Hank watched the ceiling, his arms folded under his head, as Lindsey curled up against him under the sheets, her leg thrown over his thigh and her head low on his chest. They had both been quiet for a long while. Lindsey had said that she didn’t know why she had cried in the shower after sex, and that had left Hank thinking about the differences between men and women. He couldn’t imagine a man doing that, breaking down into uncontrollable sobbing without something precipitating it. Hank had cried at the news of his brother’s death. He had cried when he’d found out about Ronnie. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand crying, he just didn’t understand it coming out of nowhere. After sex? At that moment? This was the second time it had happened to him, just like that, making love and then the climax, and then she was crying. The other time was Kate. The second or maybe the third time they had sex, but the first time she came—just the same as Lindsey, she started crying out of control, deep sobs, gasping for breath. It wasn’t like Hank had a ton of sexual experience as a basis for comparing and analyzing sexual behavior. He’d always had long, committed relationships, so he’d only been with two other women before Lindsey—and nothing like that had happened with either of them.

“We should get going,” Lindsey said. “Kate’s probably been up for hours.” She patted his thigh and then pushed the heel of her hand into the muscle, massaging him.

Hank said, “I don’t know about this new plan.” He unfolded his hands from under his head and sat up when Lindsey rolled off him and onto her back. They were both naked. Lindsey lay with her arms parallel to her sides, her palms flat against the bedsheet. She had kicked off the top sheet earlier. Hank ran his hands over her breasts and belly. He said, “You’re beautiful.”

Lindsey laughed, surprised by the compliment, and turned on her side to look at him, her chin propped in her hand. “I’m still not going with you,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’ll look like a posse sent out to bring her in.”

“No,” Hank said. “I understand. Do you know where you’re going yet?”

Lindsey made a face that said she wasn’t sure. “Thought maybe Times Square. I have good memories of going there with my family.”

Lindsey said family, but Hank knew she meant Ronnie. As a kid, he was the one who’d loved Times Square. Hank had heard the stories. The flash and glitter of the place, as Lindsey’s father told it, attracted Ronnie like it was a massive video game that he could walk around inside. Plus he liked the stores, and he knew his parents would wind up buying him something or other. That Hank had heard from Ronnie. “If Kate gets through to Av this morning,” he said, “we might not have to go to the restaurant.”

“I still think just showing up where she works is a bad idea.”

“Maybe you can talk her out of it.” Hank threw his legs over the side of the bed.

Lindsey said, “I’m worried about Kate. I’ve never seen her looking so stressed.”

Hank fell back on the bed as if too tired to get up, “I think Kate’s said almost exactly the same thing about you.”

“I am stressed,” Lindsey said. She stood and negotiated the narrow aisle toward the bathroom. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Why wouldn’t Kate be?” Hank said, talking to the ceiling. “Her only daughter dropped out of college. I’m worried. Aren’t you worried?”

Lindsey said from inside the bathroom, “You know what?” She stepped out into the narrow corridor. “I’m really not worried about Avery. She’s twenty-two, she’s rebelling. I’m actually kind of excited about Avery.”

Hank threw a forearm over his eyes. “For God’s sake,” he said. “Please do not repeat that to Kate.”

When Lindsey didn’t respond, he took his forearm away from his eyes and found her standing where she had been, unmoved, staring at him as if she wanted to say something more but was having trouble coming up with the words. A small part of him wanted to encourage her to say whatever it was she wanted to say, but a larger part of him was taken up with looking at her, at her mouth and nose and the brightness of her eyes, at her breasts, at her belly and thighs and legs, at the triangle of downy hair between her legs and the youthful sheen of her skin. Then she was saying something more about Avery, and Hank was listening and letting the words in, but mostly he was just watching.

She might as well be blind, given how little she could see of the glass and steel and concrete howling around her with people and cars, carriages with babies going by along with costumed joggers and pedestrians and police—Kate glanced over at Hank walking solemnly beside her, his hands in his pockets, his eyes straight ahead. At Columbus Circle, he stopped to gawk at the lines of cars and taxis and the hundreds of pedestrians swarming what looked to Kate like a gigantic roundabout. She knew it was Columbus Circle because of the street signs, and thus she assumed the marble statue atop the granite column was Christopher Columbus—but she really was having trouble taking things in. She had to stop and concentrate and tell herself to look, otherwise it was all a bluish blur of glass and motion. Hank appeared mildly awestruck. His mouth was open, as if he were about to comment on something. He gazed toward the circle and beyond it, into the towering walls of glass acting like mirrors reflecting the city back to itself, buildings reflecting buildings and people and traffic under a cloudless blue sky. Kate noticed two police buses parked on the circle in front of another monument, this one topped with glittering bronze figures. They were long white buses with Police in pale blue letters, and they looked as if the two of them could hold a small army. She tried harder to see, peering over the streets at the green-and-white umbrellas of the curbside food stands and past them to the startling green canopy of trees that had to be Central Park—but all she could see were people and cars and motion.

Beside her, Hank finally tore his eyes away from the circle. “It’s this way,” he said, and pointed down 8th Avenue.

“Are you sure?” She touched his back and then slid her arm through his and walked close to him. When he didn’t respond, when he didn’t squeeze her arm a little or say something to indicate he was happy to be walking arm in arm with her, she was quiet. After half a block, she pulled her arm free.

Hank said, “It should be on the next block.” He took a slip of paper out of his pants pocket and checked the address. When they found themselves standing outside the restaurant, a green-and-white awning that read “Heriberto’s” on the fringes announcing the place, Hank said, “This is it. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Kate said. She gestured toward the restaurant’s entrance. “It’s obviously closed. You think I should just knock?”

“Knock,” Hank said, “and if you don’t get an answer, call.” He handed her the scrap of paper from his pocket. The restaurant’s phone number was scribbled under the address. “I’ll be across the street.” He pointed to what looked like another small restaurant, a few tables and chairs out on the sidewalk under a blue canopy. “Call me when you’re ready.” He walked away without so much as an encouraging touch. Kate’s back went stiff and she almost called after him, but watched him walk away, his hands in his pockets, as if he were strolling leisurely along a grassy embankment somewhere. She watched him until he crossed the street, and then she knocked at a polished wood door. When her hardest knock clearly wasn’t making much of a noise, she banged on the glass. A moment later the door opened, and Avery was standing there. For a couple of seconds, they looked at each other, wordless.

---