In the middle of the night Sadie jolted awake. It took a moment to realize that the dark, dazzled field she was looking at was the surface of the canal. Nobody was on the street in front of the Anne Frank House. Wait. Here came a man and woman, walking along, no idea that Sadie was watching. She felt like a character in a European movie: perhaps the couple would dance. Perhaps one would murder the other, then toss the body into the canal. They kept on without talking. She looked at the water. A glittering something floated winkingly along the surface, sparkling, Tinker Bell gone for a dip—no, a slowly turning plastic bottle.

She’d lied: she did feel different married, in an entirely practical way. For all the years of their life together, they’d never fully merged their finances—she’d arrived with debts, student and credit card, of which she’d felt ashamed, and burdened by—and she’d had a series of jobs, never particularly lucrative: working at oddball magazine after oddball magazine, writing for an alternative alternative newspaper—the actual alternative newspaper, the good one, had folded years ago—and lately she was teaching editing at Bunker Hill Community College. Jack had tenure at BU, and was kindly, and paid for most things. She hated the kindliness. Perhaps they would apply for joint everything, but no matter: now, if they divorced, she could get some of his money. She had no plans to, but she wondered at the thought of it. They were family now. She could demand things of him, because they were also hers.

“Goddammit,” said Jack in the morning, sitting on a white chair in the white kitchen, peering at his phone.

“What’s the matter?”

“Fucking Anne Frank,” he said to be funny, then thought better of it, “House. I’m about the thousandth in line to buy tickets for today.” He showed her the screen. It had a little animation of a stick figure walking.

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

“It doesn’t. I already bought tickets for the Van Gogh Museum for later today. Everything’s timed. Shall I make you a coffee, darling?”