Cell in hand, I allow another thirty seconds for imagining the questionable places he may be, the women he may be with, and the reasons I was an idiot to turn around on the highway and race back. Then I try his phone again. Nada.

Where are you? I text and wait. And wait. And wait, with no ellipses on his end.

After what feels like forever, I pocket the phone and, devastated, hug my knees. I tell myself that he’s a grown man with his own life, that his silence doesn’t mean anything bad. But how can it not, with his supposedly loving me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me, with my having rejected him again, this time after he begged—begged—me to stay?

My eye keeps drifting back to the house with the lights, the one in which my family is living, breathing, waiting. Sitting here alone, I wonder if that’s where I belong, if the past will always be a barrier between us, if I’ll always be too much of an Aldiss for Jack.

Anne appears at the front door. Even in silhouette, she is defined by the same careless topknot of hair that had set her apart from Margo and Joy earlier this evening. Slipping out onto the porch, she closes the door carefully behind, though the effort at stealth is wasted. Or maybe it’s just that Margo is as attuned to her now as they both are to me. Before I can move, they’re side by side at the edge of the porch, staring at Jack’s house.

I’m up in a flash. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe Jack is somewhere completely innocent, somewhere without phone reception. Maybe he’s so heartsick that he turned the damned thing off. But I don’t know, just don’t know, and the thought of a life without him is bleak.

The dim light that escapes from the house is soft, but it must have captured my chill, because Margo takes those last few steps with open arms. Not to be out done, Anne joins the hug, and there’s nothing weak about her arms. Warm as Margo’s, they support me well.

Finally, Margo draws back. “What happened?”

“I blew it,” I say, not quite crying but close. “I left, and now he’s gone. He won’t forgive me this time.”

“Are you kidding?” Anne asks in disbelief.

Margo shares her doubt. “Did he say that?”

“No. But I can’t reach him. Doesn’t that say something?”

“You’ve been trying him all this time?” Anne asks, curious now.