Joel’s baby was almost two months old now, and in one of the new pictures with her, he had his hair pulled into a ponytail. A fucking ponytail. Tallie had closed her laptop and cried into her hands before leaving for the day. She’d run four miles at the gym across the river, disappointed in herself for not pushing for her usual six. And on her way home she saw Bridge—what she’d begun calling him in her mind since Bridge Guy wouldn’t tell her his name.

He shrugged; apparently he didn’t believe in signs, although clearly she had just saved his life. She’d never literally saved a life before; she felt warm all over thinking about it. She looked at him, considered his profile. He was probably handsome and could’ve been anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five.

“Do you like coffee?” she asked.

She used a lot of different techniques in her therapy sessions—holistic, behavior modification, Gestalt, cognitive—but also believed in the power of simplicity: listening, a warm drink. Her clients opened up more when they were holding a steamy mug. She sometimes felt guilty billing them when all she’d done was boil water. The coffee shop she was taking him to was her favorite, a stop she made almost every day. A safe place. He couldn’t murder her there; she knew the baristas.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said with enough breathtaking sadness to stop clocks.

“It matters. You matter. Your life matters. It does,” she said and waited for a response. When she didn’t get one, she continued, “Um…we’re almost there. The coffee shop is just up the road. You may know that. Are you from around here? I’m kind of winging this, but I’m trusting God right now.”

“What if there’s no God?” he asked, looking out his window, the raindrops slicking down in a beaded curtain.

Then I don’t know. That’s why I have to believe there is, she thought.

“Your name is Tallie?” he asked after several moments of silence.

“Tallie. Tallie Clark. Short for Tallulah. It means running water…jumping water. But everyone calls me Tallie except my brother and his family. They call me Lulah.” She could see the coffee shop ahead on the corner, the viridescent sign wrapped in neon, lit up and waiting for them.

“Huh,” he said, turning to her. Transfiguration—a suicide smile. Kind of creepy. Kind of nice. Ted Bundy had a creepy, nice smile, too. So did the Zodiac Killer, probably, and most of the murderers who ended up on Dateline. “It’s pretty. But my name isn’t Tallulah,” he said. The smile was gone.

She pulled into the coffee shop parking lot, thankful to be in a public place. She’d get him something warm, and she hoped to learn more about him in the process, figure out what kind of help he needed. Soon she’d be home in her pajamas with her cats, watching some trashy thing on TV, a soothing avocado sheet mask on her face, wine in her glass, feeling good about saving a life.

They parked and walked into the coffee shop together. He cowboy-walked slowly, and she matched his strides. When he held the door for her, she got a clear look at his face. Yep. He was Probably Handsome. Bridge was also probably five feet eleven, nearly the same size as Joel. Or maybe she was imagining it. Was she obsessed, making every man into Joel now? Bridge had shaggy hair, and she pictured Joel’s new ridiculous little ponytail swatting her in the face.

Tallie could see Bridge was wearing a white undershirt beneath his flannel, the gold chain of a necklace peeking out. She would ask him his name again later, but perhaps if she talked to him more, he’d offer it up on his own. She used the same technique with her clients, the ones who arrived an hour early but then clammed up when they came into her office. The ones who would talk about their mothers but not their fathers. The ones who would talk about everyone else but not themselves. She sometimes turned down the lights or played soft classical music if the clients preferred. Bach’s cello suites were disarming. Chopin, Mozart, Liszt, Haydn.

She had dark chocolate with almonds and hard candy in a sheesham wood bowl handcrafted by Indian women. She’d bought several for the office, and the money went to ending sex trafficking. She made a mental note to donate to the cause again as soon as she was in front of her computer. Those poor girls. Maybe Bridge was one of those disgusting creeps who bought little girls. Those guys could be anywhere. It sickened her, thinking about it.

She considered herself a decent judge of character when she trusted her instincts. She gave him a hard look to gauge his energy, tried to decide if he really had the face of a man who wanted to die. He had kind, redwood-brown eyes. Redwood called up cedar, her favorite smell. She’d bought Joel an expensive cedar-based cologne for their last anniversary. He wore it once and told her he didn’t think he could wear it anymore because it got all over him. “It was everywhere,” he’d said, and she’d thought, That’s the point. She’d loved the day he smelled like it, when it was everywhere. She still had the bottle at home: a glass rectangle the color of sunlit bourbon. She wished she could give it to Bridge, tell him the cedar scent matched his eyes. Maybe he’d understand what that meant. Maybe his senses infused one another, too, leaked out, left stains. Like how the rain could make her go gray-blue and how the gray-blue left her with the cloying taste of blueberries in her mouth.

The coffee shop was warm and crowded, everyone busy on their phones or laptops or with their books or children or boyfriends or girlfriends or friends or cakes or cappuccinos. She’d gladly pay for his coffee and a snack if he was hungry. Did Bridge have money? A phone?