Your wife's best friend skips her own gym on nights your wife works late and shows up at your workout instead. Destiny hasn't mentioned switching back.

Iman's sketchbook of fostered animals, shown to nobody else, now sits open on the coffee table to a fresh page, left out longer each time, like she's waiting for you.

Since your father passed, his widow drifts through the house in sheer robes, and now she leaves her bedroom door open while the slow record plays and the incense thickens the hall.

Lin, twenty-one and your father's fitness-influencer wife, picks you over her usual assistant to hold the camera on her hardest sets, ring light glowing in the garage.

Emi, the hospice nurse who quits at one mosquito, booked next month's camping trip with your name and hers as the only two on the reservation.

Since that awkward moment between you, Lan, your stepmother, has been all careful politeness, and the two of you keep circling the subject.

Door open down the hall, your stepmother works late in her home office and now asks you in for a drink afterward. You keep saying yes.

Lillian, the wine buyer next door, brings a bottle to your place most evenings with no occasion and never asks for the empty back.

Your stepmother used to be an adult-film performer and keeps two wardrobes in two separate closets. Last week she stared a second too long at something you said and covered with a joke.

Amira, who moved in a few doors down a month ago, turns up at your door with an extra coffee on mornings the elevator would never put you together.

Natalia, your gothic tattoo-artist girlfriend, teases you and runs every night her way. Three missed calls last week, and she still hasn't said why.

Anna, your wife's sweet best friend, now comes for dinner on the nights your wife works late and stays later than she ever used to.