She waved to Nick and Eliza on the porch through the protection of her car window. Eliza pushed Nick’s beer down and gestured for Amy and Phil to come up to the porch. Nick wouldn’t tolerate Eliza pushing down his beer, would he? Amy waited for him to dump the beer on Eliza, to entangle the barley and hops in her pencil-sketched ponytail; but of course he didn’t.

Phil turned and smiled at her. “And the weekend begins.”

She grabbed Phil’s hand. “It’s only two days. Come on. At least we can spend the weekend with Jack. Let’s have fun.”

Phil leaned across the console and kissed her—a totem, she hoped, against evil.

Molly opened the car door. “Gross . . . Dad. Let’s go.”

Amy turned and smiled at Molly. Parental affection was high on the disgusting factor for her, but Amy knew it made Molly feel protected and part of a family.

The Lowry house curled to the left and right in cedar-shake nooks and dormers on a lot nestled at the end of a cove, a coveted spot on the lake. The porch wrapped around the house from front to back, the sides screened in for the mosquito-laden summer afternoons. Phil, Amy and Molly climbed the steps to the front porch, then appropriately greeted and hugged everybody, curt embraces of uncomfortable unfamiliarity. Amy did not look directly at Nick—at all.

The men descended the steps to retrieve the bags and Eliza walked Amy through the house, giving her a tour.

Amy stopped in the living room with the hand-hewn beams running across the vaulted ceiling. “Eliza, this house is just gorgeous, but I’ve got to get some fresh air—those winding roads kill me. I get so carsick.”

Eliza held her hand over her stomach. “Oh, I’m so sorry—I don’t get motion sickness, but I hear it’s a lot like morning sickness, which I had with all three of Nick’s and my children.”

“Oh.” Amy’s nausea increased.

Eliza pointed to the French doors that ran along the back of the living room. “You can go out to the deck—walk down to the lake if you want. I’ll show you the rest of the house later.”

“Thanks, Eliza. I’ll be right back.” She walked past Eliza and out to the back deck, down the stairs to stand on an elaborate dock system that stretched across the water—a sprawling monstrosity that loomed over the cove with a slide, a diving board, Jet Ski and boat notches.

She lifted her face to the sun, let its warmth ease her receding headache. Nick appeared on the upper deck of the back porch; he stared down at her, his beer poised on the edge of the cut-log railing, his smile aimed at her.

“What?” she said, suddenly self-conscious, girlish. She almost giggled, wondering where all the anger she once felt toward him had gone.