He was supposed to be working at a Sacramento Hertz, lost in memory and yearning. Or pacing around their shitty little house with Claire telling him to take out the trash and him saying What? And her saying Take out the fucking trash. Blazing around the stage, doing the thing he was put on this earth to do while encircled and adored; it didn’t get better than this. This was the one shared dream that wasn’t only a dream.

I prayed for their dance to go wrong somehow. Not an injury, God no, but some kind of creative faux pas that would break his spell over everyone and return him to me. Maybe Davey and Dev wouldn’t know how to end it, they would wear out their welcome—or plagiarism. Did they have that in dance? It only took one bad review to ruin a career, especially if plagiarism was invoked.

I was aware that I was being profoundly ungenerous—miserly, small-minded—but that only made me more wretched.