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helped me stop crying. I’d smoothed my hair and I was sitting up, folding the laundry, trying to take deep, slow breaths. My hands were still shaking a little, and I was afraid if Bird saw, she’d come and say it out, straight: Dee killed that cop, didn’t he? but she had her attention mainly on Jamelee, who was guiding herself along the edge of the couch. She looked over her shoulder every step or two to make sure Bird was watching.
    â€œYou gonna come out with it?” Bird asked me, still looking at the baby.
    I stared at the side of her face a minute, not certain she’dactually said it out loud. And then she turned to me, eyes wary, but also worried.
    Worried for who I didn’t know.
    â€œThe police came to work today,” I said slowly, hearing each word the way it might sound to her.
    Her jawline tightened. That was all.
    â€œThey had some questions for me about . . . Dee. And”—I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t—“I think they want to talk to you.”
    â€œWhy? I don’t know nothing about him.”
    Her voice dripped disapproval. Which meant I really couldn’t tell her, no matter how scared I was. Telling Bird would mean terrible things for Dee. What Bird doesn’t know , I forced myself to chant in my head, isn’t going to hurt her.
    â€œThere isn’t anything you need to know,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. “It’s just that we were here a lot over the weekend, and—”
    â€œWhat did he do?”
    Just like that. Accusing. Not asking me did he do anything, but straight-off knowing he was guilty. Automatic. Even if she didn’t know what.
    â€œHe didn’t do anything.”
    Even I knew it sounded untrue.
    Her eyebrow went up.
    And I don’t know if it was the pressure of lying to her or of everything else, but that doubtful look on her face made me crack. I started crying again. At least there was one thing I could tell her about why.
    â€œBird, I know you don’t like him, but can you just listen to me? For a minute? They had a letter. A letter from him. In his handwriting. And it was to this other girl. A girl Nicole. N , like me. And it said he—” It was hard to talk. “It said he was going to marry her.”
    I covered my face with my hands, finally really thinking about it now that I was saying it to Bird. Saturday, of course, but also all the other things leading up to Saturday. Things that hadn’t made sense then but started making too much sense now. Dee gone for days this summer, me not knowing where he was. And then showing up without telling me, being angry, demanding. The strangeness of him showing up at all again in May—after we’d been broken up for almost six months. Saying, suddenly, “Baby,” and “I was wrong.” But never looking at me the same way he had before. Or at least not as often. How I felt, sometimes, that even when he was with me, he was somewhere else. Looking for some one else.
    Now I knew it was her. He’d told me he’d gotten together with her after he and I broke up last year but that she’d ended things with him, and it was over. He mentioned her existenceonly once. And then, “She don’t have nothing to do with us.” He brought me that rose. He took me to get dinner. He spent the night here with me and Bird and he squeezed me close. He told me he loved me. Showed me his new tattoo. He’d gotten it for me—or so I thought—so I’d always be right over his heart. Forever. He was mine.
    Now, sitting here, afraid and sad, with everything feeling wrong inside, I wondered if all along she’d known he was still hers.

I WOKE UP ON BIRD’S COUCH. MY CLOTHES WERE STILL ON. The coffee table was crowded with beer bottles—mostly mine. My eyes were half-glued together. It was starting to be light, but Bird wasn’t up yet, and neither was the baby. We’d all