He touched her face and wiped a tear from her chin. “I’m not going because I don’t care, and I don’t want to spend the weekend with them.”

What he spoke wasn’t the complete truth, but there was no reason to hurt Eliza with an explanation of the hunger pangs just beginning inside him that he hadn’t felt in years—the need for something beyond what he had now. He couldn’t name it anyway—this want, this desire for who he used to be, for what he’d dreamed, for what he’d meant to do, and of course, for who he was supposed to be with. All that was stolen in Costa Rica, and looking at the past—and feeling the emotions of that loss—had little use in his present life.

“Then go for me, Nick. If you don’t care about them, at least go for me. I can’t take back the invitation,” Eliza pleaded.

Nick grasped her hand. “I don’t know. I really am buried with work and—”

She turned her back on him, mumbled to herself as she walked into the bathroom. He couldn’t understand what she said—something about paying. But he didn’t know who was paying—him, Eliza, or Amy—or what they were paying for. And he definitely didn’t want to ask.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Trees flew past the car window like toothpick replicas of pines in one of Amy’s kids’ school projects. The sky was so blue, an aqua more appropriate to summer than to late fall. The drive to the Lowry lake house passed in silence—not a normal state for the family that thrived on chatter, interruption and debate. Nothing this week had seemed normal, and Amy longed for just one moment of feeling like she had the morning she’d packed the SUV for the football game, the morning before Nick reappeared.

Molly pouted because this lake trip was causing her to miss a huge “seniors only” party that she’d been invited to. Amy had been tempted to let Molly stay home until she remembered the position she’d assumed with Eliza on the benefits of family togetherness. Phil drove the SUV immersed in his own thoughts of “something at work.” He was so preoccupied with it these days, on the cusp of earning the promotion he’d been striving toward for years, and Amy didn’t want to interrupt him. For once his distraction meant more than being ignored; it allowed her to wallow in her own thoughts without interference.

Phil turned the SUV down a long dirt road, with too-cute signs pointing the way to “Lowry Lake House.” Each sign had a fish, a hook, a fishing pole or some other lake accent etched in pine—no need for the printed directions lying on the console.

“What adorable signs,” Amy said, breaking the silence with the acidic tone of sarcasm.