She took a few more sips of wine and gazed at the big, enfolding building until the lights became a blur. She wrapped Charlie’s robe around her more tightly, pulled her knees up toward her chest, and, as she had done on so many nights over the years since the goddamned son of a bitch had gone and died on her, wept until she was exhausted and was finally carried off to sleep.

4.

It was after three A.M. when Thomas got home from the hospital. Jane was sitting in a chair in the living room, the radio tuned to the all-night jazz station, and a single lamp lit behind her. She was sleeping when he came in, or half asleep. Either way, she gave a start when she saw him. The whole of the long, confusing evening came back to her, and she groaned. He was wearing a blue windbreaker and was holding a can of beer. He’d earned it, there was no question of that, but it was so unlike him, drinking at this hour, that she started to laugh softly. He turned down the volume on the radio, and with a weary rasp in his voice, asked her what she found so funny.

“With that jacket, that beer, you looked like a soccer coach, that’s all.”

As he walked past her chair, he touched the top of her head, and then sprawled out lengthwise on the beige sofa. It was strange, she thought, that they’d moved in here almost four years ago, and she couldn’t remember ever before sitting here with him like this, in the quiet middle of the night.

“Do you know, I used to be a soccer coach?” he asked. “It was maybe twelve years ago, before I met you, when I lived out in Watertown. A little neighborhood league that didn’t last very long.”

The news shocked her, partly because she couldn’t imagine him standing on a field and coaching, partly because it made her realize she didn’t think much about what his life was like before they met. “How was your team?”

“Everyone had fun, but I can’t remember if we won very often or not.”

That was probably the only part of it she would have remembered. If only more of whatever it was he had had rubbed off on her in the past six years. “How are Joyce and the baby?” she asked.

“Both fine. Considering all the tension at the start, it was a pretty easy delivery.”

Shortly after midnight, Thomas had called her to say that Brian had finally showed up, claiming he’d gone to a movie and had rushed to the hospital as soon as he heard Jane’s many messages to him. It was an insultingly unlikely story—who went to a movie without telling their ultra-pregnant wife where they were going?—but it was easier for everyone to pretend they believed it.