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me?
    Maybe it didn’t matter. I moved my hand from the floorboards to the moldings, tracing the old-fashioned detail with my pointer finger, flicking off dust that my cleaning lady must have missed. I never would have missed that dust were I cleaning myself. Ethan’s gone now, I thought, so whether I love him, or I loved him, is irrelevant .
    I tried to focus on what did matter. Part of what made me a good litigator was my ability to zero in on the details that would help build a case, and the companion ability to discard the information that didn’t help me. What mattered was that Ethan, even in death, was possibly being accused of a crime there’s no way he committed. I knew it in my soul.
    So what did I care? I cleaned the last mite of dust off the moldings and sat up. I looked around the apartment, which had seemed spacious when I left it in the morning but now felt like it was suffocating me with its familiarity. Despite everything that had happened between Ethan and me, I could not allow him to go to his grave labeled a murderer. That’s not whohe was. I wasn’t someone who would have married someone capable of that. I needed to go to New Mexico.
    I jumped up to my computer to make arrangements. According to the Zuni Retreat’s website, the easiest way to get there was to fly into Albuquerque, rent a car, and drive. The sound of a babbling brook auto-played on the site, which was light blue and white and had perfectly lit photos of the serene, treeless grounds and the spare but luxurious rooms.
    Those six-hundred-thread-count sheets didn’t come cheap. If I wanted my own room, it would cost $400 a night. If I was willing to share a room with a total stranger, it was $225. If I was willing to sleep in a bunk bed in a big open room, European hostel style, it was $100 a night, but the website was clear that it “cannot guarantee a bottom bunk.”
    I opted for the room share. I didn’t want to blow several thousand dollars going to some godforsaken corner of the desert filled with people who described themselves as “spiritual, but not religious.” I figured I could handle one stranger for a few nights—I did it for a whole year in college. And it occurred to me that I would get a better sense of Ethan’s life by mixing with the other people there as much as possible.
    I booked three nights there, then the flights and the car. I looked at the clock—by this time it was about nine P . M . I called Matt Lewis. “This is Dana Morrison . . . Powell. I’ve booked a stay at Zuni. I’ll be in Sagebrush County by tomorrow evening,” I told his machine, leaving my cell phone number.
    I called Phil to tell him I had a family emergency and would be out for the rest of the week. He picked up on the first ringand wasn’t thrilled. “Dana,” he said, “we’re in the middle of this case and I really need all hands on deck.”
    I wasn’t going to tell him what was going on, at first, because I didn’t think it was any of his business. But after that insensitive dig I decided I just didn’t care what he thought. “Phil, my estranged husband was murdered. I’m taking the rest of the week. If you have a problem with that, you can bite me.”
    With that, I turned my phone off, took an Ambien, and got into bed. As I drifted into the brief, trippy nether region before an Ambien-laced pass-out, I saw Ethan’s face smiling serenely at me. Usually I would dismiss this as a drug-addled hallucination, but that night I took it as a sign that I was doing the right thing.
    I woke up with a start and squinted at the clock, which read 6:07. That’s when I woke up for work, and it took me a minute to remember that I wasn’t going to work, that Ethan was dead, and that I needed to pack and get a cab to LaGuardia. I checked the weather for Sagebrush County’s only town, Ranchero. It would be in the eighties during