Bill returned home after a particularly strenuous workday to find Loretta in the living room nose to nose in conversation with a stranger. Rather than interrupt, or inquire what was going on, he observed from the doorway.

A few last sprigs of daylight streamed into the room through the French doors at the back, facing the patio, lighting the pair as if on stage. Loretta wore her usual costume: black leggings and a black turtleneck, long sleeves rolled up into cuffs revealing firm flexors, not toned in a gym, rather by a lifetime playing the violin. With shaggy silver hair and a slight build, she is frequently mistaken for a dancer, similarly precise in presentation, shoulders squared, spine stick straight, body language as integral to her vocation as the bow.

An odd couple they were, Bill thought, his diminutive wife and the burly stranger wearing faded jeans, a plaid shirt, a quilted vest, his cheeks shadowed by afternoon stubble. A slump of his shoulders hinted he was as weary as Bill, likely having rushed to this meeting after his own long workday.

He listened as attentively to Loretta as a student attends a professor. A painter, Bill thought, but hadn’t they repainted the house just a few years ago? Maybe longer. The passage of time blurs with age, playing havoc with recall.

A head shorter, Loretta looked up to the man when she spoke directly to him, although she stood so solidly on her feet, her face ignited with certainty, she might have been the expert, and he the acolyte. He cocked his head now and then, considering what she had to say before scanning and entering notes into the tablet he held in one hand, his gaze otherwise dutifully following her graceful pointer finger to the patio, across the room toward the street, and upward to the ceiling.

Perhaps the roof has sprung a leak, of which Bill was unaware, the source of the leak difficult to identify, as water rarely travels in a straight line on its quest to ground level, confounding even the best roofers. Much like Loretta, Bill thought, like water when she’s inside the music — flowing, swaying, curving her body to the violin. However, she had not previously mentioned a leak, and when Bill looked around, he saw no stains or signs of seepage. Something else was amiss, or afoot, that was for certain.

For some reason—Bill will never be able to explain—he was instantly on guard. The sort of moment most people miss, or ignore, and then look back on as momentous.

Zoning, the man said. Loretta nodded, knowingly. Permits, he said, and she nodded again, a foregone conclusion.

Bill has seen these expressions and heard this tone of voice before. She’s decidedly on a mission, and he will wait for her to share what she envisions. His wife responds poorly when pressed and worse when obstructed.

Engineering, the man remarked.

A matter of context, Loretta stated, with conviction.

Bill smiled, appreciably. What drew him to Loretta, from the first, was that certitude, albeit nuanced, like the way she dresses and the way she carries herself on stage and off. On the other hand, Loretta is not a woman to be underestimated. Like an efficiency expert or an architect, whatever she has in mind, she plans and manages with the same meticulous detail she marks notation on a score.

Bill’s curiosity piqued and he stepped into the living room for an introduction.

We have much to discuss, Loretta said to Bill, and, parenthetically, to the contractor, as they shook hands.

I have my homework, I’ll get back to you, pronto, he replied, shaking Loretta’s hand as well, before slipping away, leaving no trace he’d been there at all.

Smart man, Bill thought. Something like a bartender, or a priest, after confession. Best to say nothing.

Bill’s life, in contrast, as chief of staff for a hospital emergency center, is characterized by sudden shifts in direction. He adapts as quickly as a chameleon changes color at the first sign of danger. Once home, he prefers, and requires, an infusion of calm and consistency. Loretta thrives on what he would describe as controlled variation. Like the movements in a sonata. The fact their marriage has lasted forty years is an achievement they both take pride in. They’ve had their share of disputes, of course, and have survived a few near fatal collisions, and, at moments like these, he is reminded of her many talents and quick mind, also her grit, to which he has been target or ally.

What Bill saw this day in her smile was unsettling: smug satisfaction.

An addition? he asked, dumbfounded, when she declared what she had in mind. What for? We never wanted more space even when the kids were here, why now?

Let’s have a glass of wine, she responded, and led him to the kitchen, the site of serious discussions, and where, Bill suspected, he was headed into an ambush. Not the first, although he accepts his role in their marriage, to which he is well suited. More than husband, Bill is Loretta’s nest. The place she trusts to be safe, warm, protected, and from which she can fly unencumbered and always return.

For him, she is his north star, guiding him home from the churn of his days. From the doom and gloom of crises.

Soup simmered on the stove, the aroma of onion, potato and squash as delicious as a tasting. Bill realized he was hungry as he sat, exhausted from another day. Short staffed. Bombarded by chaos. Because he spends so many hours a week in the belly of that beast, and all too frequent tragedy, conflict is particularly hard for him after hours. When their son and daughter were children, rambunctious and rowdy, there was a tacit understanding that when he returned from the hospital, the decibel level must come down. Home is his sanctuary. Where they start and close most days. Where Loretta stages cozy dinners with friends. Where his adolescent children brought their schoolmates to feast on warm baguettes and cheeses Loretta purchased at a French market twice a week, as if to entice them to what she called their safe house. Where strains of a violin resound through the house at all hours, and where Loretta often hums to a tune only she hears, stirred by bird songs or a melody on the wind.

The place where they will return from extended travels, he hopes, when he retires next year. The plan for which they’ve worked and saved, and is, at last, within reach.

What Loretta had in mind was thus particularly jarring.

She grabbed a bottle of red wine open on the counter, and two glasses from the cabinet, setting them in the center of the round, wood breakfast table where they eat most meals. She sat adjacent to Bill, as they always sit close rather than opposite, and he smiled as she poured. A smile, to his mind, suggesting finality.

A knot twisted in his gut, bracing for dispute.

We can turn the living room into a dedicated music space. A conservatoire, or conservatorio, you might say, she explained, although in a near whisper, as if, by quiet explication, she might not be debated.

The same way she coaxes elusive notes from her violin, or soothed the children when they wept. Not a tone of voice that makes a man feel like he has a say in the matter.

Bill took a sip of the wine, pretending to process what was, to his mind, absurd. Loretta may be a change agent, but she’s rarely foolish. Why would she envision a conservatory in the home where they have resided over thirty years? They purchased the house when they were certain they could afford it, the children still small, and they own it outright now. Land rich and cash poor, the saying goes. A traditional colonial in walking distance to the center of an agrestic Connecticut town filled with similar architecture. The entry foyer divides a square dining room from a long living room with a fireplace at the center. French doors at the back, a baby grand piano facing the street. The kitchen leads to a family room in the truest sense: the reading and media viewing room; a hangout for adolescents and board game-playing room; and, for several years, workspace at a desk built into the wall of bookshelves. Upstairs, three bedrooms — the two rooms formerly occupied by children now a guest room and a home office.

They needed no more than this, their home as integral to their family as each other, and all Bill has required or wanted, and, he believed, Loretta as well, until now.

She waited him out knowing he assesses thoughtfully, as a good physician will. She ran one long finger along the stem of her glass, strumming, in effect, a tick she has developed over the years, as if, without a bow in her hand, she feels incomplete.

The string-stringer, Loretta calls herself, having struck long ago the challenging wife-mother-career balance by becoming a contract player rather than a member of a symphony or chamber group. She is hired on with touring companies missing a violinist or to fill in with local orchestras with an empty seat due to an illness or maternity leave. Her longtime manager handles bookings, also grievances, not infrequent, because when it comes to music, Loretta is as tightly strung as her violin. She has a history of conflict with a conductor or lead player, not one to silence herself, and often justified. Her instincts in music, impeccable.

Gone frequently at night, sometimes on tour weeks at a time, Bill and the children navigated their days and nights like jazz rather than classical music: schedules and activities in alternating rhythms and improvised to suit. When Loretta returned, buoyed by the music and collegiality like a creek bed replenished by winter rains, they all slipped seamlessly back to a foursome, ready for the next movement.

The word conservatoire from the Latin root conservare, means to preserve, Loretta said, tiring of the strained silence. A conservatoire, or conservatorio, in Italian, was a hospital for foundlings, that’s what they called them. Did you know that? Of course, you did. A charming word for an awful thing. Imagine, leaving a baby in a cold, dark doorway to be found. She shook her head. You might say music is like a womb. Source and sustenance. These days, however, entertainment on a grand scale. We’ve lost intimacy. The bonding of music and audience. So, an enlarged family room will serve as our living room. We already live there, right? With a new bedroom above, for us…

Why a new master? he asked, seeking a modicum of clarity in his confusion.

They call it a primary bedroom now, she remarked, with a smile. We need to raise the ceiling in the living room for state of the art acoustics. Our bedroom has to go.

When Bill began to protest, she raised a palm and stood. Shall I serve the soup? The bread is warm…

Loretta, sit down, please. Dinner can wait. What is going on? These are big decisions you’re making for us. Big costly decisions. Life-altering decisions. What’s this about?

Cart before the horse, she replied. We’re just brainstorming. This contractor has a superb reputation. He did Sharon and Lou’s renovation, you liked that. Let’s see what he does with the plans.

Excuse me. You’re going directly to plans?

We need drawings, visuals, to determine what’s feasible. Permits. Estimates. And I have time now, I turned down the gig.

You turned down the chance to work with the Israeli? What’s his name?

Lahav Shani.

You said he’s the one young conductor you most wanted to work with.

Maybe too young.

Since when?

He’s still in his thirties! Lord.

So? You said he’s the real deal.

Yes, but from what I know of him, not sure we would get on. Besides, would have been a short run. Very intense. I want to be home to keep up the heat. Long way to go before we sort this out.

Bill, flummoxed, growing angrier by the second, took a deep breath to steady himself, and then another, before he spoke.

Loretta, let’s be practical. The town will not permit this anyway. A music hall in a residential neighborhood? They’ve restricted vacation rentals, they won’t give this a green light. Why go to the trouble, and considerable expense, to face refusal.

Loretta nodded, as if agreeing, and then placed a hand gently on his arm to placate. Neutralize the opposition.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

He stared at her for a moment, then took a slug of the wine for ballast. He was not ready yet to ask the core question. Not now, after the day he’s had, to challenge their status quo. He will at some point probe. What’s missing? Has she been yearning for a dramatic change, or is there a threat of which he’s unaware?

Bill’s first instinct always is triage: stem the bleeding, assess, determine treatment.

The greater question he will ponder is how to help his wife get what she needs without toppling their late-life equilibrium.

To his silence, as if reading his mind, Loretta says, honey, I’m fine. A new adventure, that’s all. From home! The way of the millennium, right? Remote work, remote music, so to speak. Please, bear with me. Let’s follow the bread crumbs to see what’s possible.

Before he could speak, she smiled and said, I know I can count on you.

He nodded. Of course. She relies on his unequivocal support. She always has. Bill is the one person on earth who gets her, Loretta believes. He’s never let her down. They have been good partners throughout, and now, they’ve settled into their empty nest quite well, they agree, beyond the profound sense of loss that hits when a family is no longer intact at the family home. What Bill compared to the ache of a phantom limb and what Loretta thinks of as a minor chord, which sounds, at first, dissonant, morose, but which structures tension, like thicker brush strokes on canvas.

Pandemic lockdown was particularly difficult for her. Bill took on longer hours at the hospital, while she spent all day and often into the night on her own. Their children were living and working from their own places by then and, at Bill’s urging, stayed put. She was delighted at first to play for hours on end, uninterrupted, what she’s not been able to do since she was a student, or early in her career, before children were born. She looked forward to having time to play with technique. Explore interpretation. To her surprise, isolation was soul crushing. For months she drifted through the house as if she didn’t belong there, as if transplanted or held hostage in a strange land. After a while, in defense, she played for neighbors. Fridays at dusk, she set her music stand and chair on the driveway, while the neighbors spread out on blankets or lawn chairs. Children frolicked, sometimes hushed by the magic of the music. Loretta favored elegies by Shostakovich or Stravinsky—melancholic, mournful music of loneliness and broken hearts. Broken spirits. Bonding to the moment. But always concluding with a short piece to uplift.

Bill wonders now if prolonged solitude, not to mention the anxiety of a generation in all sorts of jeopardy, germinated into the madness of a home-based concert center.

Loretta, maybe we need to explore new ways of living, he submitted, as she refilled his wine glass and then filled and presented steaming fragrant bowls of soup. That’s the upside of retirement, right? The post-Covid world is indeed shapeshifting. And I know how much music means to you. But to suddenly dip so deep into our retirement savings for a questionable construction project? To become an impresario? This is an extreme response. Surely there is another way to get what you need.

He sipped the first spoonful of soup, its warmth flowing into him, bolstering his mood. Good, he murmured.

Loretta smiled. She cooks simple hearty meals and Bill is always appreciative.

Bill, I’ve been lying awake nights thinking about this for some time, while you, of course, sleep like a baby. She smiled, endearingly, before turning serious again. I’m increasingly frustrated with the business of music, you know that. Halls must be filled. Sponsors flattered ad nauseum. A new generation of stars cultivated and marketed, perfect bodies and physical antics like gymnasts at the Olympics. I am sick of the hype. The artificiality of it, no matter how good the music or the players. This is not what chamber music ought to be.

It’s not what anything should be, although the business of music has always been so, Bill said. The piper must be paid. Just like the business of medicine. We’ve gone from care to custodian, remediation to quick fix. This is the nature of the modern age.

If you were in charge, medicine would be truly progressive, and caring, in keeping with its intent. Do no harm.

And that’s it. I am not in charge. Nor you. We make peace with what we can do.

Fine, but many of us want to make music merely for the sake of the music. Return to the roots, like minstrels. Play for music lovers, not status seekers. We’re only in our sixties, Bill. I have no interest in slowing down. Golf and gardening, not for me, you know that. Travel, sure. Plenty of time for that, barring another deadly virus or another disaster. I want to play a whole lot longer. And I want to make a difference.

There was an urgency, a poignancy in her voice he had not heard in some time, and he recognized the necessity for empathy for what was yet to be revealed. No further protest, for the moment. She relies on him for solidarity. She makes her case over time, steadily, like a metronome.

More to the point, Bill was certain the city’s planners, the neighbors, maybe the music community, would shut her down. Better they refuse her than he.

That night, in bed, that place where couples share their innermost hopes and fears, Loretta snuggled against Bill, broader than she, taller than she, so that she has always been able to curl to his body like a treble clef. Fresh from a shower, lavender cream saturated her body and coconut oil on her fingertips to ease the dryness of the chalk. Seductively sweet.

Do you remember when I told you about my final exam at Oberlin? So long ago, you may not recall, and I’m not sure I told you everything.

Tell me again, he said, charmed by her fragrance, her body, close and warm. These the moments that make all moments possible.

Students can petition to be exempt from a jury examination with a recital, and strings were permitted to play in ensemble. Jenny, on viola, you remember her. Carl on cello. Strength in numbers, we thought. And the two violins. A girl I lost touch with, she teaches out there somewhere, and me. Haydn, of course.

Of course?

The father of the string quartet, although you know I prefer Beethoven. The performance was crucial to our final standing. I was top tier through school, but never at the top. None of us were. We matched up well. And I was at my best that day. She sighed, wistfully. The constant critique, for me, as you might imagine, was impatience. I was, I am, still, too often an eighth note ahead. Hard to match the meter sometimes.

Under cover of darkness, Bill smiled. As he might describe his wife in all ways.

That day, we were starlings in flight. A murmuration. And even in the midst of that perfect alignment, I had the revelation, which I’d suspected for some time, I would never be better than my best that day.

Loretta…

She put a finger to his lips. I don’t need a pep talk, Bill. There’s no fix for this. Exceptionalism is exceptional. The rest, at best, satisfactory. I listen, I play, I practice, I swell to the music I love, and I persevere. The perseverant survive. I’m a working musician and that’s no small feat. I knew then I will never be better than I am. Talent is a continuum. I’m among the best of the middling. The spectacular are rare. What I can do, what I think I’m meant to do, now, is make a home for the rest of us. Play for people who may not be as sophisticated, or as self-conscious, as the crowds at symphony halls, not to mention those who can’t afford a ticket. A cozy setting for classical music afficionados. A safe space for the unexceptional. Fine music played by professionals, not pedestrian. Definitely not pedestrian.

And with this, Loretta kissed Bill, the sort of kiss that says, don’t fail me now, and he will not, of course, because Bill always hopes for the best, while prepared for the worst. The paradigm of an emergency physician.

And then she strummed his chest like a violin, she the conductor, he the strings.

As they slept that night, she reached for his hand, as she often will after they have made love, holding on through the night. Their bond as potent at rest as at dawn.

Bill, however, lay awake, pondering how to be her anchor without compromising their next phase of life, no longer captive to obligation beyond the simpler pleasures.

For the first time, Bill and Loretta were not on the same page, and at a dinner a few nights later, the conversation shed further light on the page she had turned.

They were at the home of neighbors who have also lived in this area for more than thirty years, also immune to the propaganda of bigger, bolder, newer means better. Their hosts, small business owners, also invited a couple of high school teachers, also from the neighborhood.

They have extraordinary dexterity and the passion of youth, the music teacher commented when the host asked Loretta her impression of the new generation of classical musicians.

What do you think, Loretta? Are they that good?

Some, absolutely, she answered. Excellent technicians. Stylists. Overflowing with charisma.

That’s for sure, he remarked. Who would you single out?

The Australian, Christian Li. Youngest ever winner of the Menuhin competition. A sensation on the stage, I’m told. Interesting choices. And Johan Dalene, the Swede. Superb melodic expression.

Yes, he’s big now. What of Maria Duenas? Won a plethora of prizes before she turned twenty-one. Quite the star.

Ah, the Spaniard. Looks like a tango dancer. Incredible G-string. Big on baroque, and Lalo.

Big on Facebook, he interjected. They know how to use social media, for sure.

I wouldn’t know, Loretta retorted, disdainfully.

Don’t forget the German, Jonian Ilias Kadesha, he added. A virtuoso, and so young.

Loretta nodded. Like a programmer. Highly skilled. And did you know, as if insult to injury, these progenies are loaned violins crafted centuries ago by masters? Duenas plucks a Nicolo Gagliano! I’m green with envy.

Maybe the strings retain their DNA, Bill remarked. Each fingertip leaves an imprint.

Loretta chuckled. Babies with bows, she said, and they all laughed.

They seem younger than ever, the host acknowledged.

Everyone is younger than ever, the hostess said, and again, they laughed, louder now.

The laughter of the resigned.

The other day, a video of a young Russian violinist came into my Google feed, the hostess continued. Playing on a city street, something classical, familiar, but played like a pop song. Dancing to the rhythm. Stage antics on the sidewalk. Springy ponytail and a short skirt. Adorable.

Hard to distinguish a true classicist from a talented troubadour, the music teacher said.

On the other hand, young’uns seem to be making symphonic music mainstream, the history teacher suggested.

How do you mean? Bill asked.

I read a report the other day indicating theater audiences have not returned to pre-Covid levels, and dance is struggling, but, surprisingly, classical music has roared back. Larger and younger audiences, she explained.

Not sure you can connect the dots to the young musicians, Loretta said. Shakespeare keeps finding new audiences as well.

Yes, but a new breed might save the classics from extinction. You should be pleased, the music teacher remarked.

Loretta was not at all pleased. She has been haunted by images of perky girls dancing on the sidewalk, caressing a violin. Fiddlers, she would call them, a term she despises. She pictures also the gorgeous young Asian violinists on stage wearing stiletto heels, body hugging dresses slit to the hip. The verve of youth as demoralizing as the exceptional talent.

In the days following the dinner, Loretta listened to a recent album of Duenas playing Beethoven. She watched videos of her playing Paganini, channeling the maestro.

According to popular legend, Paganini made a Faustian pact with Satan, granting him magical powers to seduce sound and vibrato beyond the reach of mortal violinists. What they called the devil’s music. Loretta began to picture them all as devilish and she, an avenging angel.

The concert hall is a modern phenomenon. Not the only way, she lamented one night as she joined Bill in the family room, plopping onto a chair opposite him.

She picked up the latest copy of the New Yorker on the coffee table, splayed a few pages perfunctorily, then tossed it aside. Bill looked up from reading a mystery by an Irish writer he admires. Playing softly in the background, Miles Davis, whom Bill refers to as his maestro.

You’re not planning to take to the streets, are you? he blurted out, regretting the comment the moment the words were uttered.

Of course not, she snapped. Really, Bill!

Loretta, you used to say the halls brought serious music to a broader audience, he said, his voice gentler.

Maybe that’s the problem, she grumbled. Classical music is not mass market. Not passive, like streaming on a screen. It’s like reading a good book, she said, gesturing to his. Chamber music should be presented in a chamber, not an amphitheater. Classical music will go the way of literary fiction. Art films. Nothing left but bestsellers and blockbusters. Orchestras playing pop music and conductors even more like rock stars than they are now.

Bill nodded in commiseration. You would be an excellent tutor, Loretta.

Oh Bill. We’ve talked about this. Plenty of instructors out there. I would have no patience for tiny, clumsy fingers or surly adolescents. I just want to extend the lives of players like me.

Loretta slept less and less. She played the violin hours a day with new intensity. Her fingertips bled. She spent hours on the phone soliciting support from local officials and beseeching musicians to join her cause. She ate mostly fruit and vegetable smoothies enhanced with protein powders. She stopped cooking, calling for dinner delivery for Bill, although he more often stopped after work at a bistro for a burger and a beer. Loretta never seemed to notice the hour he returned nor the dejection he exuded, as he came to the sobering conclusion no stitches, no medication or therapy, would cure her resolution to establish a home for music in their home.

One night, after Bill wilted into bed, after Loretta checked emails on her phone one last time for the day, she turned off her lamplight and turned to him to ask a question she had asked long ago when he was a resident and had already decided emergency medicine was his calling.

Tell me about the ER these days, she asked.

They rarely spoke of his work, and Bill answered as he had many years ago, when he promised her he would not bring the work home.

Some situations have changed, outcomes not, he told her. Horrific aftermaths of drugs and overdose. The knife or gun wound so deep into internal organs to cause lifelong dysfunction or disease, if not death. Horribly poor prenatal care. The elderly alone and terrified after a fall. Infants and children suffering life-threatening infections, without insurance, or parents afraid to ask for help. And now, way too often, the ravages of mental illness.

Tears fell to Loretta’s cheeks, as she grasped his hand to her heart and reiterated what she said back then.

You are truly exceptional, Bill.

Watching her sleep that night, her face softly lit by street light, her bright eyes closed to him, he noticed that her features, balanced, pleasing, seemed of late, even in slumber, dissonant. Beyond the signs of age, the sign of discontent. The fear of losing time. She needed more than playing here and there, this and that, subject to irascible conductors. He understood, despite his resistance.

The town declined to permit the project. Loretta, indomitable, hired an urban planner to navigate the labyrinth of local development. He counseled her to establish a nonprofit, with donation-based performances only and with valet parking to mediate street impact. Performance days and hours were limited and the fire department capped capacity at forty. Much to Bill’s astonishment, the neighbors rallied to her side, and the city gave a thumbs up to a music salon.

The Salon on Spring Street, she cried with delight at a celebratory dinner, to the cheers of the architect, the builder and the advisor, a retired member of the revered Lark quartet, who agreed to serve on the board, also their children and partners, and Bill, who sat at the table’s end, like a coda.

She came to bed that night in a short silk nightgown, and as she pressed her body to his, he was stirred, as he has always been, their lovemaking that night as erotically charged as when they were young.

As Loretta slept, Bill contemplated a different future than planned. The girl who grew up playing violin could not do anything different in late age. He would have to adjust. Their lives would not play out as expected, but they would play out together, he hoped. That would have to suffice.

On a balmy evening nearly a year to the day Loretta’s plan took shape, under a deep blue, cloudless sky lit by a full moon, a string quartet, with Loretta on first violin, played Beethoven’s Opus 132 in A Minor, known as the quartet of transcendence. Strings resounded through the expanded living room to an audience of friends and family, and a smattering of local officials, and reverberated from a new acoustic ceiling to the street, where neighbors and friends sat bordered by falling leaves on lawn chairs. What one would call a classical music campout.

A night, in every way, described by an arts reporter in attendance as transcendent.

This Opus, composed in the mid-1800s during a serious illness, lasts nearly twice as long as Beethoven’s famous first symphony and evokes what many consider the most soulful music he ever composed. Opening with ominous tones, each movement conjures pain and suffering, uplifted by a seventeen minute meditation on the joy of being alive. The exultant finish echoes the opening strains, as if, from the darkness to the light, but always in shadow.

Bill stood in the foyer, moved by the music and pleased for Loretta. At the close, after a standing ovation, he tried to catch her eye, but she was surrounded by well-wishers.

I admire her determination, a neighbor standing nearby said. Bill nodded as he turned to climb the stairs. At the landing he stood, disoriented, as he has been for weeks, like a prowler in his own home. His chest of drawers has been moved to a different wall, his closet carved into a new passage to a new bathroom. He stripped down and spread neatly on the bed the tuxedo Loretta asked him to wear, and then pulled on his white physician’s jacket, a shirt and khaki pants, and sneakers, in response to a call for support for hospital staff dealing with a horrific vehicular accident.

Loretta scanned the crowd for him while basking in the glow of an enthusiastic response. She thanked sponsors, she waved to neighbors, she toasted core supporters with champagne, buoyed by pride of accomplishment. When the last of the well-wishers finally bid farewell, when the last of the rented glasses were rinsed and returned to their boxes and the chairs folded to await the next performance, she locked the front door, turned off all the lights, and climbed the stairs in the dark.

Bill, she called out, before she noticed what looked like a lifeless body on the bed. She gasped, and then breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it was Bill’s tuxedo, which she hung in the closet before shedding her clothes to the floor and crawling into a cold bed to sleep alone.