Leaving the mailbox open and my key hanging out of its lock, I wheeled around and smacked right into someone. Hard.

I cried out, dropping the scraps of paper from my nerveless fingers.

Then strong hands grasped my shoulders and a familiar voice said, “You’re okay. Take a breath.”

Blinking to clear my vision, I saw Lena, her brow furrowed, her red hair brilliant in the sunlight.

“I’m not crazy,” I couldn’t help saying. “I’m really not.”

“Well, damn,” she said with a grin. “Then I guess I’m the only nutjob here. You might need these.” With a quick motion, she shut the mailbox door and dropped my keys into my hand.

I clenched them convulsively. “It’s just this woman, my friend—”

“Let’s walk it off. You can tell me everything.”

And in a rush, I did.

Maybe talking about Aimee with the therapist had loosened the jar lid, but as I walked with Lena past one blank-faced brick house after another, the whole story came pouring out: not just what Aimee had done, how it had ended, but also the way we’d met, funny things she always said, weird little inside jokes we had.

“Aimee used to send me postcards, not because she was traveling but just because,” I told Lena. A bright picture of a cat or an art print from the museum gift shop. Almost every week one would appear in my mailbox, stamped and addressed in her distinctive handwriting and bearing a single question. Have you ever sat on the sill of an open window? If you were a lipstick, what color would you be? No signature. None needed. Just a way of saying hi or surprising me even in her absence. And I’d send her a postcard back with my answer.

Another thing I’d lost when she did what she did. Another sharp blade to my gut when I got this new postcard. “She sent me another one, just now, as a jab. That’s why I was so upset.”

“What a bitch,” Lena said.

That’s the reaction I’d wanted from the therapist. Now that I was getting it, something contrary inside me still wanted to make excuses for my former friend. Instead, I just shrugged like What can you do?

“She totally betrayed you. She should be in jail.”

“Maybe karma—”

Lena stopped walking and grabbed my arm to hold me still. “Screw karma. That’s like waiting around and hoping an anvil will fall on her. No, she’s a disgrace to all women and she needs to pay.”