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after the funeral to get to his ex-wife’s. Every Tuesday night, he had dinner with the kids. They also spent every other weekend with him. Although he often listened to one Spotify playlist or another while en route, right now he opted for silence. He needed to think.

Elise hadn’t seen her family in six years. Liam figured she could have gone to school in that time despite what they believed. But he wanted to know for sure.

She’d said she worked at Out Front Media. He called their main number and asked for HR. A woman picked up and asked how she could help.

Liam started by introducing himself and his company and ended with a request for verification of employment.

As he merged onto I-94 North, he could hear the woman punching keys on her keyboard. “Hmm.” She asked him to spell the name “Whitman” and then said, “Sorry. She’s not in our system.”

“How about under Watson?”

“Elise Watson?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

This had to be the first time an employer had ever called to do a background check and given two last names. Sensing he needed to say something fast, Liam provided the only explanation he could think of. “It was her maiden name.”

He held his breath until he heard more typing.

The woman again asked for the spelling. “Nobody by that name either.”

Liam sighed. He thanked her and ended the call. At the funeral, he’d been surprised. Now he was angry. Elise had lied about her name, her job, her school. What else had she lied about? What the hell was going on?

Liam pulled up to Catherine’s two-story brick house in Winnetka, about thirty minutes north of downtown. With quiet, safe neighborhoods and manicured yards, Winnetka was one of those suburbs that drew an affluent crowd.

He rang the doorbell and waited. It didn’t take long before Tommy opened the door. “Dad!” Barely eight, he wrapped his arms around Liam’s waist and hugged as tightly as he could. Most of the time, he was a giggling Energizer bunny, with hair never brushed quite right and wearing one wrinkled tee or another. Today it was a worn-out green job featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When Liam was growing up, he was pretty much the same, only it was all Transformers, all the time.

“How’s it going, buddy?” Liam said, giving his son a one-armed hug back.

Tommy let go. “Good. Hey, did you know, um, did you know that if you ever have to outrun a crocodile, you shouldn’t run in a straight line? Because crocodiles can run fast, but they can’t turn very well. So you should go like this.” He demonstrated how Liam should evade a pursuing crocodile by balling his fist and moving it back and forth. “Like in a zigzag. Hank told me that.”

“He did, did he?”

“Uh-huh. At lunch. He went down to Florida last week with his family. They went to Disney World. Can we go to Disney World?”

“Maybe over summer vacation.”

“Hank said they went now because it wasn’t as crowded.”

“One day Hank’s going to be serving you fries at McDonald’s, so let’s not use his family as role models, shall we?” Catherine said, appearing behind Tommy.

Liam glanced up at her. She was lean and dressed all in white. She looked younger than she was thanks to the miracle of Botox. She stood with her shoulders back, head high, always aware of her posture. Her mother had developed a stoop as she’d aged, and Catherine had said she was afraid the same thing would happen to her. “Beauty starts in the back,” she’d told Liam more than once.

“I wouldn’t mind serving fries at McDonald’s,” Tommy said. “I like fries.”

Liam patted the top of his head. “Go get in the car, son.”

Tommy darted down the brick steps and Liam watched him until he was belted into the back seat of the Tesla.

“Liam, we have to talk.”

Before he could say anything, Liam’s daughter appeared in the doorway. It was cloudy out, but that hadn’t stopped her from putting on a pair of oversized sunglasses. Quite the opposite of Catherine, Alice dressed in ratty flannels and looked down at her feet when she walked. Liam suspected she was aware of her mother’s feelings on posture and beauty and was doing both to piss her off.

Headphones on and blasting music loud enough that Liam could have sung along, she passed by with barely a “Hi, Dad” on her way to the car. Alice still blamed Catherine for her parents’ divorce and didn’t try to hide her feelings. She would become more talkative once they got to the restaurant.

For some reason, thinking about how the divorce had affected Alice caused Liam to think about the conversation that had proceeded it. Catherine had approached him in the kitchen and, as far as he was concerned, the whole thing had come more or less out of the blue. She told him she wasn’t happy, hadn’t been happy for a long time. After a while, they moved to the living room and stayed there until there’d been nothing left to say. She’d already made up her mind. She’d blamed it on his long hours at work and the gambling and had said something like, “Even when you’re at home, you’re not at home.” Liam remembered packing a bag and going to a hotel and Alice crying; she wasn’t much older than Tommy was now. He remembered the divorce itself and how things had turned mean, with Catherine squeezing every dollar out of him she could. But he couldn’t remember exactly how the conversation had started. Perhaps it had been with the same three words he’d texted Elise. We need to talk. Oh, well. Liam figured it didn’t matter now. Things started, things ended.

“What about?” he asked.

Catherine glanced at her daughter, then back to him. “I’m putting the house up for sale.”

“Good for you.” It was hers now, after all. She could set it on fire for all he cared.

“We’re moving.”

“Probably a good idea. I don’t think the new owners would want