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She sat in the front passenger seat, her lipstick fresh enough to suggest she’d reapplied it at the red light. My father drove with both hands on the wheel, wearing his summer dinner jacket and a neutral expression on his face.

Paul followed in his Saab. I watched him in the side mirror when we turned onto the club drive. His car slid beneath the old maples, and for a second I saw fifty-year-old Paul at a red light in Cleveland, rubbing the knuckles of the hand he’d broken playing lacrosse before resting it on my knee.

Then the memory thinned around the edges. I tried to grab it. The red light. The Volvo. His older hand. My own hand covering his.

Gone. Not gone completely. That was the cruel part. I knew the feeling of it, the weight of his hand beneath mine, but the street name disappeared, the exact color of the traffic light blurred, and I couldn’t remember whether we’d been coming home from dinner or driving to… the name blurred then held. My daughter, Claire.

I pressed my fingers against the little evening bag in my lap.

For a few minutes, we were simply headed to dinner at the club with my mother fussing, my father amused, and me trying not to roll my eyes hard enough to damage something. Then the club appeared at the top of the drive, white columns, green shutters, flower beds perfectly arranged, and the moment ended.

Canceling would have been its own announcement. The room was booked, the flowers were paid for, the guests had arrived, and both mothers had already put too much pride into the evening to let gossip take over. In Maple Bluff, a canceled dinner could feed people for months, passed from bridge table to tennis court to grocery aisle, seasoned every time with a little more concern and a little less truth.

The valet opened my father’s door as two men in navy blazers stood near the entrance. The women ahead of us wore summer dresses, their hair sprayed into shapes no breeze would dare challenge. Somewhere inside, a piano played something soft and familiar.

Paul parked behind us. He looked good, and that annoyed me, because I had enough to manage without noticing the width of his shoulders beneath his navy suit or the way his pale gray eyes found mine before he looked at my parents. His hair had been combed, though one piece near his temple refused to stay put, which made him seem younger than usual.

“Mr. Hale,” he said.

“Paul.” My father shook his hand.

My mother kissed his cheek.

“Patricia is inside,” she said.

Paul knew when he’d been dismissed and accepted it without flinching. “Yes, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Bitsy.”

“Yes, ma’am. Bitsy.”

My father looked away, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek.

Paul’s eyes met mine for half a second.

The lobby smelled of freshly waxed floors, chilled flowers, linen, and the faintest trace of cigarette smoke drifting in from the bar. Someone had arranged white roses and greenery on the entry table beneath the gilt-framed painting of some club founder who looked as if he’d disapproved of jazz, women in pants, and possibly soup. A wooden easel held a small sign written in careful calligraphy.

Private Dinner

Hale and Ellsworth Families

Kim would have hated the sign. She would’ve crossed out families and written hostage situation in red lipstick.

The thought made me miss her so much that I reached for the older version of Kim again, the one from 2011. Christmas cards. A kitchen. A laugh on a phone.

Nothing solid came as my stomach tightened.

Paul stepped beside me. “Are you all right?”

No, I wanted to say. I’m losing people in pieces while standing beside a flower arrangement large enough to hide a body.

“I’m fine.”

His mouth turned upwards slightly, not quite a smile. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

That startled me enough that I looked at him.

He glanced toward the dining room. “You say fine with too much punctuation.”