The second wave of the virus came and went. Ben caught it again and died before signing the divorce papers or changing his will. He’d refused to sign. He’d called her at least once a week the first month, begging her to give him another chance. “I’ll change,” he said. “Just tell me how you want me to change. I don’t understand what you want.”

Later, Lola doesn't mind when the Dog Warden moves the scanner slowly from side to side across her back to her tail, down the sides of her legs and under her neck, where it finds the chip. He calls the listed telephone number, but there's no reply.

But as we grow closer (and I grow more reliant on our relationship), her solutions—if they can still be called that—turn increasingly… unconventional. There’s the anewifier session, then the silence pills. This weekend, it’s the screaming retreat.

Gordo passes me the dart. I take a few long drags. My heart never twinges for the Wolfes, but it sure stings on account of people who do me wrong. Like Ma and Sheila and more men than I care to count. Seems I reckon I don’t deserve to be loved.

He put the sunglasses on so they were propped over his forehead, just a few inches from her own. Only her purse separated them. His eyes were a sort of olive green; they seemed to her kind, thoughtful, beautiful. She fought herself blinking; the tingling at the bottoms of her feet had intensified, and she felt color rising into her cheeks.

I taught high school and was off for Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday which commemorated the battles of Lexington and Concord and the birth of the nation. Most Bostonians thought the day off was to observe the running of the Boston Marathon and to attend an 11 am Red Sox home game. Which, I suppose it had become. But this, this changed everything.