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room. The insides of her thighs sting when she walks. She shakes her head, a signal. Jack appears less than a minute later, long legs first as he climbs down the outdoor staircase.
    â€œWe fucked up,” he says. Mari nods.
    They take the world’s most convoluted route back, stopping off at a drugstore clear across the other side of town. Mari goes in alone. She buys the pills and a pack of M&Ms for Sonya, the peanut kind that are her daughter’s very favorite. The checkout guy won’t meet her eyes.
    They tell Leo the clerk left while they were discussing their next move. He’s not impressed.
    â€œChrist, officers, that bust was handed to you.” He shakes his head. “You gone rusty over there, Ford?”
    Mari’s stomach drops through her shoes.
    â€œLike your dick,” Jack says, slouching in his chair. Sarge laughs and parks them on desk duty, paperwork and answering phones.
    Mari and Jack don’t speak for the whole rest of their shift.
    At home there’s chicken and rice and the poem about autumn Sonya learned today at preschool. “How was your day?” she asks Mari politely, parroting at her grandmother’s urging. Since Patricia started babysitting more, Sone has started asking store clerks how do you do.
    â€œIt was fine,” Mari promises, reaching out and smoothing Sonya’s hair back over her pretty brown forehead. She has dark eyes, same as Mari and Andre. Jack’s eyes are gray as storms.
    After dinner Sonya spreads her M&Ms out on the coffee table and eats them one by one, a methodical exercise that saves the brown ones for last. Mari looks at her watch. She took her first pill nine hours ago in the drugstore parking lot, washed down with cold coffee. Three more hours until it’s time for the second.
    She sits down with a calendar and calls Andre to work out how they’re going to split this month’s weekends. He’s been nicer on the phone lately, less sharp. He asks about Patricia and Mari’s job. He moved into an apartment near Lee after the divorce, a two-bedroom with a balcony and stainless steel appliances. Mari is glad he stayed close. It makes the transition easier for Sonya.
    â€œHere’s the baby,” she says after they’ve figured out the rest of September and October. “Ask her what she learned today.” Sonya plops down in the kitchen chair with her legs straight out in front of her and dutifully recites the autumn poem again. Leaves are falling on my head, leaves are falling orange and red.
    Patricia watches Mari with concern as they do the dishes together. “¿Cómo te sientes?” she asks, handing over a plate.
    Mari sighs. At dinner, she only picked at her rice. The instructions on the pill box say nausea is normal. “I feel fine, Mom,” she promises. “Just tired.”
    Patricia hums skeptically. “Okay. Si tú lo dices.”
    Mari scratches at a piece of caked-on sauce with her fingernail. “I do,” she says firmly. Her head aches. “I say so.”

Chapter Three
    Jack sits with himself in his empty apartment for half the evening before he’s ashamed enough to pick up a phone. His swipes at the 3 key, Mari’s speed-dial number for four generations of Apple products now, never pressing down long enough to trigger a call. Finally he grabs his car keys off the end table, heading outside into the chilly September night.
    Mari’s block is a modest one. A crisp horseshoe full of alternatively matching two-story houses like the one she and Andre moved into after they got married, it has kids Sone’s age, aboveground pools filling up the backyards. But Jackson preferred her old apartment, the strange, sprawling yellow Victorian where she rented the top floor back when they were rookies. He loved the sloping floors and the built-ins crammed full of all Mari’s books, her novels and poetry and the fat theory textbooks she used in college. She