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I don’t. I keep going. Later, when I’m finally heading for the elevators, two women from finance are talking around the corner.

“She was showing me pictures of that guest room this morning,” one woman says. “She and Greg were going out Saturday to look for curtains.”

There’s a long pause before the other woman says, “God.” The elevator arrives before either of them speaks again.

I step inside. Megan had plans for Saturday.

The doors close, and I put my fingertips against the cool metal rail. I’ve been leaving questions about the rest of my life unanswered because there always seemed to be plenty of later. Now later feels less like time I can count on and more like something I’ve been assuming I’m owed.

I walk out through the hospital lobby and across the parking lot. The early-September heat has finally eased, and the air outside is cooler than it was this morning. I stand beside my car with the keys in my hand before unlocking it, then sit behind the wheel without starting the engine.

There is nothing I’m supposed to do for anyone. No employee is waiting for an answer. Nobody needs me to commandeer a conference room, cover a phone, or stop a manager from sending an email they’ll regret.

I put my keys in my lap. Home is less than fifteen minutes away. Usually, the quiet when I come home belongs to me. Tonight I can already hear how different it will sound: the click of the door closing, my keys hitting the entry table, no voice answering if I say anything aloud.

I can picture the two-story condo Dave and I bought twelve years ago, the living room I redecorated without erasing him, the photographs I kept because I still like seeing his face. The waterfowl prints he chose are still on the wall because I genuinely love them too.

The house holds a life I was happy in. Tonight, I don’t want to walk into it alone yet.

I take out my phone and open the group text the five of us started last year. Shannon, Blair, Janet, Rachel, and me.

Anybody around? I don’t want to go straight home.

Shannon answers that she has dinner with Tom and the kids. Janet is still at her mother’s after a doctor appointment and says she’ll be working until ten to make up the afternoon time she lost. Rachel is working at the diner. Then Blair’s message appears. I’m available.

I read it once and stop debating what to do next. A few texts later, we have a place to meet.

Chapter Two

Laura

Blair picks a bar two blocks off the square that serves actual food instead of expecting pretzels to support an entire liquor license. By the time I arrive, she’s claimed a booth along the back wall and ordered a basket of fries.

She’s still in her divorce attorney work clothes, charcoal trousers and a black blouse under a fitted jacket, but she’s kicked her heels off, and they’re tucked beneath the table. One of Blair’s best qualities is that she can look ready to dismantle somebody’s marriage agreement while barefoot and eating a french fry with her fingers.

She pushes the basket toward me when I sit down. “You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean emotionally.”

“That’s much better.”

By the time Blair answered my text, everyone else had somewhere they needed to be. She wrote I’m available and waited until I got here to ask why I needed her. I’m grateful for that. I’ve spent the last several hours being the person everyone expected to know what happened next, and for a little while, I’d like to be the one who doesn’t have to have any answers.

The server comes over, and Blair orders a drink. I ask for decaf coffee and a burger because sometime between leaving the hospital and getting here, my stomach remembered that lunch was a long time ago.

Blair waits until the server leaves. “What happened?”

“Megan from payroll died today.”

Her face loses every trace of humor. “Oh, hell.”

“She had an aneurysm at work.” I give her the short version because I don’t want to walk through every minute again. “She was at her desk, then she had this horrible headache, and a little while later she was gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We weren’t close.” I say it because the distinction matters, even though it sounds colder aloud than it feels. “I knew her. I liked her. We worked together.”