“He said he wanted to track down the lawyer, find out if and how he ever sent the telegrams. He wanted to know what happened to them. I told him it didn’t matter. That they weren’t sent, or if they were, they weren’t received—end of story.”

“Do you think he didn’t believe that you didn’t get them?”

“No, I don’t think that was it at all. I think he just had to know what happened to them.”

“Well, he found out, obviously. But why would a lawyer keep these notes for so long?”

“Maybe they were in his file. You know, the law file.” Rational thought began to infuse her and she sensed the iced air. “I’m freezing.”

Carol Anne looked up at the sky, as if the constellations could answer her question.

“He had them. Nick had them. A lawyer would not still have these,” Carol Anne said.

“No . . . that makes no sense.”

“Nothing about Nick Lowry makes sense.”

“He didn’t have them. It drove him crazy that he didn’t know what happened to them. He didn’t have them.”

“Well, where—”

And simultaneously the conclusion dawned on them.

“Eliza.”

“His wife.”

Amy reached for the notes. “She hid them. Eliza had them. Hell, kept them.”

“That’s a little weird,” Carol Anne said.

“She’s a little weird.”

“He came here to show you these and prove to you—”

“That he wrote them.”

“That you should still be together.” Carol Anne wrapped her arm around Amy’s shoulders.

“Oh, God.”

“Amy, you have got to stay away from him. He’s dangerous. He believes that you’re still his . . . that he’s been cheated out of you.”

“He was.”

“Wake up, Amy. This is your life. You weren’t cheated out of anything. So you had a few bad months or a bad year wondering what happened to him. Now you know. Put it to bed.” Carol Anne laughed. “Bad choice of words.”

Amy didn’t laugh. Panic began its ascent from a quiver in her lower limbs to the bottom of her throat. She reached her hand to the space on her neck that Nick said he longed to touch, and emptied onto the grass all of the appetizers, champagne and white wine that she had somehow managed to shove in her mouth during the chaos of the party. The inevitability of Nick, of their bond, rose within her and overwhelmed her. Wracking heaves came again and again, until there was nothing left inside her but a desperate need to be warm and to sleep.

Carol Anne held Amy’s hair behind her head, clucking, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” She used the same words and tone of voice Amy utilized when her own children were sick.

“No, it’s not. I need those people out of my house. I need to go to bed.” Amy leaned on Carol Anne, sobbed.