She was determined to make her mark. She was an artist after all. She’d studied photography in college and had managed a gallery near Dupont Circle before Jillian was born. In the meantime she’d become a prostitute. Well, that’s what it felt like. Allison was the photographer responsible for the nearly life-size portraits that hung on many a living room wall in Willard Park. They were traditional color photos of smiling parents and children dressed in their Sunday best—parents holding babies, children lined up staircase-style, in order of age; children in matching outfits gathered around doting parents. Oversize snapshots, in a word. They stared out at her accusingly whenever she entered one of her clients’ homes, reminding her that she’d sold out.

A familiar, icy feeling swirled around her ankles and swept up her legs—the fear that she alone, of all the women she knew, had not made the transition from mother-of-a-young-child to woman-who-was-back-in-the-game. Jillian was in middle school now, for goodness’ sake. Allison had run out of excuses. She often thought she should get a real job, just to stop the angst, but what was she qualified to do? Work at a photo shop? She pictured herself behind a counter at the mall alongside a pimply teenager, handing out prints. Did photo shops even exist anymore?

“Honey, honey,” an image of her friend Valeria came to mind, calling her back to herself. “Better to slit your wrists.”

Valeria was a Spanish teacher at the middle school, her husband, Phil, a public radio correspondent who had been assigned to cover Paris. Paris! Allison wanted to be assigned to cover Paris! She and Valeria had e-mailed each other daily since they moved in July. Well, the e-mails had been daily at first. Now it was more like once a week or so, with the occasional WhatsApp message. Valeria was busy after all—brushing up on her French, dealing with the convoluted rules at Sofia’s school, trying not to incur the wrath of the landlady with the hypersensitive hearing. The only consolation for the fact that her best friend had moved away was Valeria’s constant reminders that expat life was kind of a pain.

Allison poured the rest of the milkshake into her glass and drank it down to the bottom, chasing every last drop with her straw, then headed for home.

When she reached the Coxes’ house, she stopped to consider it, as she often did, hoping, eventually, to convince herself it wasn’t so bad. The trouble was, it was so bad. There were two Ionic columns looking fabulously out of place on the porch, two stone lions the size of ponies, towers painted gold—was it gold leaf? It was as if Nick had thumbed through a catalog of architectural features, earmarked the gaudiest, and had them stuck on his house. The inhabitants of an entire zip code could have lived in it comfortably.