He called that night. He called four times. Gina sat on her kitchen floor with her back against the cabinet under the sink and listened to the phone ring, and did not answer it, and after the fourth time she took it off the hook and left it lying on the linoleum, beeping, until the beeping stopped.
On Tuesday he called the agency. She told the receptionist she was in a meeting. She was not in a meeting. She was sitting in her office with the door closed, staring at a storyboard for a new Dreamland Mattress spot in which a cartoon sheep jumped over a full moon, and thinking about a little felt star.
On Tuesday night her mother came over without calling, which she had never done in Gina's adult life, carrying a casserole dish of baked ziti wrapped in a dish towel. She put it in the oven without asking and sat down at the kitchen table in her coat.
"Mrs. Lombardo," Rosemary said, "says you came home last night crying."
Rosemary folded her hands on the table. "He called me."
Gina looked up.
"Graham. He called the house. This afternoon. He got the number from Vincent." Her mother's face was carefully neutral. "He was very polite. He asked how I was. He asked about my hip. He doesn't know anything about my hip, he was just being polite. Then he asked if you were all right. That's all. He didn't say what happened. He said it was his fault and he didn't want to make it worse by explaining it to me before he explained it to you."
"It was his fault."