He’d waited, watched all day yesterday for a chance to talk to Amy, his need consuming all else, but never fulfilled. Family, skiing, boats, meals and late-night Scrabble never allowed contact with her. She was a master at making sure someone was by her side all day. The need to talk to her had sat like an unwanted and wakeful companion through the night.

He stood on the back porch and leaned over the railing. There she was: alone. She stood behind the car, bent over, pushing a suitcase into the back. Her jeans hugged the parts of her he had once touched as easily as his own skin. Now he couldn’t even look directly at her; she was as untouchable as if a solid but transparent wall lay between them.

She stood, then turned to him, smiled. A wind visited from the back of the house and lifted her hair, raised it to the sky. A bird flew from the branch above her. Her white blouse billowed from her chest as she waved. “Are you gonna stand there and watch, or help me?”

He walked down the steps, sensing the wind and the way it must feel as it whispered through her blouse. “Need a big strong man to do your work?”

“Oh, forget it. I got it.”

He stood next to her, touched her arm and bent to look in the back of her SUV for a sign—anything to show him who she was now. Sunglasses lay lopsided on the dashboard, an Anita Shreve novel was open facedown on the console, a hair clip was attached, clawlike, to the visor. He made quick mental calculations: she was not a neat freak; she still loved reading; she still tried, in vain, to contain her hair.

He knew he must say what he had to say—fast.

“Will you please meet me, not anything really, just a cup of coffee, something? You can tell me about the island project. We can talk.”

She looked around. Up, down, to the left and right. He had forgotten to do that, to check that no one else could hear, as if the two of them still existed alone.

She spoke low; his skin remembered her other whispers.

“Well, um, I’d love to tell you about Oystertip and—”

“I want to talk . . . tell you . . . ask you what happened.”

“What good would that do?” She brushed a leaf off the bumper, looked away from him.

He lifted her chin so she would have to face him.

“Stop doing that. I can’t . . .” She backed away from him.

“Have you slept at all?”

“Stop. Please,” she said.

“I can’t sleep. I can’t breathe. Please say you’ll see me.”

“No.”

He pulled a scrap of paper from his back pocket. “This is my cell phone number. I’ll wait. Just to talk. Talk.”