Sometimes he thought of his parents, both long dead as well, his father from drinking at the age of fifty-five, and his mother from congestive heart failure ten years later. He’d kept to his promise and never gone to see either of them after that first year of college, although he’d sent his mother updates whenever he moved addresses, and she’d sometimes write back. She’d written him when his father died, describing the circumstances, but never mentioning that she’d like for him to visit. He wouldn’t have, even if she’d asked. After she died, he’d received a letter from a lawyer, saying that there was some furniture and other possessions that he might like to have. Jake never responded. A second letter arrived, but that was it. He’d felt nothing at the time, but as he’d gotten older, his anger at his parents had increased. Why had they brought him into the world if they had no interest in loving him? It had made him what he was, of course: successful, able to find his own love and happiness, unburdened by guilt. But why had they done it? If he could go back in time, he would ask his mother that question, just to see her squirm.

Jake wasn’t sure he’d be able to go to Bill’s funeral, but knew it would look strange if he didn’t. He went but avoided talking with Alice, who surely knew that he had done her bidding, and was shocked to see Grace McGowan—it had to be her—sitting quietly by herself at the back of the church. The sight of her scared him, somehow, as though she knew what had happened. But that wasn’t possible, was it? She was here because she’d loved Bill, and she was hiding in the back of the church, not wanting to be seen.

But then she’d actually come into the store. Jake watched from the back room as she talked with Harry, and then they exchanged numbers. After she left, Harry told him that she was looking for a job. He was alarmed, wondering if she knew anything, even though he thought that was impossible. But it gnawed at him.