"He's been in Berlin for the past year — that's where I first got in touch with him."

"Oh, Berlin!" Miranda, in her enthusiasm for a city she found endlessly fascinating, forgot for a moment that she wanted Frederick to live nearby. "Wonderful."

"But I think he actually lives in Massachusetts. Cape Cod? He's been staying with his kids in the city."

Massachusetts was not bad. Miranda nodded in approval. She'd had a boyfriend in college who went to Harvard while she went to Barnard. There was a good train, and Miranda liked trains. A train felt fast, faster than a car, faster even than a plane, and the illusion of speed was almost as important to Miranda as was speed itself. She became bored and impatient easily, but had found that anything framed by a train window could hold her attention, as if the undersides and back ends and rusty corners of dying cities were episodes of a rough, rousing life flashing by. She had ended up detesting the Harvard boyfriend, Scarsdale Nick, as she used to call him, but the train had never disappointed her. No, Frederick Barrow in Massachusetts was not bad at all.

"He is still pretty good-looking," Annie said. "He wears nice old tweed jackets."

Annie's tone was serious and full of warmth. Miranda gave a snort.

"What?" Annie said.

"Ha!"

"You're crazy."

"I know what I know," Miranda said.

As the weeks wore on, the marriage mediation sessions began. Betty and Joseph went to an office oddly situated in Chelsea.

"Where did you find out about this woman?" Betty asked.