“Actually, I don’t mind talking about dying. But there’s a limit to what I know about death, having not experienced it myself.”

“Imagine the business you could start if you had.” Kelsey narrows her eyes. “Is it depressing?”

“Sometimes,” I answer honestly. “Mostly, it’s humbling.”

She stabs the cigar into an ashtray. “Well, I’m going to die sooner rather than later because of these things. Maybe I’ll hire you.”

I smile. “Maybe you will.”

The door opens, and Brian’s head pokes through, followed by Horace Germaine’s. “There you are,” Horace says to his wife. “You’re doing a terrible job of hosting a party.”

“They’re all horrible people,” Kelsey says. “Besides, I’m hiring Dawn to help me die.”

Brian’s smile freezes on his face.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Horace asks pleasantly.

“We’re all dying,” I say cheerfully.

The dean of faculty raises his brows. “That’s grim.”

“Not really.”

“Dawn—” Brian’s face flushes.

“Really, it’s okay to discuss it,” I add, warming to the topic. “Talking about sex doesn’t make you pregnant, and talking about death isn’t going to kill you—”

“No one wants to talk about dying at a faculty meet-and-greet,” Brian grits out.

“Why? You talk about dead cats all the time.”

“Why don’t we get you a drink?”

“I have a full glass.”

“Then why don’t we get you another one?” Brian grabs my arm and tugs me toward the door. He turns at the last minute, addressing Horace. “I am so, so sorry.”

I stumble behind him like a child who knows that the worst of the punishment is yet to come. When we are in a hallway somewhere near the bathroom, Brian faces me. He is so upset that for a moment he can’t even speak. “You knew how much tonight meant to me,” he finally says.

“I talked about my job. Would you prefer that I introduced myself as Brian’s wife?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m twisting your words?” I say. “I came to a cocktail party. You abandoned me.”

It’s saying this out loud that makes me realize that this isn’t about Gita—and maybe never was. She is the symptom, but not the illness. I had always believed that Brian would be there for me. It’s why I fell in love with him—slowly, second by second, depending on him for strength and comfort until I couldn’t remember what it was like to exist without that. But then came the moment when Brian wasn’t there for me. And if that was possible, then maybe I’d been lying to myself for years. Maybe our entire relationship was on shaky ground.

You abandoned me, I think again, and I wonder if I’m angry at him for that, or angry at myself for taking him for granted.

There’s a flush, and the bathroom door opens. A woman with a thick rope of seed pearls looks from me to Brian and then edges past us, murmuring an apology.

The room is swimming, and I don’t know if it is because of all the wine I’ve drunk, or because I’m crying. Brian reaches for me, but I am faster. I run through the hallway, past the woman who was using the bathroom, into a kitchen, where a hired chef is filling the trays of four bored servers. I nearly crash into a table with stemware on it, and fly out the door like the Devil is at my heels.

Outside, in the cool, quiet patch of a Cambridge backyard, I walk the perimeter of the fence until I find a latched gate. I let myself out and walk down the street, stopping under the glow of a streetlamp at the corner to wipe my eyes and kick off my heels. Two college kids walk by, arguing, too caught up in their own drama to notice mine.

Love isn’t a perfect match, but an imperfect one. You are rocks in a tumbler. At first you bump, you scrape, you snag. But each time that happens, you smooth each other’s edges, until you wear each other down. And if you are lucky, at the end of all that, you fit.

Two weeks after I moved in with Brian, we went out to dinner at an Olive Garden. He was so excited about the doggy bag he took home—a whole second chicken parmigiana that he was going to eat for lunch the next day. At a stoplight was a homeless man who waved, and without saying a word, Brian rolled down his window and gave him the doggy bag. I thought: He’s so good. I wanted to be like him. I hoped he would rub off on me.

Even now, sitting on the curb with mascara running down my face and a terrible wish to rewind the past twenty minutes, I cannot imagine what my life would have looked like without Brian in it. I don’t know who would roll his eyes with me at the concept of pineapple on pizza. Who would know which song to turn up on the radio, without me having to ask. Who else could possibly know me well enough to wound me.

The car slows as it approaches, its bright yellow eyes blinding. It pulls to a stop; the door slams. Brian sinks down beside me on the curb. His hand rests beside mine, on the concrete.

I cross my pinkie finger over his.

“I don’t mean to be such a bitch,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” Brian murmurs. “I wish I could take it all back.”

My throat tightens. “Me, too.”

It strikes me that we may not be talking about the same thing.

I rest my head on his shoulder. “When you’re department chair,” I say, “we’re serving better wine.”

* * *

—

WE ARRIVE HOME in the soap bubble of a fragile peace. “I…could take a shower,” I offer.

That’s code for: Let’s have sex. I know there was a moment in our relationship where sex was totally spontaneous. But at some point, it became more structured because we cared about each other. Brian would shave so that his beard growth didn’t scratch my thighs. I’d bring a washcloth and tuck it under the pillow so that when we finished, there wasn’t a wet spot.

Brian squeezes my hand. “Maybe you need someone to wash your back,” he says.

“Maybe I do.”

The door opens, and we jump apart, as if this is not our house, as if we are not married. Meret slips inside, just as surprised to see us there as we are to see her. She is barefoot and carrying my shoes. Her face is streaked with mascara, and she is struggling to hold back tears.

“Baby,” I breathe. “What happened?”

A battering ram of the worst hammers at my mind: she was date-raped, she was in an accident. Her face twists as she holds out my heels. “I broke the strap,” she sobs, and then she runs upstairs.

I look at Brian, bewildered. His hands clench and unclench; he has never done well with a tidal wave of emotion. “I’ll go,” I say.

In Meret’s room, I sit down beside her on the bed. I rub her back, waiting for the sobs to stop. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shakes her head, but the story bleeds out.

The dance, under twinkle lights, at a camp on a lake. A DJ playing “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” Meret and Sarah, sitting to the side on a redwood picnic table, when two boys came over. Todd and Eric were not like a lot of the other boys in camp—they weren’t geeks. They were on the soccer team, doing STEM to boost their college résumés.

They had a flask.

Sarah took a drink, and so did Meret.

Todd came up with the idea to steal the rowboat, even though the waterfront was off-limits. It would only be for a little while. It would be romantic, Sarah said. So Meret went with the others, and it was fun. It was messy and dirty and forbidden and she was in on it, instead of standing on the sidelines.

Eric got into the boat and helped Sarah in. But before Meret could climb inside, Todd stopped her. She’ll sink it, he complained, and Eric laughed.

Don’t say that, Sarah said.

Meret looked at her, so so so grateful.

Sarah smiled at the boys, and added: If she falls in, she’ll float.

They were laughing as Todd climbed in, as they rowed Sarah into the middle of the lake like a princess. They were talking scientifically about whether fat makes you sink or rise, when Meret ran away.

I grab Meret’s shoulders and I look her in the eye. “You are not fat,” I say slowly.

Her eyes spill over with tears. “Mom. Don’t lie to me, too.”

I want to ask how she got home, but I am afraid. I want to swaddle her in bubble wrap. I want to hunt down those asshole children and blister them.

She finally falls asleep, lashes damp and spiky, her hands curled over her chest.

When Meret’s breathing evens, I go to our bedroom. Brian is already in bed with the lights out. I give him the abridged version.

He is hurting for her, too, I know. But he swipes with that sore paw: “I told you she should have stayed home.”

Whatever hopes I had of being with him tonight are gone. His words are a sword in the middle of the bed, cutting the sheets to ribbons. I take my pillow and sleep in my office.

* * *

—

Scene from a marriage:

BRIAN (ENTERS KITCHEN): I overslept.

DAWN: There’s coffee.

BRIAN: Last night—

DAWN: I don’t know what time I’ll be home.

(He pours coffee into a travel mug.)

BRIAN: Is Meret—

DAWN: She’s not going to camp today. Or ever again.

(A beat.)

BRIAN: I’ll bring in something for dinner.

(He exits.)

(End scene.)

* * *

—