Why had Michael believed him? Because Ann was right: he was an idiot. “That guy was the absolute worst,” Michael said. “Nobody’s ever made me feel like such a worthless piece of shit, and believe me, a lot of people have tried.”

“You know he’d say anything to get what he wanted,” Ann said. “Do anything.”

“And we let him, that’s the worst part. We just let that dude plow us down, drive right over us. We should have figured this out. Should have assumed the best about each other, not the worst.”

Michael stood up and walked over to the edge of the room, so frustrated that he wasn’t sure how to handle the rage building up inside him. Before he knew it, his fist went straight through the screen. Ann gasped.

“I’ll fix that,” Michael said, worried that he’d scared her. “A busted screen is no big deal, really. I can fix it in ten minutes.”

“I know you can,” she said.

They stared at the fist-shaped hole in the screen for a long while, long enough for a fly to find its way through. “You know what?” Ann said. “I’m done being mad at him. He’s dead. I need to move on. Poppy tells me I need to practice ho’oponopono—something like that, some kind of healing practice that she says will clear a path for the divine. She learned it in Hawaii. I have no idea what it means.”

“Sounds like Poppy.”

Ann excused herself and walked out of the room. Michael figured she wouldn’t come back. He’d blown it. He waited to hear the door slam. Instead, her soft footsteps padded across the living room. Then he heard a door open and close.

When she returned, she held another envelope in her hand, this one smaller. She handed it to him. “I found something else for you.”

“What is it?”

He answered his own question: a letter addressed to Anthony, from Ed.

“You’ll see. I think you should read it later, when you’re alone. Maureen found it when she was going through Anthony’s things.”

The letter burned in his hands, competing with his view of Ann leaning against the doorframe, one leg bent, her toes curled like a dancer’s. The sun was beginning to set. The light entering the home was low and rose-colored. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. A gull squealed out in the cove. On the other side of the house the traffic rumbled, a low, steady din. “I need to tell you something else. About what really happened between me and Anthony. It wasn’t consensual.”