9:48 P.M.

TIME IS DOING THIS STRANGE THING right now. We’re finishing our dinner. Sharing bites. Jessica passes some pasta to Audrey, who trades her for a scallop. The wine has sunken things into a casual intimacy, but for the first time since we sat down, I feel the immediacy of tonight. The need to solve and rectify what I must before the clock strikes what, midnight? Whenever it is that we will get up from the table and go our separate ways.

“You still have the pocket watch,” I say to Tobias at the same time Jessica asks, “Why am I here?”

I’m so caught off guard by the question that I turn away from Tobias. “What do you mean?”

Jessica tears off a piece of bread and soaks it in sauce. “I know the list; I was there when you made it. I wasn’t on it. I mean, I live forty-five minutes away, barely. You could see me anytime.”

Nearly two years ago, I crossed out my grandmother’s name and wrote in Jessica’s. It was born out of anger. I still had the Post-it—tattered and curled at the edges. A reminder of the Jessica who used to be there, who used to fill our living room with papier-mâché and her.

Jessica isn’t used to this much alcohol and I see the telltale signs of her wine-honesty. Cheeks pink. Eyes slightly unfocused.

“Because I could see you, but I never do.”

Jessica sets down her fork. “That’s not fair.”

Jessica and I didn’t have a falling-out—I still think of her as my best friend. There was no big fight, no disagreement. But sometimes it feels like something so irrevocable happened between us, and the fact that I can’t put my finger on when makes it worse. If there was a fight, we could make up, apologize, recover. But you can’t say sorry for a slow dissolve.

“But it’s true,” I say. “You’re always too busy. When was the last time you were even in the city?”

“I have a baby,” she says.

“You were too busy way before Douglas.”

Jessica has this “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. In moments throughout our friendship she has expressed to me, always prompted, that it didn’t mean she loved me any less. “I forget,” she told me. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t need or care about you.”

We barely have a real friendship anymore. I think the last time I saw her was three months ago, at Douglas’s baptism. She has a seven-month-old baby whom I’ve only met twice.

“Since you moved out of our apartment,” I say. “It’s like you disappeared into the atmosphere. You never call me. You say I’m your best friend, but by what standard?”

“Were you there?” She turns to face me, all of her. I see, for a moment, the woman I used to know at twenty-two. Who was passionate and alive. Who would write You are today in lipstick on the tile of our kitchen floor. “You were so caught up with Tobias. I moved out, but you moved on, too. You were barely there when I was planning the wedding. And I didn’t blame you. I wanted you to be happy. I still do.”

“But I’m not,” I say. “I haven’t been.”

Across the table, I see Audrey lean forward, but Conrad nudges her gently back.

“You still think I can fix it for you,” Jessica says quietly.

“I don’t think you can fix it.” My lip has started to tremble. I know she knows I am about to cry. She knows all my tells, just like I know hers. “I just want you to still want to try.”

And that’s it, right there. The thing that hurts the worst. Not the action, of course not. Not the missed dinners and calls. Not the rescheduled plans. But the ache, deep down, that she no longer wants things to be any different than they are. That she’s so immersed in her life she never thinks about what it’s like to be in mine.

“More wine?” Audrey offers. I see her standing next to me, holding the bottle. She must have wriggled out of Conrad’s grasp lightning quick. She puts a hand on the top of my head, and the gesture is so maternal that for a moment it’s too much to bear. Audrey isn’t that much older than I am, here wherever we really are, and yet it’s like she’s compressed her whole life down into this body. She’s sixty and twenty-three and seventeen, all at once.

She fills my glass. She pours for Jessica and Tobias, too.

“I’m sorry,” Tobias says slowly.

“This isn’t about you,” I say.

“You can’t fix it,” Jessica says to Tobias. “I can’t, and you can’t, either. Why are you here? Why did you come tonight? I love you, Tobias, but you’re making it worse, you realize that, right?”

“I’m trying,” Tobias says. I feel something cheer in my heart. He knows what has to happen here tonight. He wants to find his way back, too. To rectify what went wrong and start over again.

“No,” Jessica says. “You’re not. You’re here and you’re talking about things and you’re remembering things, and what do you think is going to happen?”

“Why does that have to be a bad thing?” I ask her. “Why can’t we go back and fix what went wrong? Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“You don’t understand anything,” Jessica says. “And I’ve already been the one to explain it to you too many times.”

“Explain what?” I ask. “That we’re not living up to your standards of a relationship? That if I get back together with him you won’t be there this time to pick up the pieces?”

“No,” Jessica says. She looks into her wineglass, like maybe she expects to find the answer there.

“Please,” Tobias says. “Jessica.” There is a warning to his voice. It sounds, all at once, completely unfamiliar.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica says. She looks at me, and her eyes are wet, wide. “Tobias is dead.”