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a man was walking a huge white dog down the sidewalk. The doctor had warned her. After she’d picked herself up off the floor of the courthouse and they’d brought her to the ambulance, she’d been subjected to a series of tests. The doctors scrutinized not only her heart, but her life. They wanted to know:
Did she take illegal drugs? Legal drugs? Did she drink coffee? Alcohol? Did her family suffer from heart disease? And what about her stress levels; how would she describe them?
    Forty-eight hours and one Holter monitor later, a specialist sat her down in his office. He’d told her the impulses in her heart were firing out of rhythm, so that the well-timed pulses of electricity were less like clockwork and more like lightning in a storm. He’d thrown words at her—
palpitations
,
sinus tachycardia
,
atrial fibrillation
. The doctor had told her that if the misfiring didn’t stop, she could face more serious long-term consequences. Lauren haddemanded the bottom line.
Look,
he’d said.
I probably shouldn’t put it this way. But I think it’s an old-fashioned nervous breakdown
.
    Lauren had been shocked. She’d always thought of nervous breakdowns as ailments that were more made up than real—mythical “female diseases” from some other time when women wore corsets and hid their pregnancies.
    How could
she
have a nervous breakdown? Her schedule was grueling, high-pressured, and dangerous—and for years she’d weathered it. No—she’d conquered it. Struggle had made her strong. There was no way she could go back to her office and attempt to explain that there was nothing wrong with her other than what was in her head, that she’d simply had a—she hated to even
think
it—nervous breakdown.
    She
had
to get Arlen’s forgiveness. Closure was not merely an amenity that would allow her to look herself in the mirror again; it was necessary. Before Arlen’s retrial, she’d felt untouchable. A monarch ruling her own life—to the awe and amazement of everyone who saw how young she was and how much she’d accomplished.
    But now she’d lost her confidence—and she couldn’t work cases without it. She didn’t want to have a stroke before she turned thirty-five. Arlen’s forgiveness would go a long way toward undoing what had been done. What
she
had done.
    The last of the pink smears of sunset faded behind the big houses across the street. “Well,” Maisie said, “it’s nice to have you down here visiting. You need a break from all that court stuff. A few days in Richmond will do you good.”
    “I wish I could stay longer,” Lauren said.
    “You’re welcome as long as you like. Stay the year. Stay two. Lauren . . . ” Lauren turned, and Maisie reached across the smallbalcony for her friend’s hand. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t go back to Albany at all.”
    The narrow brick alleyway alongside the antiques shop smelled of yeast—and when Will dragged the garbage to the sidewalk for tomorrow’s morning pickup, he knew why. Two days ago, he’d bought Arlen a thirty-pack of beer. Nothing fancy—just the same kind of pilsner served at picnics and dive bars. Now the whole pack was gone.
    Will headed back into the shop, then up the stairs that led to the apartment where Arlen was staying. He knocked and entered. Arlen looked up from his perch at the window. The TV was muted but on.
    “I’m heading out. You need anything?” Will asked.
    “Naw. I’m fine.”
    “You should make a grocery list. Otherwise I have to guess.”
    “Just don’t get anything I have to assemble myself. Those little cups of macaroni were good. Fast.”
    Will nodded, again struck by how much Arlen was like a teenager—except that he was different from the one Will had known. The last time Will had seen the Arlen he knew, the person he recognized on some fundamental level, Arlen had been a newlywed. He’d saved up a little money, and he’d been able to plan a short trip to Albany to visit a sick cousin. Almost a