There was a young man in the elevator, dressed in a dark overcoat, staring straight ahead, carefully avoiding eye contact. If Dale were here, he’d make some joke with the man and they’d have a good laugh and wind up shaking on a deal to build the World Trade Towers North before landing in the lobby. There was something unnerving about the man’s studious avoidance of her, as if he knew that half an hour ago her head had been flung over the side of a king-sized mattress while her ex-husband stroked her throat and fucked her, and her poor, difficult son was hammering out scales, confident that his mother would be there to pick him up when it was over. But no, he couldn’t know anything. To him, she was just another forty-year-old nonentity who was starting to sweat. The elevator stopped two floors down, letting in a couple in their sixties, nicely dressed, she smelling of some faint and expensive perfume. They were wearing big smiles, professionally polite, but she was grateful. The elevator made it down only one more floor before stopping again. As three men in suits were getting in, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag and tried to hold it to her ear discreetly. Undoubtedly everyone else in the elevator had cell phones, but they all looked at her as if she’d just farted.

It was Thomas, asking her if she wanted him to pick anything up on the way home. “I thought you had a department meeting,” she said.

“I do, but I should be home by six. By the way, I have some good news for you, Jody. It looks as if Celeste is going to be released early next week. Helen is going home!”

The elevator bell rang. They stopped at the ninth floor, let off the three men, let on a young man in a jogging outfit. Helen was leaving. Jane felt something catch at the back of her throat. “That’ll make things easier,” she said, although she could barely get the words out.

“What’s that gong? You remembered about the change in schedule, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. I’m on my way to pick him up now. His lesson ends at four.”

The woman with the expensive perfume checked her watch and looked at her again.

“Oh, good. Are you near Harvard Square?”

“I’m in Central Square. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

When she clicked off and looked up, the friendly couple were glaring at her with open disdain.

Yes, she thought, as she ran across the cold concrete of the parking garage, you let yourself get farther and farther off the trail until you’re completely lost in the dark forest and your life is a ruin of confusion and you find yourself running through an underground garage with your briefcase dangling off your shoulder and your helpless son stranded.