She had spent much of the past three weeks anticipating this weekend, and now it was already over. As much as she didn’t like the idea of leaving, the truth was that May was exhausted, deep into her bones, physically, emotionally, and cognitively, after only three days. She used to be the kind of person who could work all day in a crowded office and then go out and socialize into the night—rinse and repeat, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year—but that was before.
Back then, she thought of her mother’s life as so sad. Outside of work, Coral believed in only doing “one big thing” per day, and the “thing” could be as simple as going to the grocery store or meeting a friend for lunch. She used to scold May for being so busy, insisting that her daughter was going to “run herself into the ground” or give herself “burnout.” Now May found herself satisfied with a schedule like her mother’s. One thing a day was pretty much all she wanted to handle.
May had even taken one of those online Myers-Briggs tests to confirm that her personality had indeed changed. She used to be an ENFJ—extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging—meaning that she found energy in being with other people, focused on ideas and concepts rather than facts and details, made decisions based on feelings and values, and opted for plans and organization over spontaneity and flexibility.
But after the last few years? According to the test results, she was now an INFJ. And that change from E to I wasn’t subtle: she was 98 percent I. Granted, she was previously only 58 percent E—not the kind of extrovert who jumped in as a team leader at work or held court at the center of a party. But she used to thrive in the company of other people. She might not have led the conversations, but she loved being part of them, always believing that she learned something new simply by listening.
Curious about whether other people had gone through the same kind of personality shift, she came upon a published study where the researchers found that, early in the pandemic, there was a counterintuitive decrease in neurotic tendencies that contribute to stress. But in the second and third years after the initial onset, the researchers found significant increases in neuroticism and declines in the characteristics that help people to successfully navigate social situations. May felt validated by the findings until she got to the part that noted the personality changes were most pronounced in young people.
The researchers speculated that younger people displayed more significant personality changes because their personalities were still in development and were therefore less fixed. Did May not have a fixed personality? She thought about the code-switching she had come to master so well. Conscientious daughter around her mother and her friends from church and school. Docile, hardworking student, whether studying academics or the piano. Confident, in-on-the-joke wing-woman to her friends, even when one of them would make a throwaway comment about how May wasn’t “really a minority” because she was half white. The prosecutor who, in the words of the cops who worked with her, “was like a dog with a bone.”
May wondered if perhaps all her efforts to be the type of person who could fit in anywhere and find a way to please anyone had made her so malleable that her personality had never fully formed. Regardless of the reasons, May had somehow gone from being a person who found energy in the company of others to one who needed downtime, who found energy in solitude. And while she had enjoyed her time at the beach house, she knew that she needed to get back to her work, her life, her routine, her isolation. Would she ever revert to her former disposition? It seemed like everyone else had just gone back to normal, but May felt broken in ways she was still discovering.
Downstairs, Kelsey was changing the sheets in the bedroom, soon to be occupied by Nate. “Oh, I wish you were staying,” Kelsey said, looking up from her current task of stuffing a pillowcase.
“I wish I could stay longer too,” May replied. “But I have a lot of work to do, and I need to get back to it.”
“Isn’t that one of the perks of being a law professor?” Kelsey said. “Time off, like when we were back in school? Summer camp for life?”
“Unfortunately, no. I’ve been warned by the senior faculty that summer can vanish in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful. I’m trying to keep myself on a writing schedule. With all the class prep from teaching last year, I didn’t finish an article in time to submit it to the law reviews. I want to make sure I have a solid draft by August. I’m up for contract renewal next year and need it to be a slam dunk.” In year six, she’d be up for tenure—the golden ticket for a legal scholar, a guarantee of lifetime employment.
“You put so much pressure on yourself. I have no doubt that you’ll sail through with flying colors. You always do!” Kelsey tugged playfully on the sleeve of May’s T-shirt, and May turned her head so Kelsey couldn’t read her expression. She had never told anyone, not even her mother or Josh, that her departure from the law firm wasn’t exactly voluntary.
She took a seat at the foot of the bed and gestured for Kelsey to sit beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “Hey, you never brought it up again, but if you ever want to talk about the decision whether to go ahead with the baby, I want you to know I’m here for you—even if you just need a sounding board.”
Kelsey placed a hand on May’s knee. “Thank you so much. That really does mean a lot to me.”
“It’s been like old times being here together. I still feel so guilty for not reaching out after Luke—”
Kelsey shushed her. “That’s ancient history. And, for what it’s worth, I still have a lot to mull over before I decide to go forward. I assume Luke told his parents that we fertilized my eggs. The clinic said it was the best way to maximize our chances of it working. And if I get pregnant and they find out, they’ll stop at nothing until they know whether he’s the father. I really don’t want to have anything to do with them after they wouldn’t defend me when he died.”
“Do they really think you had something to do with it? The police even said you’re not a suspect.” Kelsey had mentioned that much in conversation, but May already knew from following the investigation.
“I’m not a suspect, but I am pretty sure my father pulled some strings to get them to put out a statement to that effect. You know how he gets in the middle of everything when it comes to me. They wouldn’t usually clear someone publicly if the case is still open, right?”
“No, probably not,” May said quietly.
“So I don’t think Luke’s parents were ever willing to close the door on the possibility that my father’s influence may have gone further than that. I’ve always had this lingering fear they’ll even try to stop me from using the fertilized eggs, even though it’s clear they don’t have that power. But if I actually get pregnant? Maybe they’ll try to have a relationship with my kids, and who knows what they might say about me behind my back.”
May arched a brow. “Kids, huh. Multiple?”
“Yeah,” Kelsey said, smiling. “If I still have time.”
The idea of getting pregnant by a dead man who would have eventually been your ex-husband struck May as surreal. Yet she understood Kelsey’s willingness—it was her only option if she wanted a biological connection to her children. And May knew how much Kelsey yearned to be a good mother after losing both her own mom and then the stepmother who finished raising her. When Kelsey’s father had divorced Nate’s mom, Jeanie, she initially made some token efforts to stay in touch with Kelsey—the occasional card, a Christmas gift—but within a few years, even those ceased. May could still remember how upset Kelsey was when her former mom-slash-stepmom no-showed at her college graduation after Kelsey told her how much she wanted her to be there.
“I can research the law on that if you want. I don’t think they’d have any kind of rights to visitation.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got someone in Boston working on it. I wish I could build a time machine. I’d go back and have the babies before my surgery. We talked about it, but we had just gotten married and Luke was trying to get the restaurant going. We thought we had so much time. Maybe if we’d had the kids, he wouldn’t have left me. Maybe he wouldn’t have even been in the car that night.”
May took Kelsey’s hand in hers. “Honey, don’t do that to yourself, okay? There are no time machines, and you still have the eggs. You have choices.”
“I know. It just might be a really dumb idea. It would be better if I could get remarried first. I’d even be willing to use an egg donor and surrogate if that was important to him. You know, to leave Luke out of it. Would that be crazy?”
“Nope, not at all. And whatever you decide, anything you need—really, I’m here.”
“Live-in, full-time nanny?”
“Yeah, no.”
The moment was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. They walked out of the bedroom to find Lauren entering the kitchen, a grease-smudged paper bag in hand. “You guys, the farm stand down the road had cinnamon rolls the size of my head. I couldn’t resist.”
After sliding a gigantic pastry onto a plate, Lauren pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her purse. There was a tear at the top of the page where she’d pulled it down, but the two words filling the top line of text were clear: Missing Person.
“So…weird question, but does this guy look familiar?”
Square jaw. Blond hair tousled with plenty of product. Good teeth. May glanced at the picture and shook her head. “I mean, he kind of just looks like a generic white guy. Even his name is generic. David Smith?”
Kelsey said nothing, staring at the picture with a furrowed brow.
“Take a closer look,” Lauren encouraged.
May did as instructed, but every time she thought maybe something about the man’s general appearance might be familiar, she lost it, and he became a total stranger again. Even the name rang a distant bell, but she had likely encountered a David Smith or two at some point in life. “What are we missing?”
“Am I losing my mind, or is that the guy from the rental car? On Friday. The asshole in the white car who stole our parking spot.”
May felt her breath catch in her throat as she realized that Lauren was right. The man in the picture looked an awful lot like the guy they had seen in Sag Harbor. “I’m ninety percent sure that’s him. We should call the police. There’s a number here.”
“Call them and say what?” Lauren asked, sounding wholly unconcerned as she reached for another pinch of cinnamon roll. “We don’t even know his name—except it’s on this flyer. We saw him on the street for like ten seconds.”
“We at least know he was in Sag Harbor at around five p.m. on Friday. They’re probably putting together a timeline of his whereabouts. You never know with a missing-person case what detail is going to crack the investigation wide open.”
“I’ve got to be honest,” Lauren said, “and no offense, I know you had your reasons for being a prosecutor, but I’m not in the habit of calling the police voluntarily.”
“My reasons?” May said. “I wasn’t aware you thought my job was something I needed to justify.” She couldn’t remember ever speaking so sharply to Lauren.
“You may be used to getting the benefit of the doubt when you’re talking to cops, but let’s just say that’s not everyone’s experience. I grew up with a father and brothers. When I see police heading in my direction, I assume the worst.”
“Seriously? If we have information that might help—”
“The way I see it, it’s not my job to help some random dude. That man could be some Ponzi-scheming crook who ran off with his clients’ money for all we know. Or a drug dealer going through something with his supplier. No one asked us to get involved. Why do you assume he needs our help? Maybe you should ask yourself, after everything that happened, why and when you feel it so necessary to call the police.”
May felt like she’d been slapped across the face. The comment was an obvious reference to her phone call to police on the subway platform, the moment that had been captured in that awful video.
Kelsey cleared her throat. “You guys, this is getting a little intense. Can we—”
“Someone is looking for this guy,” May said. Her hand was trembling as she struggled to enter the number from the flyer into her cell phone. “I’m calling.”
“You know they’re going to run our names if you do that,” Lauren said.
“I don’t care,” May said. “We’ll tell them what we know. They’ll add his whereabouts with that woman in whatever timeline they’re putting together. Who we are is irrelevant.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” Lauren said. “If nothing else, some thirsty clerk at the police station could take to Twitter talking all about the three canceled friends holed up in a beach house together. DA Karen, the sidepiece symphony director, and the rich girl who hired a hit man.”
May was about to enter the final digit when Kelsey grabbed the phone from her hand. “You can’t call!”
“I will leave your names out of it if you want. It’s just one piece of information.”
“It’s not,” Kelsey said in a low voice. Her face was flushed.
“Are you worried because they’ll realize who you are?” May said. “This has nothing to do with Luke or his case.”
“It’s not that,” Kelsey said. She placed May’s phone on the kitchen island but kept her hand on top of it. “Do you remember those notes you wrote on the cocktail napkins? When we were in Sag Harbor?”
Lauren and May were silent. Of course they remembered.
“I left the note under their windshield wiper.”
“You what?” Lauren said.
“It was stupid.”
“Which note?” Lauren asked, her voice stern.
Kelsey avoided Lauren’s gaze and May could barely make out her response. “Yours.”
She meant Lauren’s.
He’s cheating. He always does.