I remember Harry’s right eye opening. I remember the way it inflated me with hope, the way the white of his eye looked so bright against the deep red of the blood. I remember how his breath and even his skin smelled like bourbon.

I remember how startling the realization was—once I knew Harry might live, I knew what had to be done.

It wasn’t his car.

No one knew he was here.

I had to get him to the hospital, and I had to make sure no one found out he’d been driving. I couldn’t let him go to jail. What if they tried him for vehicular manslaughter?

I couldn’t let my daughter find out her father had been driving drunk and killed someone. Had killed his lover. Had killed the man who he said was showing him he could love again.

I enlisted Nick to help me get Harry into our car. I made him help me put the other man back into the totaled sedan, this time in the driver’s seat.

And then I quickly grabbed a scarf from my bag and wiped the steering wheel clean, wiped the blood, wiped the seat belt. I erased all traces of Harry.

And then we took Harry to the hospital.

There, bloodstained and crying, I called the police from a pay phone and reported the accident.

When I hung up the phone, I turned and saw Nick, sitting in the waiting room, blood on his chest, his arms, even some on his neck.

I walked over to him. He stood up.

“You should go home,” I said.

He nodded, still in shock.

“Can you get yourself home? Do you want me to call you a ride?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“I’ll call you a cab, then.” I grabbed my purse. I pulled out two twenties from my wallet. “This should be enough to get you there.”

“OK,” he said.

“You’re going to go home, and you’re going to forget everything that happened. Everything you saw.”

“What did we do?” he said. “How did we . . . How could we . . .”

“You’re going to call me,” I said. “I’ll get a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Call me there tomorrow. First thing in the morning. You’re not going to talk to anyone else between now and then. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Not your mother or your friends or even the cabdriver. Do you have a girlfriend?”

He shook his head.

“A roommate?”

He nodded.

“You tell them that you found a man on the street and you brought him to the hospital, OK? That’s all you tell them, and you only tell them if they ask.”

“OK.”

He nodded. I called him a cab and waited with him until it arrived. I put him in the backseat.

“What are you going to do first thing tomorrow?” I asked him through the rolled-down window.

“I’m going to call you.”

“Good,” I said. “If you can’t sleep, think. Think about what you need. What you need from me as a thank-you for what you did.”

He nodded, and the cab zoomed off.

People were staring at me. Evelyn Hugo in a pantsuit covered in blood. I was afraid paparazzi would be there any minute.

I went inside. I talked my way into borrowing some scrubs and being given a private room to wait in. I threw my clothes away.

When a man from the hospital staff asked me for a statement about what happened to Harry, I said, “How much will it take for you to leave me alone?” I was relieved when the dollar figure he came up with was less than what I had in my purse.

Just after midnight, a doctor came into the room and told me that Harry’s femoral artery had been severed. He had lost too much blood.

For a brief moment, I wondered if I should go get my old clothes, if I could give some of his blood back to him, if it worked like that.

But I was distracted by the next words out of the doctor’s mouth.

“He will not make it.”

I started gasping for air as I realized that Harry, my Harry, was going to die.

“Would you like to say good-bye?”

He was unconscious in the bed when I walked into the room. He looked paler than normal, but they had cleaned him up a bit. There was no longer blood everywhere. I could see his handsome face.

“He doesn’t have long,” the doctor said. “But we can give you a moment.”

I did not have the luxury of panic.

So I got into the bed with him. I held his hand even though it felt limp. Maybe I should have been mad at him for getting behind the wheel of a car when he’d been drinking. But I couldn’t ever get very mad at Harry. I knew he was always doing the very best he could with the pain he felt at any given moment. And this, however tragic, had been the best he could do.

I put my forehead to his and said, “I want you to stay, Harry. We need you. Me and Connor.” I grabbed his hand tighter. “But if you have to go, then go. Go if it hurts. Go if it’s time. Just go knowing you were loved, that I will never forget you, that you will live in everything Connor and I do. Go knowing I love you purely, Harry, that you were an amazing father. Go knowing I told you all my secrets. Because you were my best friend.”

Harry died an hour later.

After he was gone, I had the devastating luxury of panic.

* * *

IN THE MORNING, a few hours after I’d checked into the hotel, I woke up to a phone call.

My eyes were swollen from crying, and my throat hurt. The pillow was still stained with tears. I was pretty sure I’d only slept for an hour, maybe less.

“Hello?” I said.

“It’s Nick.”

“Nick?”

“Your driver.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yes. Hi.”

“I know what I want,” he said.

His voice was confident. Its strength scared me. I felt so weak right then. But I knew it had been my idea for this call to happen. I had set up the nature of it. Tell me what you want to keep you quiet was what I had said without saying it.

“I want you to make me famous,” he said, and when he did, the very last shred of affection I had for stardom drained out of me.

“Do you realize the full extent of what you’re asking?” I said. “If you’re a celebrity, last night will be dangerous for you, too.”

“That’s not a problem,” he said.

I sighed, disappointed. “OK,” I said, resigned. “I can get you parts. The rest is up to you.”

“That’s fine. That’s all I need.”

I asked him his agent’s name, and I got off the phone. I made two phone calls. One was to my own agent, telling him to poach Nick from his guy. The second was to a man with the highest-grossing action movie in the country. It was about a police chief in his late fifties who defeats Russian spies on the day he’s supposed to retire.

“Don?” I said when he answered the phone.

“Evelyn! What can I do for you?”

“I need you to hire a friend of mine in your next movie. The biggest part you can get him.”

“OK,” he said. “You got it.” He did not ask me why. He did not ask me if I was OK. We had been through enough together for him to know better. I simply gave him Nick’s name, and I got off the phone.

After I set the phone back in the cradle, I bawled and I howled. I gripped the sheets. I missed the only man I’d ever loved with any lasting meaning.

My heart ached in my chest when I thought about telling Connor, when I thought about trying to live a day without him, when I thought of a world without Harry Cameron.

It was Harry who created me, who powered me, who loved me unconditionally, who gave me a family and a daughter.

So I bellowed in my hotel room. I opened the windows, and I screamed out into the open air. I let my tears soak everything in sight.

If I had been in a better frame of mind, I might have marveled at just how opportunistic Nick was, how aggressive.

In my younger years, I might have been impressed. Harry most certainly would have said he had guts. Plenty of people can make something out of being in the right place at the right time. But Nick somehow turned being in the wrong place at the wrong time into a career.

Then again, I might be giving that moment too much credit in Nick’s own story. He changed his name, cut his hair, and went on to do very, very big things. And something tells me that even if he had never run into me, he would have made it happen all on his own. I guess what I’m saying is it’s not all luck.