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cook.”
    â€œHad to bring in a new line for that. Tore up the lawn, had to reseed and everything.”
    â€œShit, how many sinks you got?”
    â€œI think they call that one a prep sink, and that one’s for dishes.”
    â€œThe dishwasher’s gonna go in there?”
    â€œYeah.” Fisher & Paykel, was that it? Another result of Laura’s star-searches for the best appliances ever. It’s two drawers, she’d told him, so you can run smaller loads . Okay, whatever.
    Eddie tugged at a handle, releasing a slab of rock maple. “This a knife drawer?”
    â€œBuilt-in cutting board.”
    â€œSweet. Don’t tell me you picked all this shit out.”
    â€œLaura designed the whole thing, picked out every appliance, the color scheme, the cabinets, everything.”
    â€œTough to cook without a kitchen counter, you know.”
    â€œThat’s coming.”
    â€œWhere do you keep the booze?”
    Nick touched the front of a cabinet. It popped open, revealing an array of liquor bottles.
    â€œNeat trick.”
    â€œMagnetic touch-latch. Also Laura’s idea. Scotch?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œRocks, right?” Nick held a tumbler against the automatic icemaker on the door of the Sub-Zero and watched as the cubes chink-chink-chinked against the glass. Then he poured a healthy slug of Johnnie Walker, handed it to Eddie, and led the way out of the kitchen.
    Eddie took a long sip, then gave a contented sigh. “Hey, Johnnie, Daddy’s home. What are you drinking, buddy?”
    â€œBetter not. I’ve been taking a pill to sleep, not supposed to mix it with alcohol.”
    They left the kitchen, entered the dark back corridor, illuminated only by the orange glow from the switch plates. Nick switched on the lamp on the hall table, another of the millions of little details about this house that reminded him of Laura every single day. She’d spent months looking for the perfect alabaster lamp until she found it one day in an antiques store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when she’d accompanied him on a business trip. The shop dealt only with the trade, decorators and interior designers, but she’d sweet-talked her way in, then spotted the lamp. The base was carved of alabaster quarried in Volterra, Italy, she’d explained, when Nick asked why it had cost so freaking much. To Nick it just looked like white rock.
    â€œAw, don’t take pills, man. You know what you need to help you sleep?”
    â€œLet me guess.” The lights in his study came on automatically as they entered, pinpoints in the ceiling and little floods that washed the hand-plastered walls, the huge Sony flat-panel TV mounted on the facing wall, the French doors that opened onto the freshly seeded lawn.
    â€œThat’s right, Nicky. Pussy. Look at this place. Incredible.”
    â€œLaura.”
    Eddie sank into one of the butter-soft leather Symbiosis chairs, took a swig of his Scotch, and placed it noisily down on the slate-topped side table. Nick sat in the one next to him.
    â€œSo I picked up this chick Saturday night at Victor’s, right? I mean, I must’ve had my beer goggles on, because when I woke the next morning she—well, she had a great personality, know what I’m saying? I mean, the bitch must have fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.” He gave a dry, wheezing cackle.
    â€œBut you got a good night’s sleep.”
    â€œActually no, I was shit-faced, man. Point is, Nick, you gotta get out there and start dating. Get back on the trail of tail. But man, watch out, there’s a lot of skanks out there.”
    â€œI don’t feel like it yet.”
    Eddie tried to soften his voice, though it came out more as an insinuating rasp. “She died a year ago, Nicky. That’s a long time.”
    â€œNot if you’re married seventeen years.”
    â€œHey, I’m not talking about getting