The silence is only momentary, but it’s soaked through with pity. I don’t have to remember to know that people feel sorry for me. And the idea that Tate pities me curls my toes from a rush of embarrassed anger.

“I’m here t . . . t . . .” He pauses and I wait. “Stay.”

A buzz from my phone vibrates my pocket, and my shoulders slump with relief at an excuse to end this conversation where the brain-damaged me is on full display to the one guy in the world I most want to see me as normal. I wag the phone in the air and make my way toward my apartment door. “I’d better go now.”

“Wait, Claire—here.” Tate hands me a business card with his name on it. “I’m the harbormaster. We can t . . . t-alk more about it another . . . time, okay?”

I back into the hallway, nodding and writing it down as fast as I can, trying to keep a smile pasted on my face despite a despondent heaviness in my heart. “I’m glad you’re back, Tate. I’ve missed you.” My keys shake when I put them in my door, but I get it open and am inside in seconds, breathing hard against thoughts that run laps in my head and on the page. I have no right to this man. No right to these feelings. Not anymore. Not like this.

I look out the peephole. The hallway is empty. I’m not sure how much time has passed or how long I’ve been sitting on the floor with my back pressed against the front door, but my eyes are dry. My body feels sluggish, the room cold and bleak, and without thinking I rise to my feet and hurry to Ruth’s door.

She answers almost immediately, like she’s been standing at the door waiting for me.

“Can I come in?”

Her eyes soften, and when she nods her hair doesn’t move, the iron-gray waves extra stiff today. Ruth’s hair hasn’t changed for as long as I’ve known her. Not the color, not the cut, and not the style. Today it makes me think that she is upset from the way it clings to the sides of her head—unmoving, stubborn. She opens the door all the way. “Of course.” I follow her inside, comforted by the blend of grays and browns in her apartment cut through with dark orange or avocado green. Like the seventies never left. But her unchanging decor soothes me with its familiar warmth and dependability.

Ruth hands me a mug of warm water she heats in the microwave and opens up a small tin of tea. I choose a lemon and ginger one and dip the bag in and out of the water while I read through my notes.