She had gone to his nursery to ask where he was. There was no one there except a high-school girl whose only job it was to ring up sales. Then she drove to his house and found a note on the door. “Gone fishin’.” She thought that sort of thing had gone out with Tom Sawyer. Then she spotted a truck with John’s logo on the door. She followed it, and when it stopped she asked the driver if he had any idea where John usually fished. He gave her three possible locations.

The first two, reasonably close, had proved futile. It just figured that John had to go deep into the woods, down a long unpaved road to a mountain stream. Leigh half remembered a place like this where she had come with John years ago.

She might have remembered some of the details if she hadn’t been so busy building up a good head of steam. She was a little tired of this childish behavior. His and hers both. But she was a little tired of feeling guilty about not always doing the right thing. Couldn’t people occasionally make allowances for mistakes? When you told a person you were nearsighted they didn’t turn around later and point out something far away, then yell at you if you couldn’t see it.

And furthermore, how many times was she supposed to say she was sorry? For everything? And how much time did he need before he realized how much courage she’d had to work up to come back here, to the scene of the crime, so to speak, to face him and tell him the truth about his sons, even thinking he was married? He never gave her any credit because he was always finding some fault with her.

She rehearsed all those arguments right up to the point when she saw his truck in the clearing. Yes, this was a place she had come with him. And yes, he was fishing now as he had fished then. And perhaps he had been here for a while, because he had a tent set up and a campfire in front of it. Maybe it was his plan to just become a woodsy recluse until she got frustrated enough to leave.

That was what had happened before when they couldn’t communicate, so in one insane moment they threw away all the good things they had shared. Oh, if she had told him then, just told him then, maybe…

It made her cry to think about it. She hardly ever cried normally, but she had done more sniffling since coming back here than she had done in ten years. She jumped out of her car, heedless of the tears streaming down her cheeks, and walked toward him. He had turned and seen her drive in, but he observed her heated approach with apparent calm.

She advanced on him, feeling anything but calm herself.