My chin drops. “She knows your phone number?”

Heidi is stymied by guilt. Unease. She doesn’t answer right away. And then, sheepishly: “I gave her my card. At dinner. Last night.”

This, I think, is getting weird. I stare at the woman before me in dismay—at the bedhead of auburn hair, the manic, caffeinated eyes—and wonder what she’s done with my wife. Heidi is a dreamer, yes. A visionary, an optimist. But there’s always a dose of reality mixed in.

Except that this time, it appears, there’s not.

“Dinner?” I start, but then shake my head and start again, getting down to the more pertinent details: “Why did she call?”

I find myself staring into Heidi’s demented eyes and wishing it was another guy.

Heidi marches to the coffeemaker as if she has any business drinking more caffeine. She tops up a personalized mug Zoe and I gave her for Mother’s Day a few years back, a black ceramic mug garnished with photos of Zoe that the dishwasher has begun to wear away. She dribbles in the hazelnut creamer and I think: Sugar, too. Perfect. Just what Heidi needs.

“Ruby was crying all night, she said. All night long. Willow was really in a tizzy. She sounded exhausted. It’s colic. I’m sure of it. Remember when Zoe was a baby and had colic? The crying all night long. I’m really worried about her, Chris. About both of them. That persistent crying. That’s the kind of thing that leads to postpartum depression. To shaken baby syndrome.”

And really, I can think of only one thing to say: “Willow? That’s her name? And Ruby?”

Heidi says that it is.

“People are not named Willow, Heidi. Trees are named Willow. And Ruby...” I let the rest of that sentence fall by the wayside, for Heidi is looking at me as though I might just be the devil incarnate, standing in the middle of our living room in checkered boxer shorts and nothing more. I bypass Heidi, and head into the kitchen for my own cup of coffee. Maybe then this will make more sense. Maybe after a cup of coffee, I’ll come to realize this has all been a misunderstanding, the translation lost somewhere in my tired, sluggish brain. I take my time, fill the mug and hover before the granite countertops, ingesting the coffee, waiting for the stimulant to arouse the neurons in my brain.

But when I return from the kitchen, Heidi is standing before the front door, slipping a long, orange anorak over her robe.

“Where are you going?” I ask, bewildered by the coat, the robe, the messy hair. She kicks the slippers from her feet and submerges her feet into a pair of rubber boots lounging before the door.

“I told her I’d come. Meet her.”

“Meet her where?”

“By the Fullerton Station.”

“Why?”

“To see if she’s okay.”

“Heidi,” I say in my most rational, objective tone. “You’re in your pajamas.” And she looks down at the lilac fleece robe, the gaudy, cotton floral pants.

“Fine,” she says and races into the bedroom and replaces the floral pants with a pair of jeans. She doesn’t take the time to remove the robe.

This is absolutely absurd, I think. I could tell her, make a bullet point list or maybe a bar graph for her to see it, visually, how this is absolutely insane. On one axis, I’d list all the anomalies of the situation: Heidi’s fetish for homeless people, the lack of discretion when handing out her business card, the hideousness of the lilac robe and the orange anorak, the rain; the other axis would show the values of these anomalies, the outfit far outranking the business card, for example.

But all that would do is land me in hot water.

And so I watch from the leather recliner out of the corner of my eye as she grabs her purse and an umbrella from the front closet and disappears through the door, chanting, “See you later.” My lethargic reply: “Bye.”

The cats jump to the sill of the bay window, as they always do, to watch her leave through the building’s main entrance and down the street.

I make myself scrambled eggs. I forget to recycle the egg carton. I warm slices of limp bacon in the microwave (which feels entirely wrong to do in Heidi’s absence: eat meat in our pseudo-vegetarian home), and eat in front of the TV: ESPN pregame shows that will eventually turn into NBA games. During commercial breaks I flip to CNBC because I can never be too far away from Wall Street news. It’s the part of my brain that never sleeps. The one consumed with money. Money, money, money.

Lightning flashes; thunder booms. The entire building shudders. I think of Heidi on the street in this weather and hope she does her business and hurries home soon.

And then another pop of thunder, another lightning flare.

I pray to God that the power doesn’t go out before the game.

* * *

It’s about an hour later that Zoe is escorted home by Taylor and her mother. I’m still in my boxers when Zoe lets herself inside, and there, hovering in the doorway, is the throng of them, mouths agape, dripping wet like a bunch of wet dogs, staring at me, in my boxer shorts, at the traces of dark hair on my chest. My hair is waxy, standing every which way, an old man smell stuck to me like glue.

“Zoe,” I say, jumping from the recliner, nearly spilling my coffee as I do.

“Dad.” Mortification fills Zoe’s eyes. Her father, half naked, in the same room with her best friend. I wrap a faux fur blanket around myself and try to laugh it off.

“I didn’t know when you’d be home,” I say. But of course, that isn’t a good enough excuse. Not for Zoe anyway.

This, I’m certain, is only the first of many times I will humiliate my daughter. I watch as Zoe grabs Taylor by the hand and they disappear down the hall. I hear the door to Zoe’s bedroom creep shut and imagine Zoe’s words: My dad is such a loser. “Heidi home, Chris?” Jennifer asks, her eyes looking everywhere but me.

“Nope,” I say. I wonder if Jennifer knows about the girl. The girl with the baby. Probably. When it comes to Heidi’s life, Jennifer knows most everything. I grip the blanket tighter and wonder what Heidi tells Jennifer about me. I’m absolutely certain that when I’m being an asshole, Jennifer’s the first to know about it. About my smoking-hot coworker or the fact that I’m traveling again.

“You know when she’ll be home?”

“I don’t.”

I watch as Jennifer fidgets with the strap of her purse. She could be a pretty woman, if she’d get out of her scrubs and put on some real clothes for a change. The woman works in a hospital, and I’m half-certain the only clothes hanging in her closet are scrubs in every color of the gosh darn rainbow and clogs. Medical clogs. They look comfortable, I’ll give her that, and yet whatever happened to jeans? A sweatshirt? Yoga pants?

“Anything I can help with?” I ask, a polite but dumb offering. Jennifer, a bitter divorcée, hates me simply because I am a man. A half wit, no less, lounging around the house in my underwear in the middle of the day.

She shakes her head. “Just girl stuff,” she says, and then, “Thanks anyway.”

And then she retrieves Taylor, and when they leave, Zoe turns to me, glaring disapproval in her preteen eyes and says, “Really, Dad. Boxer shorts? It’s eleven o’clock,” and retreats to her bedroom and slams the door.

Great, I think. Just perfect. Heidi’s off chasing down homeless girls, but I’m the one who’s weird.

HEIDI

I don’t know if she drinks coffee or not, but I bring her a café mocha nonetheless, topped with extra whipped cream for good measure, the perfect pick-me-up for anyone who’s having a bad day. I get a scone to go with it, cinnamon chip, plus the “very berry” coffee cake, in case she doesn’t like cinnamon or scones. And then I scurry down the quiet, Saturday morning streets, elbows out, in a defensive position, ready to tackle anyone who gets in my way.