As a lawyer, Newman was happy with a small practice that paid the bills and allowed him three weeks of vacation in the summer and plenty of time for an active social life. He’d never been encumbered by too much ambition. While he was attracted to those who lived on the edge of various passionate pursuits, emotional risk of any kind seemed to him such an easy thing to avoid that he made maintaining an even keel his hobby.

Now in his late thirties, he accepted he was destined for bachelorhood. This had been confirmed by tarot cards, handwriting analysis, a Jungian psychologist, and every woman he’d ever dated for more than six months. He’d been inclined to attribute this to nothing more complicated than profound selfishness and a fear of finding anything in his house in any place other than where he left it.