She didn’t know how much longer she could stay married to Jason and have Lock stay married to Daphne. She and Lock were in love, she, desperately and stupidly, blindly and completely. She was a slave, a goner. She would give up everything for him.

But was this true? Could she really imagine a future with Lock? What would that look like? Would she move out? (Inconceivable.) Would he move out? (More conceivable, but where would he go? He couldn’t live with Claire in Jason’s house.) Would they both move out and get a place together? Where would the kids go? With her, presumably. She could not imagine life without her kids, but neither could she imagine Lock living with her kids. She fantasized about a life with Lock, but she realized that this would have to take place in an alternate reality, one where they had no jobs, no responsibilities, no ex-spouses or children to care for, no friends, no connections. They would have to move to Ibiza, two displaced strangers, and start over. Claire felt like a marionette; Lock could swoop in and clip all the strings that were tying her to her current life, but then she would collapse, lifeless. She would be a person without form. The worst thing about adultery was that it made you see your life for what it was: something that was nearly impossible to escape. Claire cried a little at this, and Lock squeezed her and whispered, “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here. I love you.”

“I know,” she said. They saw each other so infrequently now that when they did have time together, it became weighted and tangled with emotion. This was Claire’s fault. She had worries to soothe and problems to fix. She was becoming tiresome, even to herself.

“I should go,” she said.

He released her. She wanted him to say, Not yet, or So soon? But he simply agreed. “Yes,” he said. “It’s late.”

Claire’s head was buzzing from the alcohol. Claire checked on each one of her kids, all of them sleeping, even Zack in his crib. Jason was snoring softly in their bed. He had taken the kids for pizza and ice cream and to the playground at Children’s Beach. Mom has another meeting! He seemed resigned to life without her; he was making the most of it, enjoying it, even—and Claire had a somber vision of Jason packing the kids up and whisking them away. Leaving her alone. God, she deserved it. She lay awake fretting about this (where would they go? Yellowstone? Bar Harbor? They would go someplace Jason could fish), and then she worried about other things: Lock, the chandelier, money.

She had made a promise she couldn’t keep. She had agreed to take a $25,000 table. Part of her had known all along that she would do this, that she would never be able to eat crow and say, Sorry, I can’t afford it. It was a matter of pride—in front of Isabelle, in front of Lock. She had lied and told everyone at the table (as well as Siobhan, who was floating around the table) that she had set money aside. This had sounded feasible. But it was not remotely feasible—Claire had gone over their finances again and again. She and Jason had sizable IRAs, which could not be touched, and they had $42,000 in savings. There was no way Claire could demolish more than half of their savings on the gala. She had told herself that after the gala she would make an effort with her business and solicit a new commission from Mr. Fred Bulrush or Jeremy Tate-Friedman. But now Claire couldn’t even pay the electric bills for the shop, much less get ahead to the tune of $25,000. She had considered going to the bank and taking out a loan and paying it off over the next calendar year. That seemed like the most responsible course of action . . . until she thought of Matthew.

Matthew had millions and millions of dollars. Now that Bess was out of the picture, there was nobody and nothing for him to spend it on. It couldn’t hurt to ask. She vacillated between this train of thought and the fear that indeed it could hurt to ask: Matthew could flip out, call her a vulture. She hadn’t spoken to him in twelve years, she had called him out of the blue and asked him to play a free concert, and he had said yes. Wasn’t he doing her enough of a favor? She would pay him back, with interest, but to this he might respond that he wasn’t a bank, and he wasn’t a loan shark. He had, once upon a time, been her friend, but he didn’t appreciate being preyed upon now.

In this vein, she had talked herself out of calling several times.

But now it was dark, it was quiet, she had had some drinks, and she had enunciated a promise that could not be denied. She dialed Matthew’s number.

“¿Hola?”

“Matthew? It’s Claire. Claire Danner.”

“Buenas noches, chica. I knew it was you because you’re the only person who still calls me Matthew. Other than my mother.”

“Am I?”

“You are. How are you? It must be the middle of the night there.”

“It is,” Claire said. He sounded sober. This was a good thing. Sober at nine thirty at night. Home, and not out at the clubs, drinking, or carousing with seventeen-year-olds to take his mind off Bess. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No, no,” he said. “I was just lying on the sofa with my Berlitz.”

“Which language?”

“Spanish. You can never know enough Spanish. And Portuguese. You may think the two languages sound alike, but they are in fact quite different.”

“You got a D in Spanish,” Claire said. “What’s the deal?”

“Gives me something to do. Keeps me out of trouble. I’m shooting air baskets, grabbing at straws. I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, I’m coming to see you. Six weeks!”