Friends and Strangers - J. Courtney Sullivan Page 0,53

that. What would have once been a five-thousand-word article was assigned at eight hundred words. Elisabeth got paid the same per word as she did when she started in the business fifteen years ago. Meanwhile, the cost of living in the city had exploded.

When she was six months pregnant with Gil, she went to see Patti Smith give a reading in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The sun was setting behind her, a stunning backdrop of rippling dark water, glass buildings, and pink sky, the bridge lit up for the night.

During the question-and-answer period at the end, a boy raised his hand and asked what advice Patti had for young artists starting out in New York.

“Move to Detroit,” she said.

* * *

—

They parted ways outside Sam’s dorm. Elisabeth felt light. She was happy that she didn’t have to go in there, that she was on her way home to her lovely house, her family. She could remember what it felt like to have nothing figured out. Life was better on this side of things. Settled, as Sam had put it.

At home, she stepped into the front hall and looked up to see the crack in the wall. Melody was right; it was indeed huge. Elisabeth had never noticed, but now she would, and every time she would wonder if it was a sign that the entire house might one day fall down on top of them.

She shut off the light, tiptoed upstairs and into their room. Andrew was sitting up in bed in the dark, looking at his phone. He gave her a wave.

She peered down at the baby asleep in the bassinet.

His face was a kaleidoscope. Turn him this way and he resembled her grandmother; that way and she swore he was her father-in-law. When he smiled, he looked like Andrew. Elisabeth caught her reflection in the mirror once and thought, I see my son in that woman. His face somehow more familiar than her own.

She changed into sweats and climbed into bed.

“How was it?” Andrew whispered.

“Ridiculous.”

Her phone lit up with an incoming text.

Thanks for the walk and the chat. See you tomorrow morning!

On a whim, Elisabeth typed back, Do you want to come over and watch The Dividers with me on Sunday? Join us for dinner beforehand?

Sure! Sam replied.

“Nomi?” Andrew said.

“No. Sam.”

“Sam who?”

“Sam the babysitter. We ran into each other tonight. Turns out she loves The Dividers. I was asking if she wants to come over and watch it this weekend.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Is that weird?”

“She doesn’t have cable.”

Elisabeth paused, thinking over what he’d said. “Is it weird?”

“I’m not sure.”

There was a moment of silence, a look in Andrew’s eye that she thought she could read.

They had not yet attempted sex since the baby was born. Elisabeth’s doctor gave her the all clear at her six-week postnatal appointment, but it seemed too soon. A survey of her friends revealed that none of them had done it until their babies were somewhere between four and six months old. Elisabeth took this as permission to not even think about sex until the five-month mark, which was now, but it could wait a bit longer.

“Someone died in this house,” she said.

Andrew’s face was blank.

“Does that not freak you out?”

“The house is ninety years old. I’d assume someone died in most houses that age.”

“But this was recent. It was a horrible death.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

He smiled at her, bemused, then looked back at his phone. She glanced at the screen, something sports related.

Out of habit, Elisabeth looked at her own phone.

The first thing that appeared when she clicked on the BK Mamas page was a close-up picture of a toddler’s cheek, covered in oozing red bumps.

Is this eczema or ringworm??? the poster had asked. Forty-nine people replied.

Elisabeth clicked away, wishing to rid her mind of the image.

Elsewhere on Facebook, several of her writer friends had posted photos from a book party in Brooklyn the night before. All the usual smiling faces. Elisabeth had slipped out of that world without making a ripple.

She went to her sister’s Instagram, hoping to see the words that could solve her biggest problem: Sponsored post.

But the latest was just another photograph of Charlotte lying on a surfboard in a green bikini, paddling out to sea, head held high, hair hanging in damp waves over her impossibly toned upper arms.

“IF…If I never danced until dawn. If I had never tasted my true love’s kiss—or the sting of his betrayal. If I did not greet my