Charlie murmured and then looked vacant. He rustled in the bed, suddenly no longer there. She could feel the pull of his phone, his clothes, his laptop, his life in the small bag on the table by the TV. She felt a mixed revulsion and sadness, seeing for a moment what this might have been to him, how that might differ so much from what it was to her. That would make it indescribably sordid. She tentatively stroked his hair, realizing that she wouldn’t see him again, in fact could never see him again, because seeing him again would make what happened real, something that counted, and would make the gulf in their realities matter too. She would put the experience in a black box. She traced a finger over his tattoo. “Nobody gets hurt,” she said again.

Mostly Elizabeth felt grateful for their life. Jobless, she had managed the retrofitting and renovation of their Portland house, bringing all her idle scrolling on TikTok and in Meta rooms to bear on the selection of tiles and wallpapers along aesthetic lines, but applying her fluency to securing the house, thinking about their individual energy future and availing herself of some of the innovations that had come about in the last decades. They were fully solar, built on a relative of the same perovskite technology Phil Miles had doggedly pursued in the early years. Often in the reno she found herself in a room full of men, dealing with engineers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, and she smiled to herself at the way the conversations re-created themselves throughout time. She deferred, she wheedled, she flattered, she played dumb, all to bring them around to her view, and if she couldn’t, she fired them. Francis ceded the project to her and was grateful that she did such a good job.