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"Forty-Fourth and Second," she said, sliding into the back seat as her phone rang. Mom. That was fast. Ellie sighed as she answered. "Hi, Mom."

"Hi, sweetie, are you home?"

"No, not yet."

"Oh. Well, can you talk?"

"Yep. Listen, it's fine, say what you have to say," said Ellie, bracing for criticism. She pictured her mother standing in the kitchen, her laptop open and streaming the show like Ellie had taught her so she could listen back home in California. It was sweet of her mom to be polite and all, but it was better off if she just let her have it like she normally did. Ellie's only question was how much worse it sounded streaming into everyone's phones and laptops versus in person.

"Well... okay, then, you must be very busy. I understand. Let me come right out and say this since you deserve to know what's going on."

Ellie was pretty sure she knew what was going on because it was going on all over her suit. "Mom, I'm not going to panic yet—"

"Well, good, sweetie. I know we can all get through this. The truth is, your father and I are getting a divorce."

Ellie felt lightning shoot across her chest and down into her fingertips. Human bodies were not meant to contain this quantity of stress hormones. Today was going to require a higher grade of recovery than what she normally planned after a big interview. Usually, she decompressed with comfortable clothing and a walk around Central Park with a new audiobook or a favorite podcast, but there was no way a little stroll was going to cut it now. When she felt this torched, there was only one option—lights low, air conditioning on, tea within reach, and lying down in bed with optional Netflix. If she could just levitate the taxi over midday Midtown traffic, everything would be fine.

"What exactly do you mean by 'divorce'?"

"I mean exactly what I said, Ellie-Belle. We've come to the conclusion—well, your dad and I have decided, together. We think we would be better off on our own at this point in our lives."

"Mom. You're both over sixty. This point? What are the other points? Isn't this the point?" Ellie said, trying to ignore that her mom only called her "Ellie-Belle" when she was trying to sugarcoat something. Her mom had used it for things like suggesting that her brother, Ben, take her to the father-daughter dance since Dad wasn't going to make it back from yet another coaching trip in time, so the name wasn't her favorite thing to hear.

"Well, that's not very fair. We are not too old to be happy, Ellie."

"Who else knows? And where's Dad? Did he already move out?"

"No one knows, and no, Dad didn't move out," she said, sounding insulted. "He's right here." Ellie could hear her mother pull her mouth away from the phone. She could practically see her dad leaning on the counter in the kitchen in his faded USC T-shirt. "Do you want to talk to him?"

"Does he want to talk to me?"

The cab stopped at an intersection three blocks from her apartment, but Ellie was too antsy to keep sitting. She tapped on the glass to tell the driver she'd get out and pulled out her credit card to swipe.

"Well of course he does, sweetie, why wouldn't he? Hon—George? Here, talk to Ellie." She heard muffled sounds as her mom passed the phone to her dad. Ellie exited the cab, and even though the air was thick with exhaust fumes, she finally felt like she could breathe.

"Coccinella."

The tightness in her chest pulled again. "Ciao, Papino. What the hell are you guys doing over there?" She stood on the sidewalk staring at her reflection in a shop window that had been papered over from the inside for construction and pulled her tote bag off her shoulder because the scarf she'd used to protect her suit was now getting ruined by that very suit. She held the bag away from her body like it contained a bomb, nearly whacking a tiny woman in a turquoise turban and a matching paisley caftan. The woman yanked her twin Yorkies in pearl necklaces out of the way, setting off a chorus of yips in protest of such a violent change in direction.

"Well, it's what your mother said—we think that being apart is the right thing to do."

"Now? You've been married for almost four decades." Ellie squinted against the sharp barks as the Yorkie wrangler hurried off. "Aren't people supposed to iron things out after the first two decades at least?"

"People change, Ellie."