Smoke by Lisa Unger

her legs. “Absolutely positive. In spite of the physical evidence, she refused to believe it.”
    “Was your impression that she was in denial?”
    “I didn’t know what to think,” she said, looking down at her sneakers. “It was all just so stunning. She stayed a couple of days with her parents. She took family leave from the paper and then asked for her vacation to extend her time off. She left for Riverdale about a week after he died.”
    “Did you talk to her while she was up there?”
    “We traded a couple of messages. But we never actually had a conversation.”
    Lydia looked at the young woman in front of her. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying and smudged beneath with blue fatigue from what Lydia was sure was at least a fifteen-hour shift. Something within Lydia wanted to comfort her, to give her a hug and tuck her in someplace. It wasn’t a new feeling, but it was new that she didn’t press it down and become colder to defend herself against the vulnerability it opened inside her. But she didn’t really know how to be like that—even after so many years of interviews like this one, so many weeping, broken people. It cost so much to comfort someone; you had to take on a little of their sadness. Lydia stood up from the couch.
    “Do you mind if I take a look around?” Lydia asked.
    Jasmine shook her head. “Please,” she said, wiping her eyes.
    The hallway from the living area to the bedroom was a gallery of family photos. Lydia flipped on the light and observed a collection of faces captured in the joyous moments of their lives. Lily and Mickey rode on the back of an elephant in a jungle. Lily wrapped her arms around an older woman who had to be her mother; the resemblance was striking as they stood before a birthday cake with many candles. Lily and Jasmine danced in a crowded bar or club with a couple of other sexy young girls decked out for the evening. Mickey’s graduation. Mickey atMachu Picchu. Lily playing soccer, a gangly adolescent with a foalish prettiness to her.
    Lydia walked the brief length of the hall, her boot heels clicking on the hard wood, and gazed at the faces. Near the end of the wall, there was a picture of Mickey holding a professionally painted sign that read NO DOZE . The O’s were little coffee cups and the steam coming from them was comprised of wispy musical notes. Beside him was a strikingly beautiful blonde; her arms snaked around his neck possessively. Mickey’s smile was broad, his eyes crinkled warmly. He was, unmistakably, a happy man. The woman with him had a look to her that Lydia immediately disliked; there was something coquettish, something falsely sweet to her smile. Her eyes were as flat and as dull as a cat’s. Just from the photograph, it was easy to see why Lily had disliked her. Lydia wondered if they’d fought about Mariah, if that had been the rift that had grown between them at the end. Try to convince a young man in love that the gorgeous girl throwing herself at him isn’t the sweet thing he imagines her to be. See how well it goes. He’d have been angry with Lily for it, especially since on some level he would have known she was right. He might have accused her of being jealous, which might also have been partly true.
    “That’s her,” said Jasmine coming up behind Lydia. “Funny, though. I don’t remember that photo on the wall.”
    Lydia looked at it; it did seem out of symmetry with the placement of the others.
    “How long ago was that?”
    “More than six months ago now.”
    Lydia pointed to a black-and-white shot of a man who looked a lot like Mickey holding a baby. “Who’s that?” Lydia asked.
    “That’s their biological father; I think his name was Graves. Simon Graves.”
    There was an air of melancholy to the photo, an expression of sadness on his face though he gazed into the eyes of his child. Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, as if the mood of the photo could leak into her own heart if she allowed it, and bring