And the only person in the entire affair who had behaved with any honesty at all was five years old.

Chapter 7 — Tea With Charlotte

I did not call Solomon.

I did not scream, or throw anything, or send a single furious text.

I have found, over the course of my life, that rage is loud and clarity is quiet, and that the quiet one wins.

Instead, I called Charlotte, and I asked her to meet me for tea at a quiet cafe across town.

She arrived immaculate as always, pearls at her throat, though there was something uneasy in the set of her shoulders, some animal sense that the ground had shifted.