Nick’s house was like an American villa. It had everything—a gym with an amazing sound system, an endless pool, carpeting so thick you could lose golf balls in it. Everything was padded. Everything was shiny and enormous. Grant wanted to leap onto the sectional leather sofa in the media room like a kid jumping into a pile of leaves. He wanted to sack out with the remote control in his hand, surfing through channel after channel on their huge TV. Everything was top of the line, new, new, new, from the shimmering kitchen counters to the conference-table-size dining room table. Two dishwashers in the kitchen! A three-car garage with heating and air-conditioning! The Coxes’ house was otherworldly. Truly. Like another world from his and Suzanne’s little house, where Adam had pounding headaches and Suzanne was climbing the walls.

And now a baby. A baby!

He’d responded to the news with unrestrained joy. What choice did he have? You couldn’t say not now to your pregnant wife. He had to act assured, under control, the dad guy. He had to behave the same way at work, to leave his employers in no doubt that they had chosen wisely when they hired him.

Things weren’t going well on the new job. He was distracted, struggling to force himself to work the long hours a Washington law firm expected. There was just so much pressure on him these days. Even Annie Get Your Gun, which should have been a release, was a stressor. He felt terrible if he missed a line or sang a bad note at rehearsal. He didn’t like to let anyone down.

Grant thought of his little cache of weed with something like love. He took it out to look at it sometimes. He unzipped the top of the Baggie and breathed it in, fished through it with his fingers in search of buds, like a forty-niner in search of gold nuggets. Nothing illegal about touching and smelling marijuana, if you ignored the fact that possession in Maryland was illegal without a medical marijuana license.

He thought about getting a license now that he lived in a state that allowed it. If he had it on doctor’s orders, Suzanne couldn’t object to it anymore. It would be like having a snack when you were hungry, water when you were thirsty, cough syrup when you were coughing—nothing anyone could find fault with. All that stood between him and that humming sense of peace was a piece of paper.