Chapter 10The party was slowly winding down, and soon the conversations became less animated and more demure. Gayle and I spoke quietly on the couch, sometimes giggling, sometimes leaning close and speaking in nearly a whispered tone. And the topics ranged widely and changed smoothly. Gayle knew how to live and enjoy life, expertly combing for the smallest morsels and finding joy in them, something I had long since abandoned. We discussed books and movies and songs and the people we knew and those we didn’t. She told me about her mother and sister, the friends she had in high school and college, as well as those with whom she worked and those in our presence. And she listened with great intensity to my story, though never broaching the subject of my husband, something I came to assume Rach
