So I would not be gotten alone.

Whatever happened would happen in the open, at my own table, in front of my own children, in the full light of day, which was precisely the arena in which her kind of warm private pressure was weakest and the plain hard facts in my handbag were strongest.

“Ten o’clock, Shirley,” I said.

“At my house.

With everyone.” And I hung up the telephone before she could find the next soft word.

I slept well that night, better than I had in weeks, which surprised me.