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someone for . . . ?’” I patted the underside of my chin with the back of my hand to demonstrate. “Jonah says if that doctor has run into him in the last week or two, he’s likely to say, ‘Jonah Gersten. Definitely. He’s first-rate.’ Which he truly is. If you’re not well trained and gifted, no one’s going to risk recommending you. But Jonah knows being out and about is important, too. And he’s big on PR. If he’s quoted somewhere, like in O or Allure, he’ll get calls for the next few months. All that takes time and planning. Plus being a surgeon, he has to keep up professionally. So his hours are incredible. And since the triplets were born—”
    “They’re how old again?”
    “Four. They’re usually asleep when he gets home. They go to bed at seven. We decided that instead of family dinner, we’d have family breakfast. But I know Jonah wishes he could have more time with them, not just mornings and weekends. I guess you could call that pressure, too.”
    “What about financial pressure, ma’am?”
    “We’re okay.” Early on in my marriage, I’d overheard my mother-in-law telling one of her friends that it was très LMC—lower-middle-class, a heinous crime—to say “X is rich.” “God in heaven,” she said, “‘rich’ is so crass.” She meant saying it, not being it. Anyway, within a month after moving from New Haven to New York, I’d come to understand that “rich” was fine to describe Rembrandt’s colors or a veal stock. But when it came to even really big bucks, I knew to say “X does nicely.” Detective Sergeant Coleman was fingering his hairless cheek, trying to figure out what my “we’re okay” meant. So I added, “Jonah’s making a very good living.”
    Coleman’s fast 180 scope of the living room apparently gave him confirmation because he started nodding like a bobblehead. “You mentioned earlier he has partners in his plastic surgery practice,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    He didn’t hear me because he was busy flipping through his little pad, stopping every couple of pages. Maybe he was fascinated by notes he’d made. Or he couldn’t read his own writing. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but do Dr. Gersten and his partners get along?”
    “Yes.”
    “No financial disagreements? Egos? That sort of thing?”
    “They’re fine,” I said.
    “If I might ask, how are things within your family?”
    “Fine. Great. He loves the children, loves me. And vice versa.”
    “The two girls you say are living here?”
    “Our au pairs,” I said. His lids fluttered. “Mother’s helpers. They’re here from Norway.” More flutters. “They’re all legal and everything. They have valid work permits and—”
    “Dr. Gersten has no issues with them, ma’am?” He wrote something on his pad.
    The dizziness that had eased sneaked back, maybe because I could almost hear Coleman thinking, Two Scandinavian girls. Blondes, I bet. True, they were blondes. But Ida and Ingvild bore such a resemblance to Miss Piggy that I was waiting for their visas to expire before buying the DVD of The Muppets Take Manhattan for the boys. “No issues at all. Jonah thinks they’re great with the boys. Listen, my husband is, you know, easygoing. Friendly but polite. Respectful.” He underlined whatever he had just written.
    “Ma’am?” he asked.
    “Yes?” I had to raise my head slightly to look at him. Dizzy again, like the floor had switched places with the ceiling.
    “When we’re called in on a case, we’re put in the position of having to ask questions that may seem, you know, not polite. But we have to ask them anyway.”
    “I understand.” He was going to ask me if Jonah screwed around.
    “So I hope you don’t mind if I ask you . . . You said your husband loves you, and I’m sure he does. But some men do have a midlife-crisis thing.”
    “Jonah’s thirty-nine. I don’t know if that qualifies, but—”
    “Is it possible that there is someone else—”
    “I’m