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EVEN BEN DOESN’T KNOW this, but I’ve taken to washing my hair only in the bathroom sink, as a way of making sure it’s still not falling out.

I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t go bald during chemo, and maybe I’m due for something that passes for good luck across the same hideous journey as any other cancer patient.

My sister, Brigid, was not as lucky, which is why she ended up buying various wigs of various lengths as a way of making herself look natural.

I may be done with chemo, but a girl can’t be too sure about something as important as her hair.

Dr. Sam Wylie keeps reassuring me that it’s rare for someone to have a delayed reaction with hair loss.

“How rare?” I asked her earlier today on the phone.

“Extremely.”

“Give me some numbers.”

“There’s no point,” she says. “You know you’ve never been any good at keeping numbers straight in your head, all the way back to high school.”

“I’m more concerned about what’s happening on top of my head, doc,” I tell her, and Sam tells me to trust her, there’s a better chance of me losing my sense of humor than my hair.

But I am testing very high on paranoia these days—any cancer patient who says they don’t is lying—and that is why I continue to do a wellness check on my hair every time I wash it. Even after I’m done and dried, I pull on it, as if trying to determine whether or not it’s real.

Tonight I wash it again, as a way of distracting myself from the nausea I was feeling after just one glass of red, and not even the whole glass, over at Jimmy’s bar.

No hair around the drain when I’d finished my shampoo.

No harm, I tell myself, no foul.

But this has still become one of those nights when I can’t even remember what it was like for me before I routinely felt sick to my stomach, and so weak in the middle of the day I had to lie down; when I wasn’t experiencing the mood swings that came with the medication they pumped into me in Switzerland, the chemically induced hot flashes and night sweats.

When I finally cool down enough to fall asleep, my mind still racing with the possibility that we may be in possession of the murder weapon—and that I may have to turn it over to the district attorney—I don’t dream of hummingbirds tonight, or my mother, who loved hummingbirds even more than I do.

Tonight I dream as if I’m the one flying, before diving straight toward the water like a gull and then disappearing into the darkness below.

Then I’m wide awake suddenly, sweating more than ever, out of breath, panting the way my dog is at his end of the bed.

When I’m fully awake, I call Rob Jacobson and tell him about the gun Jimmy took off his friend Kellye at the town house.

“Not my gun,” he says, trying to sound innocent, not exactly a role he was born to play.

“The last gun I knew about in that house was the one my father used on his girlfriend, before he turned it on himself.” He pauses.

“By the way, Janie? You ever think how appropriate it was, him getting one more piece like that before he rested in peace?”

“You’re not funny,” I say.

“Little bit?” he asks.

“You know, Paul Harrington says you were the one who shot your father that day,” I say.

“You need to stop talking to dirty cops as much as you do, Janie. Starting with the one who works for you.”

“You should try saying that to Jimmy’s face,” I say. “Now that would be funny.”

“Janie,” he says again, knowing how much I hate him calling me that, “how many times do I have to tell you I’ve never killed anybody?”

Then he tells me he has to cook up some eggs for someone named Paula, whoever the hell she is.

I take Rip for a long walk on Indian Wells Beach. On our way home, I decide to stop at Jack’s on Main Street for coffee. I’ve never really been a coffee nerd, but I like the coffee here as much as I do from the Jack’s near my apartment in the West Village.

As I’m standing in line, Rip waiting for me in the car, I hear a male voice behind me say, “Excuse me, but aren’t you Jane Smith?”

I turn to see a tall man, nice tan, open-necked white shirt. Not bad looking.

“Tragically, I am.”

“Your trial starts soon, right?”

“Day after tomorrow, as a matter of fact.”

I’m grateful that I’ve now moved to the head of the line, having already exhausted my capacity for small talk with a stranger, even a good-looking one.

“Well, good luck with it,” the man says.

Then he does something odd, startling me as he reaches over and lightly pats me on the head.