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notes about Howard’s revelations, jotting them on the laptop to fix the details in her mind. She left three messages on Stark’s voice mail during the trip, and two more during the exhausting cross-town walk through underground tunnels to the uptown West Side trains. Too busy to call her back? Damn doctors.
    The only thing that made it all bearable was the fact that Nina had promised her Indian food, a soothing cool mango lassi to wash it down, and sympathy. Lily was desperately in need of all three. She was mustering the oomph to climb the stairs to street level when the phone finally buzzed. Howard’s doctor. Finally. She snatched it out of her purse, covering her other ear in a vain attempt to block out the rattling screech of the train as it pulled out. She yelled into it. “Dr. Stark? I’m so glad you called! I wanted to talk to you about Howard.”
    “Lily. I have bad news.” His voice was unusually stiff.
    Bad news? What strength she had drained promptly out of her legs and left her wobbling on the stairs. What could be worse about Howard’s condition other than . . .
    Her belly lurched with dread. “What bad news?”
    “I’m so sorry to tell you this,” the doctor said. “But after you left this afternoon, I’m afraid Howard, ah . . . well, he took his own life.”
    “Took his own . . .” Her voice trailed off. “He what? ”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    Afraid so? Afraid of what? What the fuck did this guy have to be afraid of? She was the one who’d lived in fear for eighteen goddamn years.
    Her mind picked at the guy’s stupid word choice so she didn’t have to process what he’d actually said. What it meant for her.
    Ah, God. For so long now, the whole purpose of her existence had been to stop Howard from doing this. And he’d done it anyway. After all these years. All the nets she’d held out. They hadn’t been enough to catch him. All pointless. All her frantic effort. Flailing like an idiot. Oh, God.
    Stark’s voice droned on. She couldn’t make out his words. She was seeing all the times she’d found Howard on the floor and sat with him there for hours, waiting for him to wake up. Feeling his pulse, holding a mirror in front of his nose, trying to judge if this was a normal opiate binge that he would sleep off, or one of the deadly biggies, before she called the ambulance, again, and wasted the EMTs’ valuable time, to say nothing of her meager household budget.
    The man’s whole fucking life, one long goddamn suicide attempt.
    And he’d pulled it off. That selfish bastard. She wanted to scream, explode, shoot things, smash things. Her chest burned, her throat was imploding. She felt stupid. Made a fool of once again. Just another little joke of Fate at Lily Parr’s expense. Hah, hah.
    Dr. Stark’s voice came back into focus. “. . . what arrangements need to be made, so you should contact our administrative—”
    “How?” she cut in.
    “Uh . . . uh, what? You mean, how should you contact our administrative—”
    “No, I mean, how did he do it? Was it pills? Where the fuck did he get pills in that place? What the fuck was I paying you guys for? Wasn’t he locked up? Wasn’t he guarded, watched all the time? Wasn’t that the deal we made? I pay, you guys watch? Exactly what part of that arrangement was unclear to you?”
    Stark hesitated, clearing his throat nervously for several seconds. “Ah, well, no. It wasn’t pills. Believe me, Lily, I’m mortified about this. We’re all so shocked . . . We just can’t imagine how he found it. He got a piece of broken glass someplace, evidently. I can’t imagine where, or from what. He never went out, and you were his only visitor. He was constantly supervised. I’m so sorry, Lily, but he opened the artery in his wrist with the glass shard. It was probably over in a couple of minutes.”
    “Bullshit,” she said.
    That cut off Stark’s monologue, startling him into a nervous stammer. “Ah . . . ah, ex-excuse me?”
    “I