Still with the pen clasped between her fingers, Lisa reached across and stroked the back of his hand with her pinkie.

“You don’t have to keep coming here,” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “But there’s a part of me that’s still looking for you, and every time I walk into this room and see you, it’s like finding you all over again.”

The furrow on her brow disappeared and she turned back to the window. In profile, she looked like the Lisa of yesteryear. She had put on weight. Her skin shone and her hair fell to her shoulders in full, dark waves. It was only when looking into her eyes that Luke saw the conflict and pain that she was dealing with.

“I still need to find myself,” she said.

He wanted to say that they had time, and that he would be there for her, but that wasn’t what Lisa wanted. She had grasped the beginnings of a new life, and had no space for fragile or fractured pieces. Their marriage had been many things, but strong wasn’t one of them.

“What are you writing?” he asked stiffly, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.

Lisa looked down at the notepad. A hopeful expression flashed across her face.

“Maybe a song.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just a few lines, but it feels like something.”

“Sing it for me.”

Lisa tilted her head, as if considering, but she never had, and never would, need encouragement to sing. It was her soul’s calling, as natural to her as to a bird.

“I see the road ahead of me, and every mile is mine.” Her voice wavered and cracked, partly through trying to nail the melody, mainly because of the passion inside the words. “But there’s a light in my rearview mirror I know will always shine.”

In the fragrant deep of the Cascades, beneath seven billion stars, Lisa had sung “The Cradle” to him, and maybe it was the moment, but Luke hadn’t grasped that she was singing about him.

This time, he was more perceptive.

Luke had dreamt so often of exoneration, but was too preoccupied to notice when it actually came. His healing—Lisa’s and Kitty’s, too—consumed all of his focus, to the extent that the outside world faded to a vaguely annoying smudge.

The story had made headlines, of course, but Luke shared nothing with the press. Not to begin with, at least. He’d spoken only to the police while in the hospital, and had checked into a hotel after being discharged, where he kept the do not disturb sign on his door for the duration of his stay. It was only after Lisa had been admitted to Yolanda Grove that Luke realized that the attention directed at him was largely positive.