I knock on the door again, pressing hard on the doorbell. I’m going to ring the doorbell for the rest of the afternoon until he lets me in. Kids’ naps be damned.

Carl swings the door open. He is holding a beer; his hair is neatly combed. Those are the first indicators that something strange is going on. His hair is usually uncombed, which he thinks makes him look sexy. And there is something in his eyes—a strange mix of agitation and fear and something else I can’t name, probably because I’m so shocked that he hid from me.

“What the hell, Carl?” I say.

“Hannah, you need to go,” Carl says.

He’s angry. Why is he angry?

“I just need a minute,” I say.

“Not now, I can’t talk right now,” he says.

He moves to close the door, but I hold it open. My force surprises both of us, the door escaping his grasp, opening wider.

Which is when I see Patty. She stands in the living room doorway, holding her daughter Sarah in her arms, the two of them dressed in matching paisley dresses—their dark hair pulled back into soft braids. The identical attire and haircut only further highlight what Patty wants people to see when they look at Sarah: an equally presentable but smaller version of herself.

Behind them—filling up the living room—a dozen parents and toddlers watch a clown make balloon animals. A HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH banner hangs above their heads.

It’s their daughter’s second birthday party. I had totally forgotten about it. Owen and I were supposed to be here celebrating. Now Carl isn’t even opening the door.

Patty offers a confused wave. “Hey there…” she says.

I wave back. “Hi.”

Carl turns back toward me, his voice controlled but firm. “We’ll talk later,” he says.

“I forgot, Carl. I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “I didn’t mean to show up during her party.”

“Forget it. Just go.”

“I will but… would you just please step outside and talk to me for a couple of minutes? I wouldn’t ask but it’s urgent. I think I need a lawyer. Something’s happened at The Shop.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” he says.

“So why won’t you talk to me then?”

Before he can answer, Patty walks toward us and hands Sarah to Carl. Then she gives her husband a kiss on the cheek. A big show. For him. For me. For the party.

“Hi,” she says, kissing me on the cheek too. “Glad you could make it.”

I keep my voice down. “Patty, I’m sorry for walking in on the party, but something’s happened to Owen.”

“Carl,” Patty says, “let’s get everyone out back, okay? It’s time for ice cream sundaes.”

She looks to the group and flashes her smile at them.

“Everyone head out back with Carl. You too, Mr. Silly,” she says to the clown. “It’s ice cream time!”

Then—and only then—she turns back toward me. “Let’s talk out front, yeah?” she says.

I start to tell her that Carl is really who I need to speak with, Carl who is walking away with Sarah on his hip, but Patty is pushing me onto the front porch. She closes the thick red door and I am on the wrong side of it again.

This is when, on the privacy of her porch, Patty turns back to me, eyes blazing. Smile gone.

“How dare you show up here,” she says.

“I forgot about the party.”

“Screw the party,” she says. “Owen broke Carl’s heart.”

“Broke his heart… how?” I say.

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with him stealing all our fucking money?”

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“Owen didn’t tell you that he convinced us to go in on The Shop’s IPO? He sold Carl on the software’s potential, sold him on the enormous returns. Failed to mention that the software was dysfunctional.”

“Patty, look…”

“So all of our money is now tied up in The Shop’s stock. Actually, I should say, what’s left of our money is tied up in stock, which on my last check was down to thirteen cents.”

“Our money was there too. If Owen had known, why would he do that?”

“Maybe he didn’t think they’d get caught. Or maybe he’s a freaking moron, I can’t tell you that,” she says. “But I can promise you that if you don’t leave my house, right now, I’m calling the cops. I’m not kidding. You’re not welcome here.”

“I understand why you’re upset with Owen. I do. But Carl may be able to help me find him and that is the fastest way to get this sorted out.”

“Unless you’re here to pay for our kids’ college, we have nothing to say to you.”

I’m not sure what to say to her, but I know I have to say something before she walks back inside. After seeing him in person, after seeing the look in his eyes, I can’t shake the feeling that Carl may know something.

“Patty, can you take a breath please?” I say. “I’m in the dark here too. Just like you.”

“Your husband aided in a half-a-billion-dollar fraud, so I’m not so sure I believe you,” she says. “But if you’re telling me the truth, you’re the biggest fool in the world, not seeing who your husband really is.”

It doesn’t seem like the greatest time to tell her that, in terms of playing the fool, she isn’t avoiding it either. Her husband has been sleeping with his coworker on and off since Patty was pregnant with the child that Mr. Silly is entertaining in the backyard. Maybe we are all fools, one way or another, when it comes to seeing the totality of the people who love us—the people we try to love.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t know what was going on?” she says.

“Why would I be here looking for answers if I did?” I say.

She tilts her head, considers. Perhaps that penetrates, or perhaps she realizes she just doesn’t care. But her face softens.

“Go home to Bailey,” she says. “Just go. She’s going to need you.”

She starts to walk back inside. Then she turns back.

“Oh. And when you speak to Owen? Tell him to go fuck himself.”

With that, she closes the door.

* * *

On the walk to my workshop, I move fast.

I keep my eyes down as I turn onto Litho Street and pass LeAnn Sullivan’s house. I clock that she and her husband are sitting on their front porch, drinking their afternoon lemonade. But I pretend to be busy on my phone. I don’t stop the way I normally would to say hello to them. To join them for a glass.

My workshop is in a small craftsman house next door to their home. It is 2,800 square feet with an enormous backyard—the kind of space I only dreamed of having when I was in New York, the kind of space I did dream about in New York every time I had to subway out to my friend’s warehouse in the Bronx to work on pieces that wouldn’t fit into my workshop on Greene Street.

I start to relax as soon as I walk through the front gate, closing it behind myself. But instead of heading inside, I circle around to the backyard and the small deck where I like to do my paperwork. I take a seat at the small table and open Owen’s laptop. I push Grady Bradford out of my mind. I push out Patty’s wrath. And I ignore that Carl wouldn’t even look at me, let alone provide any insight. It centers me, in a way, knowing I have to figure it out myself. And I feel calmer being among my things, my work. Being in my favorite place in Sausalito. It makes it almost feel normal that I’m hacking into my husband’s personal computer.

Owen’s laptop powers up and I key in his first password. Nothing pops out at me as unusual. I click open his PHOTOS folder, which is essentially the Bailey bible. There are hundreds of photographs of her from elementary school and junior high, photographs from each and every birthday starting with her fifth birthday in Sausalito. I’ve seen these all many times. Owen loved narrating the parts of their life that I’d missed: Little Bailey playing in her first soccer game, which she was terrible in; Little Bailey performing in her first school play in second grade (Anything Goes), which she was amazing in.

I don’t find a lot of photographs of them from when Bailey was very little, back when they were still living in Seattle, at least not in the main folder.

So I click on a small subfolder labeled O.M.

This is the folder for Olivia Michaels. Owen’s first wife. Bailey’s mother.

Olivia Michaels née Olivia Nelson: high school biology teacher, synchronized swimmer, Owen’s fellow Princeton alum. There are only a handful of photographs in this folder too—Owen said Olivia hated to be photographed. But the photographs he does have of her are beautiful, probably because she was beautiful. She was tall and lean with long red hair that ran halfway down her back and an intense dimple that made her look permanently sixteen.