“It never occurred to me to ask you.

Not once in nineteen months.

I wrote on nine envelopes and put them in a tray and I never thought, I’ll just mention it.”

And I said, “Why not?”

And Bernadette Achterberg said: “Because your mother had told me it would upset you, and in fourteen years my entire job had been not upsetting you.”

Part Thirteen: The Fourteenth of May

I came back from Lisbon on the fourteenth of May of that year and let myself into Evelyn’s apartment on West 87th Street with a key she had given me in February.