Not that there was a lot of prep to be done. Trevor liked things basic and I decided to make what I knew he’d like: steaks done medium, baked potatoes slashed down the middle with cheddar shredded and left to melt inside the gash. I’d even bought some sour cream and chives because I had a feeling Trevor would find those touches fancy — not in a pretentious, highfaluting way, which was always a no-no — but more of a genuine gesture of having gone the extra mile to make the meal special. I steamed some broccoli for about three minutes longer than I normally would have steamed it, remembering Trevor’s feelings about raw vegetables.

At last we all sat down to eat. I don’t suppose I need to tell you that Kelli was over the moon. Since Trevor had been forbidden from helping with the meal, he’d taken one of his beers into the living room to sit with her while I cooked, teasing her and telling her stories. Over the sound of my chopping, I’d hear a steady stream of heh-heh-heh-heh-hehs coming from the next room. Now, as Trevor held her chair out and bowed deeply, playing the obsequious waiter, Kelli took a seat, smiling and whispering to herself with pleasure, almost voluptuously. She had her friend back.

I couldn’t tell if Trevor was waiting, wondering what this was, or if he was simply happy to be back, enjoying, as he said, “a night in with my two best girls.” He seemed as Trevor as ever — blustery, full of jokes and bullshit — but with slightly less of an edge. Ever since we’d spoken on the phone I could tell he was making an effort to rein in his dictatorial tendencies. When he’d arrived at the house, he’d looked around, frowning at its freshly staged, newly blank interior, scrubbed of any trace of Irene Petrie, but said nothing. He’d shaken his head soberly when I told him about the vandalism of Mr. Gill’s garage, tut-tutting about how unsafe the neighbourhood had become, how lax the police were when it came to “juvenile delinquency,” suggesting Kelli and I might think about having an alarm system installed — he’d be happy to do the work for free. Then, over dinner, when we spoke again about Gorsebrook and Trevor began to get fired up (Buncha g.d. incompetents!), I could sense he was struggling with a desire to jump to his feet and deliver a lecture on how, precisely, Kelli and I should handle this abrupt, dismaying glitch in our once-seamless plan for the future. But instead of telling us what to do, he took a breath — the most deliberate, self-conscious breath I’d ever seen Trevor take. Then he picked up his napkin and belched into it thoughtfully.

“You’ll do,” he recited, like a mantra, like he’d been practising it in a mirror, “whatever you think is best, Miss Karie.”

The meal was over, and we looked around the table at its wreckage. Stripped bones, potato-skin carcasses, crumpled foil, red-stained napkins.