A car speeds by at what has to be eighty-five, its driver desperate to get somewhere or other. So am I, but I follow the rules of the road. I’m desperate to restore order to the life I’ve made for Joy and me in the city. After a week at the shore, though, that city life looks different, feels different, may never be the same.

Exit 81 flies by. I’m another few minutes closer to Manhattan, another few minutes farther from home.

Home. Such an interesting word. Is it where you park your body? Your family? Your heart?

“Mal?”

“It’s a tricky situation.”

“Does it have to be?” she asks, so much like Paul’s Don’t overthink it that I do wonder if I’m the problem here. But she persists. “It was a difficult week for you, but weren’t there good parts?”

Jack, I think. Anne and Margo, I think. Jack, I think. I think Joy on our beach, moments of lucidity with Dad. Again, I think Jack.

Chrissie thinks bigger. “Broad view.”

Zooming out, I consider. “Reconciling past and present. Figuring out who I am.”

“Did you?”

I’m about to say yes. But the word won’t come. Instead, I blinker left to pass a Camry going under the speed limit, then blinker back into the middle lane. Having passed Waterford, I’m nearly in East Lyme.

“There’s still Jack,” I admit and glance at the clock. Forty-five minutes have passed since I left. I wonder what he’s doing.

I’m picturing him wandering the beach with Guy. Or reading in that godawful sterile living room. Or … or staring at the unmade bed in his room and thinking of me?

As therapists do, Chrissie has let these minutes pass in silence. Finally, gently, she says, “What about him?”

“It’s hard to describe.”

“Try.”

“He was so a part of my life once upon a time. Then not.” Just thinking about it, I feel a spreading hole. “Then again this week. It’s like we picked up where we left off before…” She knows enough of my history to finish the sentence. “I mean, it was different. We’re different now. Maybe more realistic. Definitely more mature.”

She waits. Then, “And?”

“And nothing. In some ways, it’s better than ever with him and, in others, ten times more complicated.”

“Since when have you been afraid of complicated?”

“Since Jack,” I say with a derisive laugh.

“Because you love him?”

“Yes, but isn’t it possible to love someone and not be able to make the logistics work?”

“Love isn’t about logistics.”

“It can be,” I argue, but my best friend sees it differently.

“What if he is who you are?”

“Excuse me?” I ask, not because I haven’t heard, but because the question is huge.

“You went down there looking for answers. What if he’s one?”