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By Root 477 0

gave them each a number. That’s when “Am I Blue?”—formerly “Tampered”—in which Harry accidentally buys a bottle of Viagra that has been tampered with by a vindictive crazy person and falls down dead just as he’s about to join the voluptuous slut Cheryl under the sheets, that story became “One.” After that, on nights when Esther had done her yoga, taken a hot bath, and washed down an Ambien or two with some of that nice citron vodka she kept in the freezer, on those nights sometimes she could just slip under the comforter, close her eyes, and think “One,” and just like that she’d be off to dreamland. Esther, it seemed, had finally found something she was good at. In her stories she didn’t just murder Harry, she did it with grace, style, and wit, except perhaps for the one where she’d pulled up a loose cobblestone on Jane Street, one of the most charming of Greenwich Village’s many charming blocks, and bashed Harry’s stupid head in. That, of course, was the night he’d told her that he and Cheryl wanted to get married. That, Esther thought, had been the beginning of the end.

What used to work, worked no more. Even Esther’s favorite plots now left her wide awake. For the last month or so, long nights of sleeplessness had turned into longer days of exhaustion, the tiredness pulling on Esther like a double dose of gravity, her heavy legs feeling like tree trunks, her dry skin sallow now, her eyes dull, making Esther plod through her own life without energy and without hope. Friends told her things would get better, that time heals all wounds, or that time wounds all heels, but either way things only got worse, and in the end Esther could see only one way out, only one way to stop her pain.

That very afternoon, Esther had tossed the perishables and taken out the trash for the last time. And on the way to meet Harry, to do this one last thing, she’d packed Louie into his carrier and taken him over to that nice Mrs. Kwan at the deli a block from her apartment, a Korean deli a block or two from everyone’s apartment in Manhattan, and told her that if she kept Louie in the basement, she’d never have a problem with the Department of Health again. Mrs. Kwan had looked inside the bag, startled at first, then laughing, covering her mouth with one hand, nodding yes, thank you, a cat, good idea. Outside the deli, Esther had dropped her keys down a sewer grating, something else she wouldn’t need after her last supper with Harry.

She straightened the pen on her napkin—Esther liked things neat. And when she looked up, as ready as she’d ever be, there was Harry heading toward her. And there was the waiter with her drink as well.

“I ordered you a Manhattan,” she told Harry, pointing to his place setting, letting the waiter know the drink was for him, not her, flapping her hand when he tried to put down the little wooden dish of nuts, motioning him to take it away as Harry pulled out the chair and slipped off his scarf, not the one Esther had given him two years ago, this one from Cheryl. “I think I’ll have one, too,” she told the kid. “A man shouldn’t have to drink alone, should he?”

“Still taking care of me, Esther?” Harry said.

“Old habits die hard.”

Harry nodded without looking at her, snapping his fingers for the waiter to come back, handing him his coat and scarf instead of hanging it on the rack himself the way everyone else did.

“You’re looking good, Esther.” Still not looking at her. “New hairdo?”

Esther smiled. “You noticed,” she said, smoothing the same hair style she’d worn for the last seven years.

“So, my girl said I should bring the papers, Esther. I was quite surprised. Have you changed your mind? Have you decided … ?”

The kid brought Esther’s Manhattan and gave them each a menu. Esther lifted her glass. “To your future, Harry,” she said, waiting for him to lift his glass, listening to the sound of the glasses as they touched, remembering the champagne she always shared with Harry on their anniversaries, the little robin’s-egg-blue box with the white satin bow he’d slip out of his pocket, at least until the last few anniversaries,