Page 97 of The New Couple in 5B

Here with Ivan probably, who was in steep decline, drawing close to the end of his life.

I struggle to fit this piece into the other lies and dishonesties and omissions Chad has offered me. It’s creating a picture I don’t quite understand. It feels like someone is squeezing my heart. Here he is at Dana’s opening, when he claimed he couldn’t reach her. Here he is, clearly with Lilian, when he claimed at our welcome party that they’d just met.

“What is it?” asks Max, maybe sensing a shift in my energy.

I minimize the window showing Dana’s feed, click back over to Xavier’s.

“Nothing,” I say quickly, my heart still thudding painfully. “Just looking at Xavier’s feed. He knew Dana.”

I don’t want him to know that Chad has been dishonest with me. As much as he tries to hide it now, Max’s opinion of my husband is low. I don’t want to offer this confirmation.

I search my memory. Where did I think Chad was that night? And other nights when I stayed behind to work or research, to care for Ivan, or just to be alone. He is the one who needs to go out, to party, to be the center of attention, the extrovert. Me, his opposite in that way, I’m the one who needs quiet, happier in the world of my ideas than in the real world. I thought we were honoring each other’s differences. But maybe he was taking advantage.

Max comes up behind me and I show him the image of Dana and Xavier.

“He didn’t mention that he knew her?”

“No. In fact, he said they’d never met.”

“Why would he lie?”

I shrug, not knowing Dana or Xavier well enough to even guess.

“Did you see him at Dana’s service?” Max asks.

“There hasn’t been one. The police haven’t released her body. The investigation is still ongoing.”

He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.

I drop my voice to a whisper. “Maybe that’s one of the things that he wanted to talk to me about over coffee. Maybe he didn’t want to say so in the building.”

“Because someone is listening?”

We both look around to the intercom behind us in the hallway outside my office door. We each stay silent, wheels turning.

“So,” he says, dropping the volume on his voice, too, “are you investigating Dana’s death? Or writing your book?”

It’s a very typical editor-type query—a question that’s supposed to lead to the right answer, one which should already be known to you.

I look up at him.

“Both?”

I tell him my plans to go to Xavier’s funeral after my interview with Arthur. I expect him to offer to go to both with me, but he doesn’t, gives a glance at his watch.

“I’m all for a visit with Arthur. Stay grounded in the work, you know? But is a funeral a good idea?” he asks. “It doesn’t seem like you’re in the best place at the moment. A funeral isn’t going to help that.”

“I have to go. To pay my respects.”

And who knows who might be there, what other connections I might uncover.

He looks at me, then down at his phone. “I have a meeting,” he says quietly.

“Go,” I say, swallowing my disappointment. “I’m fine. I’m good. Really.”

“Rosie, just take care of yourself,” he says. “Okay?”

I feel it then, a rift that’s growing between us. We’re not officially working together. There’s the unspoken tension of his wanting more than I can give. All the things I haven’t said about my miscarriage, about Chad. That’s how friendships start to fray, and I feel the connection between us straining. Will our lives take us in separate directions now?