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Instead she’d felt a small thrill at being alone in the city—even as her mood turned cloudy. Being alone and anonymous might be preferable, she thought, to being alone and observed—which was how she felt most days in the fishbowl of Rockwell. She started the car. As she drove north on East End Avenue, the multicolored lights of the city refracted through the raindrops on her windshield.

Chapter Five
    When the phone rang, Charlie was in a deep sleep. It took a moment for him to realize that the ringing was not inside his head, somewhere in his dream, and then, all at once, his brain collected itself in a rush—late night—Alison gone — and he lunged for the telephone, fully awake. He heard her voice and could tell right away that something terrible had happened. Alison was, by nature, calm. Charlie had seen her break down only twice: the day her father had a heart attack, and the time Annie, as a toddler, got lost in a mall.
    Alison wasn’t crying, but there was a hysterical undercurrent in her voice, as if on the other end of the line someone were holding a gun to her head and she wasn’t supposed to let Charlie know. As she spoke, Charlie cradled the phone on one shoulder and pulled a pair of khakis over his boxers, grabbed two random socks out of the laundry basket and put them on, fished his sneakers out from under the bed. As he yanked an old Izod over his head he realized that she was asking him a question.
    “What?” he said.
    “Jesus, are you listening?” Alison breathed. “I asked if you can come right away.”
    “Sorry, I’m getting dressed,” he said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
    Their next-door neighbor, Robin, didn’t hesitate when Charlie called and told her there’d been an accident and the car was totaled, and asked if she could come over and stay with the kids. The only thing she wanted to know was whether Alison was all right. He said she was. Then he remembered that Alison had said she had hurt her wrist, and he told Robin that, too, thinking it might mitigate the inconvenience if she knew it was serious. He didn’t say anything about the boy.
    The streets of Rockwell were quiet and wet and dramatically lit, like a stage set. Driving like this, in a rush of adrenaline in the still of the night, felt strangely familiar, and after a moment he realized why: Charlie and Alison had taken predawn trips to the hospital for the births of both of their children. Alison used to joke that she was physically incapable of going into labor unless she was in a deep sleep; Charlie joked that the kids were considerate to give them a taste of the nocturnal schedule they’d be keeping. How ironic, he thought, that his associations were with hope, with promise, and now. …
    He felt a great weight descend on him; he almost couldn’t breathe. She might have been killed—it was impossible to fathom. Emotions sloshed around inside him like conflicting pronouncements in a Magic 8 Ball: I should have gone with her. She’s hurt. In pain. How the hell did this happen? Was she drunk? The car must be totaled; we can’t afford a new one. Jesus, what if there’s a lawsuit? This is going to completely fuck up my life.
    Claire—
    He took a deep breath. Alison, with whom he had fallen in love and married, who had borne him two children, would now carry a burden of guilt and remorse. And he, who was no longer in love with her, who was, in fact, in love with someone else, would have to help her get through it, would have to be the good husband for—how long?
    He didn’t know.
    Was he up to it? He didn’t know.
    He was the one who had talked Alison into going to that damn party. He knew she wasn’t comfortable driving at night, in the rain, in the gnarl of traffic moving to and from the city. Why was he so invested in her going? What did he think it would prove? Claire had called him earlier in the day to make sure he was coming, and he hadn’t called her back to tell her he wasn’t. It was