Nick circled the block again, then slowed in front of the house. His daughter and his wife were in the candlelit home. A woman in a silver dress came out the front door, hugged someone and began to light candles drowned by the wind. She stomped her feet on the porch floor: Amy. He recognized her temper, which came as a slow quiet boil, rising unnoticed, then spilling out in a quick spurt before disappearing.

He turned the corner. Had she seen his truck? It wasn’t until he had passed the quaint DARBY LIMITS sign on the two-lane road that he’d decided to come. He still wasn’t sure he would go into the party. There were better places to see her, easier places to show her, to tell her about the telegrams his wife had hidden.

His heart raced. He felt nauseous, not in control of his own emotions, unsure of his place in the world. Why couldn’t he run in and tell her he loved her, touch her face, carry her to the kitchen countertop and make love to her? Because of binding vows, propriety, rules and laws. What about desire and connection and destiny? What about those damn things?

Nick waged an internal war as he circled Amy’s block. So vows were made, families were formed. Could they be mistakes? Hell, they couldn’t be mistakes. Not if all of them were here, alive, breathing inside Amy’s home. Kids, lives—not mistakes. Did circumstances converge only to show him what he was missing, to make him laugh at his mistakes, then tell him to walk away—once again reminded of all he ever wanted?

He fingered the telegrams. Damn, damn, damn to hell all those other vows and promises offered under false pretenses, based on wrong assumptions. What was it his father used to say, through slurred words? Don’t assume: it makes an ass of you and me. That’s exactly what he was: an ass.

Once again, he played the “if only” game with himself. If only he had insisted on talking with Amy when her mother said she was out with her fiancé. If only he had come home before her wedding, instead of moving to Maine. But he’d drowned these instincts in his rage at Amy’s betrayal, and in Eliza’s soothing clucks of comfort and ease.

Now he was in another nightmare in which he saw Amy but she didn’t see or acknowledge him.

He parked the car on a side street, around the corner from the quaint house with the flickering lights, the coat-draped guests, the glassed-in sunroom and his wife’s car parked out front—the car her mother bought her, because the Volvo he gave her wasn’t good enough. Only a Mercedes would do for a daughter of the Sullivans, thank you very much.