The eighty-six dollar receipt was still just visible at the edge of the drawer where he had pushed it, and I looked at it, two dinners and takeout, and I thought about Lily’s taped shoe and the slice of cake with the purple flower, and I drove home with a feeling I did not have a name for yet, the particular cold that comes when a person you love hands you an evasion so smooth it must have been used many times before.

Chapter 9 — She Likes Chocolate, Doesn’t She

That evening I called my mother.

She answered on the fourth ring and asked how Lily’s weekend had been, and whether she was excited about her birthday, which had already happened, and I let the small confusion pass.

Mom, I said, can I ask about the Friday payment.

Of course, she said.

Is the five hundred and fifty still necessary.

There was a pause, and then she said, what are you doing for her cake.