Lauren Reyes arrived twenty-two minutes later carrying a battered blue expanding folder and a travel mug of tea.

She was my oldest friend, a family-law attorney, and the one person who had repeatedly told me that loving Gavin did not require signing papers I hadn’t read.

She stopped at the top of the stairs when she saw how carefully I was standing.

“You look like you should be in bed,” she said.

“Apparently somebody else was using mine.”

Lauren didn’t smile.