The room seemed big. Kate had decluttered every corner, leaving it spick-and-span, but now it felt bare. The treadmill was the only token of her existence, and it stood in the corner like a memorial.

He walked to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The spaces where her alarm clock and jewelry box had been were empty. He saw something on her nightstand and went closer. A small blue-velvet box. He opened it and looked at the necklace he’d given her for their first-month anniversary. It was as if she’d wanted to leave everything behind, to have no reminder of her time with him.

A scrap of paper on the clean hardwood floor caught his eye, and he retrieved it. A list of things she’d done in her preparation to leave. A laugh caught in his throat. Kate and her lists. Someday she would learn that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.

He threw the paper in the wastebasket and left the room. It felt as if the walls of the house were closing in on him. He realized for the first time that the house smelled like Kate. He wanted to get away from this place, occupy his mind with something else. If it weren’t so late, he’d go sailing.

Bo barked from the back of the house. Lucas followed the sound to where the dog sat by the back door. Bo craned his massive head around, looking at him with inquisitive brown eyes.

“Wanna go for a walk, boy?”

Bo wagged his tail.

At least it would get Lucas out of the house.

They walked westward down the beach, Lucas occasionally tossing a piece of driftwood for Bo to fetch. The sun lowered in the sky, casting a pinkish hue over the beach. Bo trotted beside him, sometimes wading into the incoming surf or chasing a seagull that landed nearby. The dog had just returned from such a chase when Lucas heard it: the haunting sound of the ferry’s horn in the distance.

He stopped, a catch in his breath, a stutter in his heart. The sound was the period at the end of a sentence, the whisper of good-bye from a lover, the clock striking midnight for Cinderella.

Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

When your heart is broken and you’re ready to settle for anything in jeans, repeat these words to yourself: “I do not need a man to be happy.”

—Excerpt from Finding Mr. Right-for-You by Dr. Kate

Kate opened the Columbia Flier on the picnic table and perused the apartment rentals section. The savory smell of grilled sirloin wafted by on the breeze. Her dad, draped in a red canvas apron, checked the meat, then closed the grill lid.

Kate noticed a new apartment listing and marked the ad with a yellow highlighter.