made had immediate consequences, and when you walked away from the table, everyone, even if they’d lost, had understood the rules of the game. He lumbered onto the shuttle, his hand on Mimi’s back, and wondered why he, a grown adult with a quick brain and an open heart, felt like he so often misunderstood the rules of the game. Why he had so few hobbies other than whatever Mimi was dragging him to for work. Why he so easily acquiesced into abandoning his own life—his harmless poker games with friends, his weekend runs in the park, visits to London to crash with Henry, whom he hadn’t seen in months—for things that were of no importance to him like brunches that took up half his Sundays and business class flights to San Francisco to interview for jobs he probably didn’t even want.