BooksBarbecue
Back Don't Look for Me
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-one
  25. Chapter Twenty-two
  26. Chapter Twenty-three
  27. Chapter Twenty-four
  28. Chapter Twenty-five
  29. Chapter Twenty-six
  30. Chapter Twenty-seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-one
  35. Chapter Thirty-two
  36. Chapter Thirty-three
  37. Chapter Thirty-four
  38. Chapter Thirty-five
  39. Chapter Thirty-six
  40. Chapter Thirty-seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-one
  45. Chapter Forty-two
  46. Chapter Forty-three
  47. Chapter Forty-four
  48. Chapter Forty-five
  49. Chapter Forty-six
  50. Chapter Forty-seven
  51. Chapter Forty-eight
  52. Chapter Forty-nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-one
  55. Chapter Fifty-two
  56. Chapter Fifty-three
  57. Chapter Fifty-four
  58. Chapter Fifty-five
  59. Chapter Fifty-six
  60. Chapter Fifty-seven
  61. Acknowledgments [TK]
  62. Also by Wendy Walker

We met at a deli on the campus where we both went to graduate school. He was studying business. I was getting my master’s degree. He was a customer. I worked behind the counter. I wore a bright blue apron and he told me it was the color of my eyes, which made me blush. He had ordered chicken salad, but I was so flustered by him, his charm and good looks and the way he’d noticed my eyes, that I gave him tuna. He came back later that day to tell me. But he didn’t want a new sandwich. He wanted to take me hiking.

We liked to walk in the woods, just like this. We would hike from March until November, cold, hot—it didn’t matter. We would drive up to the mountains. And we would hike until we felt our legs ache and our heads grow dizzy with endorphins. And then we would return to our little room at the bed and breakfast and make love, furiously. Passionately.

I loved him. But that was before.

Now there’s a line that divides the before from the after. Before our child died. After our child died. The love doesn’t dare try to cross, to try to navigate the new people we have become. Not much of me is left. I wonder how much of John is still there. The earnestness I always adored, the man who always wanted to do good and be good, now feels rigid. A man who must live by the strictest rules of behavior. Maybe it keeps him from having to think or feel. He still says I love you but that’s a lie. Lying is against the rules, isn’t it? And what about the other woman he now loves?

Maybe I don’t know the new rules. Maybe I don’t know John anymore.

The love won’t cross the line to find out.

I think about the man in this house with his dead wife and his child. I think about the odd rules they keep. The secrets.

The wondering returns as I walk.

How do they know about me? About my family? That I would be driving on Route 7 last night, in the storm? Or did they? Alice never leaves the house. She plays out her fantasies with her dolls. Maybe that’s all this is. A fantasy.

I told her about my family before she said she knew. Maybe she was lying.

She said she was nine. Did I tell her how old Annie was? God, I can’t remember!