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Shrugging, she lifts her other hand. A brass key dangles from one finger.

“Before you freak out, I didn’t break in.”

There are several things I could say to that. Most begin with Who says I’m not freaking out already?

I look at the key. “How do you have that?”

Her gaze wobbles. It’s tiny, but I catch it.

Apparently, discovering your husband’s multi-year affair turns you into a forensic specialist in micro expressions.

“Connor gave it to me,” Vivian says.

“When?”

She rubs her thumb over the teeth of the key. “I don’t know. Like, last year?”

“Oh, give or take fourteen months ago?”

Vivian’s silence is all the answer I need.

She’s had a key to my house for fourteen months. She has walked through my front door whenever she wants.

Maybe she’s stood in my kitchen drinking from my yellow mugs with Connor’s scent all over her.

Maybe she’s used my shower after they had sex and left before I get home from the bakery.

The headboard is gone, but it appears in my mind anyway. Dark oak. Crooked knob. Her heart tattoo flashing above my quilt.

Vivian takes my silence as an invitation and comes the rest of the way in. Her eyes go around the room first. Not to me. To the fresh paint. To the bare floor where the bed was. To the rolled carpet. Her mouth comes open when she gets to the space where it isn’t.

“Where’s Grandma’s bed?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“It got compacted into a garbage truck about fifteen minutes ago.”

Her jaw drops. Indignation, though I don’t know why. She didn’t give a fuck about our grandmother. She left the wake early to go see the Chainsmokers play an outdoor show in Prospect Park.

She blinks. Then her attention snags on the massive man standing next to me in a black suit with a rose gold chain at his throat.

“Who’s this?”

I don’t answer.

Her face cracks open with awed delight. “Oh my God. Are you seeing somebody? Already?” She presses her fingertips to her chest. “Dee. It’s been like a week!”

“It’s been nine days, actually.”

“That’s wild.” She’s grinning, so pleased with uncovering what she thinks is a juicy bit of gossip. “Wow. Okay. Well, good for you.”

Then she does the most obvious thing she’s ever done.

It’s strange to watch it like this. Up close and personal. I can almost see the gears turning, the machinery at work. How did I never notice before how fake and artificial the whole thing is?

Her shoulders drop. Her chin tips down and her eyelashes bat. Her voice gets soft and coquettish, girly, teasing, high-pitched and giggly.