Phil looked straight at her; she felt his eyes on her and turned to him. She had his full attention, so she tried to string together an explanation—words that would only have made sense if one had been there for the original discussion. She wanted, desperately wanted, him to remember. It had been an amazing day. She felt it without seeing it. Cool autumn air, a tent, dew in her hair, cold noses, sleeping bags. No . . . it was one sleeping bag.

Nick. Shit, shit. It was Nick.

“What’re you talking about?” Phil turned back to the windshield.

“Nothing . . . nothing. It’s colder up here, isn’t it? I hope I brought enough sweaters, sweatshirts. I packed for the weather at home . . . not here.” She was talking too fast.

“Ame, are you okay?”

She grasped the directions from the console and used them as an anchor to the present, yanking herself away from the memory. “Phil, whoa, stop. There it is. The house on the left.” She held up the detailed directions, the paper the most important thing now. “Turn there. It’s that house, there on the left.”

Phil stopped the car, stared at her.

“We don’t have to go, Ame. We can call and tell them Molly’s sick. Anything. We don’t have to go.”

“We don’t?” She laughed, pointed to Eliza in her jeans and white cotton blouse waving them down. “She’s making sure we’re punctual.”

Eliza looked light enough to be blown off the porch by the slight wind shivering the trees, sending the last of the reddened leaves to the ground.

Molly awoke in the backseat. “Mom, Dad . . . hello. That lady is waving at you.”

“We know, baby. Back up, Phil.”

Nick appeared on the porch in a pair of jeans standing with his legs spread wide as if he were straddling something. A beer bottle dangled from his left hand as he attempted to button a flannel shirt and hold the beer at the same time. He looked like a frat boy at a party after the alumnae had left. He closed the last button of his shirt and waved, but not before Amy noticed the cleft of his chest that had once been her pillow.

Phil backed up, then pulled into the driveway. Three cars stood parked in the pine straw: a Dodge pickup splattered in mud and leaves, a white Mercedes without even a pinecone to mar its surface, and Jack’s red Jeep off to the side under a shedding oak. Amy had no problem guessing which car was Nick’s and which was Eliza’s.