She was desperate to have him understand what even she did not. “I never told you about Nick.”

“Why not?” He kicked the base of the stairs.

“It was a terrible memory . . .”

“I would’ve listened.”

“I was . . . scared to tell you. Too much time had passed and it didn’t seem important to . . . us.” She looked away as she began to speak of Nick to her husband for the first time. “I dated him in college—for years. Then he went on a preservation trip.”

“To Costa Rica.”

“Yes. And he never came back and I never knew why. That was twenty-five years ago—and it was awful. I dropped out of school that semester.”

“When we started dating.”

“Yes.”

“Where was he?”

Amy told her husband the story—Eliza’s version, and how Eliza saved but also deceived Nick.

Phil leaned against the hall table as if the story had drained him of his remaining anger. “When did you find out about all this?”

“When I saw him . . . at the lake, he asked why I never came when he was in jail. Then I slowly learned the story and it all came rushing back at me. All the things I’d thought I’d forgotten or stored away came back.”

“You love him.”

“I did.” She’d already lost everything and now only truth remained. “But I love you. I do. I got caught in some whirl-wind, something . . . lost from the past. I’m more than sorry, but I can’t find another word. I don’t know how many times I can say it, but however many times there are, I will. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to . . . I promise. I was feeling so ignored and . . . extraneous and there he was—there was everything I’d thought I lost a long, long time ago.”

“Ignored? You felt ignored? Give me a break. Don’t I take care of everything? Everything?”

“Listen to me. This is not about you taking care of everything. This is not about your valor and your responsibility to the family. This is about the horrible part of me that said my behavior was justified because you didn’t care about what I care about—that I felt you never listened to me or took more than the three minutes required for me to tell you the facts and schedule of the day.”

He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear the details, the excuse of how you didn’t plan this . . . how it just happened. It’s vulgar.”

“Please. Please listen.” God, how many times had she asked him to listen? It was sounding pitiful to her own ears.

“Stop.” He turned and kicked at another pile of clothing.