“Right, so, in short, yes,” she said. “I know I’ve said it a hundred times, but you can’t be mad at me forever. That’s not going to work.”

I sat down next to her on the bed.

“‘Indefinitely’ isn’t a great time frame, either,” she said. “Hey. Look at me.”

I did. Her head was cocked and I knew she was on the verge of breaking out a sympathetic smile.

“It’s just me,” she said.

“How do you think you’ve changed since we got back together?” I said.

She canceled the smile and sat up straight.

“You know how much more I appreciate what we have now. And that I know now what I don’t want, and how important that’s been for me.” It was a speech she’d given before.

“Right, but how are you different? You see things differently, I get that, but what about you? You you.”

“What do you want?” she said. “‘I’ve gained ten pounds’? I wasn’t perfect before but I don’t think I’m worse now.”

“So you’re saying it’s me,” I said.

“I don’t know what the ‘it’ in that sentence refers to.”

She’d been deposed many times, most recently in a dispute between her group and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection over acceptable level of bacterial pathogens in groundwater systems. I had a dismal record in our arguments.

“The changed party,” I said. “That’s the ‘it.’ Maybe I’ve changed.”

“You seem the same to me,” she said.

I stood up and let my thoughts settle.

“I’m not being very articulate,” I said. “I’m fine, I guess. Fine enough.”

“Are you?” Lisa said. I could tell she actually cared, and I wanted to know the answer, too.

“I’m going to check on Amanda and see what Victoria’s story is,” I said. I closed the door behind me before she could respond.

When I cracked open the door to the kids’ room, two sets of eyes stared back at me from the bottom bunk. Night creatures.

“We can’t sleep,” Patrick said.

“Where’s Uncle Mike?” said Amanda.

“He’s taking a walk,” I said. “Honey, get in your own bed.”

She clambered up to the top bunk and I tucked her in.

“Patrick and I were trying to figure out what I threw away,” Amanda said.

“You need to stop with this,” I said.

“I need to look in that barrel at the arcade,” she said. “I know that’s where it is.”

“Where what is?”

“Something important,” she said.

I remembered that we weren’t allowed back in that arcade. It was a small mercy. “Go to sleep. Maybe Mom can take you to check in the morning.”

Patrick whimpered in the bottom bunk. I put his blanket over him and he quieted down. In the living room, Victoria was in the armchair, texting ferociously.