And she froze, expecting him to answer the door at any moment. Because he must have seen the light go on.

But after a few moments, she realized that maybe he hadn’t seen the light go on. Because he wasn’t coming out to see what—or who—had triggered the sensor.

And she got nervous. Everything felt wrong all of a sudden.

And she decided that there was no way she was going to be able to go through with this, and she turned and started heading toward the road, pulling her wheelie suitcase behind her.

But then that strange lightness she had been feeling grew inside her. And made her relax. And believe. And she turned and faced the house so she could do what she was there to do.

And she made her way to the side door, because she had never used the front door of his house.

As she did, another motion sensor switched on the light by the door. The sudden illumination startled her a little, but she was happy for the light, because it helped her see the little cement set of stairs that led to the small back porch better.

The woman put down her suitcase.

And realized that she was exactly where she had been when she last saw him.

And she couldn’t wait to see him again.

She walked up the three steps to the door.

And smiled at the promise of what was to come. And inhaled deeply. And then put her black-genuine-leather-gloved hands to her mouth and didn’t exhale for a while. And maybe giggled a little as she dropped her hands to her sides. And then she shook off some nerves and rat-tat-tatted on the white aluminum storm door.

The rat-tat-tat on the door pierced the northern Maine quiet.

The woman waited, and the anticipation she was feeling made the quiet seem so loud.

After a moment, she knocked again. And in the middle of the second rat-tat-tat on the door, the kitchen light came on.

The woman suddenly hurried down the cement steps to give herself some space from him when he answered the door.

She heard the weather stripping make a squeaky, popping sound as it unsealed itself from the door frame. She hadn’t heard that sound in a couple of decades.

As the main door squeaked open, the woman dropped her head into her leather-gloved hands and smiled and tingled all over. And when she heard the aluminum storm door pop open, she turned away from the man who had appeared on the stoop and started babbling: “I know this isn’t going to be very easy, but I was in my office early this morning, and I saw the sunrise, and I just realized that what I did was wrong, and I wanted to make it right, and so I flew and I took a taxi to get to you, I just had to come see you, thank God you’re here—”

The woman had finally looked at the man and suddenly stopped talking and actually gulped, because—the man wasn’t the man she was looking for.