But damn it, he is busy! He’s not baking anymore lately and has no need of recipes. And besides being a natural introvert, he is now a frantic introvert, in fact. And he gathers that she is having some difficulty with her husband just now (a man whom Patrick also likes, even though he doesn’t know him as well as he knows Millie), which means that there will be lots of talking. Talking and planning and ruminating and problem-solving. Also there’s the rather unorthodox surprise she pulled: just showing up like that without warning. He holds that against a person. And then, as if those things aren’t bad enough, then there was the alarming bombshell she dropped last night, that she is moving here.

Moving to freaking Brooklyn.

Without so much as a what-do-you-think-about-this-plan to the people who might be affected by it.

Well.

Oh, he is a mess today. Cold, tired, sleepy, and his sad paintings are waiting for him in the studio, and he just knows that the multiple teenagers sleeping downstairs are going to come trooping up at some point, and Marnie will probably invite everybody for waffles or something, and Fritzie is off from school for who knows how long, and Millie MacGraw is standing here chatting about everything from the wonder of Ubers to the puzzle of whether pumpkin pie can stay out all night and still be considered nonlethal.

He realizes that he hasn’t been paying one bit of attention. He drops back into the conversation, which is now something about real estate in Brooklyn and where it makes sense to look. She doesn’t want to be any trouble to anyone, of course, but she had to make a move. Turning sixty, you know. Can’t go on through her remaining one-third of her life span without experiencing some real life. (One-third! he thinks with a start. Somehow that sounds wildly optimistic to him, being sure you were going to live until ninety.) She’s saying that a friend of theirs died last month, a person who, tragically, never even got to travel across the country. Then she shifts nimbly over to the subject of Fritzie—how adorable, how surprising, how interesting life is, just full of these kinds of unplanned events.

“That’s what I’m after, some unplanned events,” she says. And then she adds, “And, Fritzie, just so you know, I’m going to consider you my grandchild. You probably already have one grandmother, but you’re in need of another. Everybody should have two, and I think the more the merrier in most cases.”

Patrick gives Fritzie a wink. “You see?” he says.

“But that can’t be right because Patrick and Marnie aren’t married, and so you can’t be my grandmother,” says Fritzie the literalist. “Not until they get married.”

“I know. But more and more I think that isn’t the important thing about human relationships,” she says. “Even if they never actually have a wedding, we could still have each other, and I can be the grandmother in your life. Anyway, I would like to apply for the position.”

“I have a grandmum,” says Fritzie, “but she lives in England, and my mum is mad at her because my grandmum said I couldn’t go and live with her, because she said my mum should stay and take care of me herself. Even though my mum really thought my grandmum was going to keep me because she was family.”

Millie looks at Patrick, and he clears his throat. “You don’t really have to go into all that,” he says.

“Oh, but it’s fine,” says Millie. “Fritzie, if that’s what happened, then we’ll just have to say it’s her loss. And out of that you found your real daddy.”

“My bio-daddy.”

“Yes, your bio-daddy, and he’s wonderful to you. Relationships change, and that’s what is exciting about life. I married my husband when I was nineteen years old, and what did I know about myself back then? Nothing, that’s what. And now I find I’m a person who wants to step out of that marriage, and dye my hair purple, go on dating websites, and, who knows, maybe even get a tattoo.”

Fritzie looks at her in uncertainty. “I know how to dye people’s hair purple. And maybe Ariana could tell you where to get a tattoo. If you really want one.”

Patrick blinks. “Are you . . . and Ted divorcing then?” he asks.

“Who knows what we’re doing!” She laughs. “I refuse to make any definitive statements about anything. I used to know so very much, and now I feel like I know practically nothing. It’s actually a lot more fun going through life this way. At least for now.”

Is it? he thinks. Frankly, he’d love to know what he’s doing. To get a handle on things.

Millie is looking at him closely, and he realizes that he’s been scowling.

“What is it, honey?” she says. “What’s wrong?”

So he mumbles something about his painting project, the art show coming up, and his needing to learn to be disciplined again. None of this is exactly it, he realizes, but she fastens on to it just the same. She completely understands, she says.

“Your art is everything,” she tells him, and she looks so sincere that for a moment he’s afraid that she’s going to cross the room and take him by the arms and stare into his eyes while she makes all her points. He won’t be able to stand that. “It’s who you are. I wish I had something like that to sustain me. My whole life was to be a homemaker. Now isn’t that the dumbest thing ever, when you realize your whole purpose was keeping the counters cleaned off and the shirts folded? I can’t tell you how much of a fool I feel. Nothing I ever did was worth a crap.”

“What happened?” he says, glad that the subject has moved away from his so-called purpose. “That made you realize . . . ?”

“What happened? Why, I guess it was a whole string of things. Everybody left me. We forget that everything and everybody is going to leave us, and that we have to be prepared.”

He feels startled, hearing her say that. It’s exactly what he feels, too.

“You know,” she says, “this is what I’m living for now. A happiness therapist told me that you can change your whole life by doing this one thing. Constantly ask yourself this question when you have a decision to make: Would this make me happier, or would that make me happier? It’s like when you’re at the eye doctor, and he says, ‘Can you see better with this set of lenses, or is it better with this other set of lenses? This way or that way?’ And then you have to always pick the thing that brings you the most joy. Never mind all the other stuff. Just go for the thought that feels better.”

Maybe it would be an okay thing for an innocent person to do, he thinks. But what if you did something so horrible that you can never forgive yourself, and every day you’re compounding it merely by seeking your own pleasure? What if it actually pains you to choose something that’s only for you to feel good? That certainly wouldn’t work! You’d pick the thing that feels good, but then it would make you feel worse . . . so maybe you can only feel good by picking the thing that would hurt you. But then, there you are feeling somewhat good again.

He hates the idea that there’s something even called a happiness therapist, but if he had a moment with one, here’s what he would like to ask: What if you already know you can’t love people because it hurts too much when you lose them?

And what if a magazine piece is about to come out that’s going to make it look to the general public like you think you’re some kind of hero when you’ve been responsible for someone else dying, someone who had talent and who loved you? And now you’re in a studio painting pictures, and in love with someone else, someone who thinks life is just all-out fun and joy, while your first love’s ashes are somewhere in a vial—on her parents’ mantel most likely.