Her family had not been so accepting. They blamed Ted through the divorce for, as her Aunt Grace repeatedly put it to anyone who would listen, “doing something to our girl.” Through this barrage of blame, Jill kept her head down, and for a while she and Ted rarely spoke. She had used all of her bravery capital coming out to the family; she had none to spare for resurrecting Ted’s profile in their eyes.

He had already made the move from appellate litigation to commercial real estate transactions, where he once again excelled. It was not the kind of work he had ever planned for himself, but the money, power, and prestige plastered over all moral qualms. In the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, the division was gutted. Ted wasn’t let go—the firm devised a subtler method of moving him out the door. They offered him something he couldn’t accept. A dead-end job. He walked.

Two years later, after he’d bounced through two other firms on a downward career trajectory, Jill called him one night.

Ted was watching the Mets get shellacked on the road by the Braves.

“Hey,” she said.

Pain—real physical pain—shot up into his sinuses, and his eyes began to tear. He lost the ability to form words and merely grunted, “Hey.”

Neither of them spoke again for an eternity.

“Ted?” she whispered.

“Give me a sec, okay? I left the kettle on.” He hadn’t. He put the phone down, went in the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face. He dried it off and looked at himself in the mirror. He could do this.

Ted picked up the phone. “How’re you holding up?”

“I should have called before.”

He wasn’t going to argue with that.

“So, what’s up?” He tried to sound casual but only managed cold.

She let it slide. “I had a fight with my mother.”

That was monumental news. “Good for you. What was her problem?”

“The monsignor is running an LGBT prayer group. She wanted me to join.”

“Does that mean she’s finally going to accept that you like girls?”

“Not exactly. They’re supposed to pray themselves straight. How are you?”

“How am I? Big question. Ups and downs. Ups first. Your grandfather helped me out. He persuaded Cromarty, Gaines to take me on as counsel.”

“I know. Father was very upset with him.”

“Yeah, well, I made a hash of that, too. I lasted eighteen months.”

“Oh, no. Why’d they let you go?”

“No. I left. Esrig, Keane offered me a partnership.”

“Oh.”

The indictments of Esrig and Keane for running a pyramid scheme disguised as a law firm were still in the news.

“The feds shut the firm down last week.” And the current rumor was they would soon be coming after all partners and select staff. Ted believed that he had nothing to fear, but he had hired a lawyer just in case.