“I’ll see you soon, Sarah,” he said. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. In her ear, he whispered: “He asks about you.”

Then he stood and, at the door, turned and waved at Sarah.

In the hallway, the nurse appeared again by James’s side.

“It’s not that uncommon,” she said. James looked at her for the first time. She was about his age.

“These days, not everyone has a family. If something happens to me, my kids are going to my doorman. He’s the best person I know.”

James smiled at this. “Did you give him any warning?”

“No need for that,” said the nurse, handing James a photocopied list of phone numbers, counselors’ names. “People rise to the occasion.”

When James opened the door to the house, the scent of cold and streetcar on his jacket, Finn was alone in front of the television watching a small animated hamster singing about summer. He didn’t so much watch TV as sit prostrate before it, concentrating entirely, as if he were a medical student observing an operation. The Moo blanket that Ana had brought from his house was clasped between his fingers. He rubbed and rubbed, frowning. The joylessness around TV concerned James. Ana was letting him watch too much.

“Hey, Finny,” said James. “How was daycare today?”

Finn broke his concentration and grinned upward. “Hi, James! Hamster!” Then he turned back to the TV and vanished again.

Ana was in the kitchen. A small pink plastic plate of spaghetti sat on the island. Ana placed a blue plastic fork beside it.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“It’s done. We’re in charge. It’s official,” said James, and he beat his chest for emphasis. In one hand, he had a Ziploc bag that he placed before Ana. Plastic parts of a cell phone, the silver of a broken chip.

“This is all they found?”

“The police have a few other things. They’ll be released when the investigation is settled.”

Ana put her hand on the bag of phone parts. “Was it awful today?”

James considered this. “Neutral. It was like opening a bank account. Lawyers.” He was trying for a joke, but Ana didn’t respond.

“The body’s been cremated,” said James. “I guess I arranged that.” It occurred to James that Marcus’s dying was becoming his new job.

“Oh—will we get the ashes?” asked Ana. “What will we do with them?”

“Save the box for Finn, I guess. When he’s older.”

Ana pictured a grown man with Finn’s little boy face tossing ashes into a roiling sea.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but the funeral …” said James.

“I think we should wait.”

“What about closure?”

Ana raised her eyebrows. “You don’t actually believe that exists, do you?”

James sighed. “You’re right. It’s bullshit.”

“It’s her husband’s funeral. Sarah should be the one to—” said Ana. “She could still wake up.”

“I don’t think she’s waking up.”

He moved a glass of water over an inch on the table. They were quiet for a moment.

“We should still wait,” said Ana. She took James’s glass of water, dumped it in the sink, and put it in the dishwasher.

“I have to go to work,” she said.

“Now? It’s five o’clock.”

“Yes. I missed the afternoon, and we’re busy. I told you. It’s Emcor. Discovery is coming up”

The legal profession’s use of the word “discovery” had always struck James as abuse. “Discovery” was a magic word, one that should only refer to new planets or sexual pleasures. But in law, it meant a bunch of suits interviewing another bunch of suits to drag out enough information to ballast their theories in court.

Finn appeared. “ ’Getti!” he cried, climbing onto the stool. James steadied him, snapping a bib around his neck.

Ana put her laptop in her briefcase, which was filled with days of notes from combing over the definition of “life”: If soybeans could be patented, then what next? What other living things would they see bought and sold in their lifetime? She wanted to tell James about how the case made her heart race. The possibilities were terrifying, exhilarating. But Finn was singing as he ate, filling the room.

James had an urge to tell Ana about visiting Sarah, but something stopped him. Before the accident, his afternoons with Finn had seemed like a judgment on Ana, and he hadn’t told her. Now, these visits to Sarah had come to feel the same. It would be humiliating for Ana to know that her husband was at the bed of another woman over and over while she stayed in her office tower, only blocks away. He told himself this anxiety was ridiculous, and Ana would be happy to have Sarah looked after. But still, he didn’t want to speak until he knew what he needed to say.

Ana leaned in and pecked a kiss on his cheek. From afar, she called: “Good-bye, Finn!” before shutting the door.

At ten o’clock, Ana was not the last to leave the office. The law students stayed, surrounded by their empty Styrofoam food containers. They circled the boardroom table, clicking on their computers. Ana was not sure why they didn’t separate and use their cubicles, but something compelled them to come together at night. She suspected part of the evening was spent updating their Facebook profiles or texting people they sat across from all day. On these late nights, laughter sometimes came out of the room.

When Ana said good night, the comic mood broke. “Good night,” they chorused, soberly.

The night was warm. Ana decided to walk home. When she arrived in front of the bar, she didn’t bother to feign surprise at herself. She had known all along, then, where she was going.

It was a place she had first gone to when she was still a kid. Her mother had dragged her to poetry readings there. Ana had been too short to see through the crowds. She’d sipped ginger ale and kept her head below the adult currents, eyes watering from the smoke. Her mother had looked so happy, cigarette in one hand, white wine in the other, her uncut hair moving in all directions as she laughed. Men watched her and listened to her. She talked and talked and cheered at the dirty words. Ana leaned against her, warm and smiling. It was, Ana decided, a happy memory. She cut it off at the drunken edges.

Inside, the room was half full. A young woman in cowboy boots and a dress stood on stage with a guitar, tuning it. When she turned to the side, fiddling with an amplifier, Ana saw that her guitar was resting on a pregnant stomach.

A clatter of glasses and low conversation filled the space. One table was flanked by beer-drinking guys in plaid shirts, murmuring to one another through their facial hair, art students assuming the look of lumberjacks. Another table held an older couple: a man with electrocuted thin gray hair; a woman in granny glasses.

Ana found a small table near the back. She kept her jacket on until her beer arrived. She sipped and warmed herself. She no longer felt nervous alone in public; it was an advantage of reaching forty-one and becoming less visible. She reveled in the peace, anticipating the singer.

The singer leaned into her microphone and tapped away a blast of feedback. She adjusted it to the right height and strummed. “This one’s about what’s going to happen to me in about three months,” she said, pointing at her stomach. A few laughs.

The song was silly to Ana’s ears, filled with wishes and half-lullabies. But the woman had a strong voice. It climbed around the words with confidence, put them in their place. Ana stared at her. Her eyes closed, then closed harder, as if she were squinting her way to the high notes. One leg buckled and straightened at the knee.

“Hey,” said a voice. Charlie crouched down next to her. Ana was startled, she had almost forgotten about him.

“You came,” he said. “Can I sit?”

He did, pulling the chair close to Ana, speaking in a low voice, something James always did in bars, too, out of respect for the musician.