“I would, but I don’t know how. Too many years of having everybody kiss my ass.”

“Try.”

“How about I begin by admitting you were right,” he said. “I have no idea what I’m doing with her. That makes me feel stupid and guilty, and since I don’t know how to deal with either one, I took it out on you.”

“Promising. Now say the rest.”

“Give me a hint.”

“You’re scared out of your mind, and you need my help this week.”

“Yeah, that, too.” Despite her pugnacity, he knew he’d hurt her. Lately he seemed to be hurting a lot of people. He gazed out toward the woods where the fireflies were beginning to show off. Peeling paint scraped his elbow as he leaned against one of the porch’s candlestick posts. “I’d give anything for a cigarette right now.”

She dropped one foot and pulled the other up. “I don’t miss cigarettes so much. Or drugs, for that matter. For me, it’s alcohol. Scary to think about living the rest of your life without a glass of wine or a margarita.”

“Maybe you could handle it now.”

“I’m an addict,” she said with an honesty that unsettled him. “I can’t ever drink again.”

From inside the cottage, her cell rang. Quickly capping the bottle, she jumped up to answer it. As the screen door banged behind her, he shoved his hands in his pockets. Today he’d found a set of blueprints, for the screen porch. His dad had been a carpenter, and Jack had grown up with blueprints and tools lying around, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a hammer in his hands.

He gazed through the screen into the empty living room and heard the muted sound of April’s voice. The hell with it. He went inside. She stood with her back to him and her forehead resting on the arm she’d propped against one of the kitchen cabinets. “You know how much I care,” she said so softly that he could barely make out the words. “Call me in the morning, all right?”

Too many decades had passed for him to feel these old stabs of jealousy, so he focused on the brochure lying on the counter. As he picked it up, she closed her phone and gestured with it toward the brochure. “That’s a group I volunteer with.”

“Heart Gallery? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s made up of professional photographers who volunteer their time to take these amazing portraits of adoptable kids in the foster care system. We display them in local galleries. They’re more personal than the mug shots social services takes, and a lot of kids have found families through the exhibits.”

“How long have you been doing this?”