Nothing much was going on, and that was the point. Nothing to grapple with, agonize over, decide about. A break from drama . . . and it was surprisingly stressful.

Peace and quiet had a funny way of putting me on edge, waiting for an explosion to shatter it.

For now, Gramps’s classic country station played faintly from the porch as I watched the tidal river flow past the edge of the long dock. As Dad had suggested, I was out here dangling my feet. I was also checking my phone every twenty-five seconds to see whether any new texts had come in.

One bar turned to no service. Again.

I shoved my phone behind me, replacing it with Something Sweet, the latest in the pile of paperbacks I’d foraged from Grandma Jean’s shelves. After a few days of reading, I’d found myself confusing my actual setting with the fictional ones I was immersed in, wondering whether I was Ruby Chertok or this mom in her mid-thirties reeling from a divorce while trying to get her bakery off the ground.

Was this how real people lived? In small towns and beachfront villages, cities in decline, sprawling suburbs, in jobs that you never thought about until that job was yours. I’d patronized L’Orangerie nearly every week for the past five years, and never had it occurred to me in any active way that “baker” was a job that I could train for and get. There were thousands of things I could do—and it wouldn’t even need to define me. I could show up, get paid, fall in love, have a family . . .

My heart started thudding in answer to that thought, then aching, then bursting apart, dawn-of-the-universe hot. I let the book fall shut in my lap.

Oscar had seen me to the security cut-off.

“Keep your phone on you,” he’d said. “I’m going to be stream-of-consciousness texting.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll be here the day you get back.”

I showed the TSA agent my ticket and she waved me into the line.

“With balloons!” Oscar shouted, side-skipping to follow me down the line. “And a marching band!”

My grin had gone manic with the realization that he might actually do this. Then I saw his face through the moving passengers. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Ruby,” he called out.

I paused, waiting. The businessman behind me looked annoyed, but I didn’t care. My eyes locked on Oscar’s.

Oscar opened his mouth, closed it, blurted, “I’ll see you soon,” then walked away slumping, shaking his head like he was furious with himself.

“I’ll see you soon too.”

I hadn’t realized even then how endlessly distant that soon would feel. How raw and starving my body would feel this far away from him. How horrible the phone reception would be just fifteen miles outside Charleston.

And despite all that, how good it would feel to be out of the snow globe.