Her fingers trembled, rested in his hair. He reached his left hand up to her face, ran his finger across her lips.

Metal slammed against wood as the side door opened and closed, sending a shock of awareness to their dark hiding place. She gasped, pulled away from him. He tried to pull her back; she slipped around the corner, shoved open the door, escaped inside. She closed the door and leaned up against it, took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“You okay?” the redheaded desk attendant asked.

“Fine. I’m fine.” Amy smiled and waved at her, then walked up the back stairs to her room, where she would call her family and say good night.

“I’m just fine,” she told the gray concrete walls, herself and all the ghosts residing in Porter Hall.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

The weeks following Amy’s visit to the island with Nick were like an extended moment before fully waking, a brief, immeasurable instant when time and location were meaningless, where possibility was endless, where kairos—a mystical timeless interval—seemed accessible. All was well, and although morning and wakefulness were approaching, her heart knew what was right and true and remained languid in its half-slumber.

During the day, Amy felt unable to shake this lethargic, off-kilter feeling of functioning in a half-sleep. Her limbs moved slowly; her thoughts remained hazy.

It was now the week before Thanksgiving, and she pulled the Christmas boxes out early. She didn’t want to wait for Phil to return from his business trip in Dallas; she carried the boxes up from the basement one by one, as Christmas music blared from the stereo. Her soul slipped back and forth, back and forth between the present and the past, between the needed and the wanted.

She sat cross-legged on the oyster Berber carpet on the living room floor, lifting ornaments, then placing them back in the box. The tree was not up yet; she was killing time as she stared at the ornaments and thought about what they represented about each family member. She set the ornaments aside and opened a second bin labeled “handmade gifts.” This box was crammed full of the gifts the children had made in school through the years: the pinecone Christmas tree, the juice-can pencil holder, the gold-painted walnut candlestick. She lifted them out, set them on the antique-trunk coffee table. Family tradition dictated where she would place each treasure: on the side table, on the kitchen counter, on the coffee table.

With each memento she pulled from the box, with each memory she unearthed, she became more certain that Nick’s claim of their unbroken vows was bullshit. Through the years she and Phil had built an incredible life together—it was not to be discarded for some college memories.