10:10 P.M.

WE ORDER DESSERT. FOUR SOUFFLÉS. Jessica gets ice cream. Audrey and Robert order cappuccinos, and Tobias and I get espressos.

“You know what I think we need?” Conrad says. “A time-out.”

“We don’t have time,” I say. “This can’t possibly go past midnight.” One night only. It’s only poetically fair.

“That’s two hours from now,” Robert says, as if to say that’s plenty.

“What are you suggesting?” Audrey asks Conrad. “A conversation on politics would hardly be a break.”

“In this climate, no.” Conrad shakes his head. “Although I do often wonder what those of your generation who are gone would think about the world now.”

“Nothing good,” Audrey says. “It’s quite appalling.”

“Indeed,” Conrad says.

“Everything moves so fast now,” Robert says. “It’s impossible to keep up.”

“What’s it like?” Conrad asks. I expect him to take out his pocket pad, but he doesn’t.

“Good,” Robert says. “Not bad.”

“No,” Audrey says. “Not bad. The getting dead I could have done without, but the rest of it is … kind of lovely. You needn’t fear it.”

“No!” Robert says, as if this point is obvious. “There is no need to fear it.”

Tobias is quiet. Conrad looks to him. “And for you?”

“Different,” Audrey says. Her tone has changed. It’s more empathetic.

Tobias nods. “Yeah.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. My heart starts racing. Is Tobias somewhere he doesn’t want to be? Is he in pain?

“More in-between,” he says. He smiles at me, the kind of smile I know takes effort, the one he puts on for my benefit and mine alone.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

He leans over and tucks my hair behind my ear, even though none of it has fallen in my face. “You want to know what I remember?” he asks me.

“What?” I say. I feel close to crying. He’s so near, and his words are so tender.

“Those days with you at the beach.”

“Where are you?” I ask him again. But then I think of something. If he’s not there, if he’s not wherever Audrey and Robert are, then there really is a chance for us. I really can get him back. He’s not as far away as they are.

“My early years with the children,” Audrey says, from across the table. “If we’re doing a highlights reel.”

Tobias blinks back from me, and I have the urge to leap across the table and throttle Audrey. We were so close, a whisper from something, before she spoke.

“And Paris,” she says, taking us further and further away from the moment before. “I miss it.”

“Of course,” Conrad says. He taps her wrist gently. “Robert?”

“My highlight?” he asks.

Conrad nods. I hear Jessica next to me sigh audibly. “My first year of sobriety. The birth of each of my children.”

“Are they like Sabrina?” Audrey asks.

Robert smiles. “I’d like to say yes. I mentioned Daisy likes to sing. She’s in a conservatory for directing, writing, and performing. I know her mother worries about her ability to provide for herself with such a creative career, but I think she’ll be okay.”

“Is she talented?” Audrey asks.

“Very,” he says. “And stubborn—like you, I think?” Robert looks at me and then blinks a few times rapidly. “Alex is much more reserved. She grew up quickly; she was always an old soul, and she married quite young, actually. I was still there for that.”

“You walked her down the aisle,” I say.

“I did.”

“Nice for her.” I don’t want to be, but still I’m bitter. I feel the emotion in my throat like the remnants of cough syrup—sticky and dense. And since we’re almost out of time, I ask him.

“You got better and they got you,” I say. “And all I had was a drunk father who left before I could even remember why.”

Robert exhales. “I can never make right what happened, but I’d like you to know them,” he says. “They always wanted to meet you.”

I know this. I have a letter from Alex sitting in a box at home. I never opened it, even though it’s been more than ten years. It felt like a betrayal to my mom, somehow, to be in touch with her. To want more than what she gave me. So I didn’t.

But she’s not here tonight. Only Robert is.

“Alex is a dentist, you said?” Conrad asks.

I see Robert’s eyes light up. “She’s training to be an orthodontist. She’s very bright and does quite well. Oliver…” He pats his coat pocket and then seems to remember himself.

“It’s true what they say,” Audrey reacts. “You can’t take it with you.”

Conrad chuckles. “I’m still going to try.”

Jessica squints at Conrad. “You mean you’re not…”

“Dead?” Conrad nearly screams it. “Most certainly not! I am very much alive. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Jessica shrugs. “You just give off the impression.”

“Of being dead?” Conrad asks. “How flattering.”

“No, she means wisdom,” Audrey says. “About life, which makes sense. It is best suited for the living.”

“I know I can’t ask anything of you,” Robert says to me. “But if I could, I’d like you to look them up and meet them. I think it might help.”

“Help?”

“Sabby,” Tobias says. “You know what he means.”

“I don’t think it would,” I say.

“It might,” Jessica says. “You don’t know.”

I look at her, because out of everyone she should understand. Her mom had another family. Jessica has three younger brothers she helped raise. Her mother was a teenager when she had her and a grown-up when she had them. And then she died and left Jessica in charge of it all.

“I love my brothers, you know that,” she says, reading me. “They made a lot of it worth it. And those girls miss him. Just like you do.”

“I don’t even know him,” I say.

I look at Robert. He’s sitting upright, his face drawn, but his eyes are wide open. I can register the pain my comment has caused, but I see something else there, too. He looks hopeful.

“I have a lot of regrets,” Robert says. “I should have left Jeanette more money. She’s okay, but I worry about her. I wish the girls were a little older. I didn’t get to see Daisy graduate. She needs a father now. She fights with her mother a lot. I wish I had met my grandson.”

“Do I have to sit and listen to this?” I say.

“Yes,” Robert says. And it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak with authority all night. He looks taller, and younger, too. “I have a lot of regrets, Sabrina. About my whole family. But I am here with you. Tonight I am here with you.”

Happiness is a choice.

“He’s right,” Tobias says. “You can be angry, you can hate us, but we’re here for you. All of us.”

It’s so much, it’s too much. Tobias in purgatory and Robert with his regrets and me, mourning both of them, still. “Alex wrote me a letter,” I say. “I never opened it. I was just too…” I look to Robert. “I guess I didn’t want it to be that easy.”

Robert looks down onto the table. He holds his fist to his mouth and clears his throat.

Our coffees arrive then.

“Oh, how delightful, foam art! I completely missed foam art,” Audrey exclaims. She clasps her hands together and peers down at her cup. It doesn’t even appear performative, although she is, after all, an actress.

“You are the delight,” Conrad says to her.

Audrey blushes.

“And I don’t hate you,” I say just to Tobias. But I know the table can hear. “I miss you.” I look up just an inch when I say it and catch Robert’s eye.