“It’s dry, tasteless, sickening. I wouldn’t disagree.”

“But beneath our city”—I pierced the toast with my knife. Egg yolk and bacon grease spluttered through the wound, soaking the bread and making my stomach lurch—“there is something else.”

“Breakfast?”

“Breakfast is benign. What if I said that beneath our city there were shadows and smoke and death?”

“I’d say you should stop talking rot, lest I withhold your next check.” She dropped some money on the table, and we walked to the elevators, two women in black, drawing unwanted pity from everyone they passed.

“How is your daughter?” I asked, as the elevator glided down.

“How should I know?”

“Try to find out. This week is bad. What comes next will be worse.”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

“In a few months, her friends will no longer tolerate her grief. They will expect her to put her black dresses away and be who she was before. Be there for her.”

“I shall,” she said. I wondered if there was anyone to be there for Mrs. Copeland.

We parted outside the gates, and I was halfway down the block when a flash of lightning shot through my brain. I turned around, shoving through the molasses-thick Eastside crowd until I found Mrs. Copeland waiting at a light. I grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her up against the nearest wall. She was as light as tissue paper.

“Miss Carr!” she rasped.

“You lied to me.”

“Release my hand.”

“Show me the postbox.”

“Have you lost your senses?”

“You set the glove on a postbox, you said, and it was taken.”

“Exactly.”

“But there’s no postbox outside Aylesmere’s gates.”

“Then I must have left it on a fireplug, or a wall, or a streetlight.”

“You said postbox. You were certain. You lied.”

“What does it matter?”

“I nearly died for that damned glove,” I said, and for the first time, I heard how mad it sounded.

I’d knocked her veil sideways when I slammed her into the wall. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lids as heavy and yellow as candlewax. I saw how stupid I’d been, and my anger melted into cheap, ordinary shame. I released her.

“Why did you lie?” I said.

“There was no reason to tell you the truth.”

“You were with another man.”

“Worse. I was out looking for one.”

“Where?”

“Could we please discuss this somewhere private?”

“If you want privacy, move to the Westside. Right now, we’re on your side of the fence. Tell the truth, and quickly.”

“When Galen stopped coming home at night, I began going out.”

“To do what?”

“To get drunk. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Where did you manage to find liquor on the Eastside?”