So the loss you’ve suffered hasn’t purified you into some kind of cross-bearing martyr after all, I thought. You can be just as petty and jealous and vain as the rest of us.

And what I felt was relief, because since my Internet foray I’d had trouble seeing myself making any kind of real connection with Allen. I’d formed a picture of a man who had suffered on a level I couldn’t claim for myself in my most self-pitying moments. Yet he hadn’t seemed to let it embitter him. From what I knew he hadn’t turned to alcohol or drugs.

If anything, he’d appeared a candidate for sainthood. But now I saw he was still human. Human enough that I, made neither noble nor forgiving by my own past, could believe we might not be so unalike after all.

I saw Luke’s truck parked in front of Mama Tilson’s.

“Luke’s waiting,” I said. Allen flicked on the right blinker, turned into the motel parking lot, and eased close to his room door.

“I guess we’d better get on over there then,” Allen said.

“I think it’s best if you two had some one-on-one time,” I said. “Besides, I need to check in. I’ll be over a little later.”

“You’re not staying with your father?”

“No. One night is enough.”

Allen took the keys from the ignition.

“Can you leave those with me?” I asked. “My stuff is in the trunk.”

Allen handed me the keys but didn’t get out. He attempted a smile.

“Sorry to get huffy, but Miller hit a nerve.”

“You’re not the first. If pissing people off were an Olympic sport, Luke would be a Gold Medalist.”

“But what he said, especially since he’s been there—it’s not as easy to dismiss as I wish it were.” He put his hand on the car door but then paused. “I just don’t want to believe the world’s that bleak.”

I wanted as badly as I’d wanted anything in a long time to wrap my hand around Allen’s upper arm and lean my head against his shoulder. Maybe I would have if he’d stayed a few moments longer, but he opened the door.

“See you in a little while,” he said.

BEFORE I LEFT MY MOTEL ROOM I PUT ON BLUSH AND LIPSTICK, something I hadn’t done often in the last year. I sprayed some perfume on my wrists and rubbed it on my neck. I looked in the mirror a last time and walked on over to Mama Tilson’s.

Allen and Luke sat in the back booth. Mama Tilson had taken their plates away and refilled the tea glasses. The tape recorder lay on the table between them.

“Just in time for the supporting-materials portion of my presentation,” Luke said.