When Anthony spoke again his voice was gentler, conciliatory. The desperation was gone, and he was speaking tenderly. “I know I can’t,” he said. “I mean, I know I did, but I shouldn’t have. I know it’s bullshit. If I could just make you see, Joy, how broken I was at the time. How heartbroken.”

“Well, bully for you. Everybody is heartbroken.” She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. She turned her face away and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Anthony stepped closer to her. “Not you, Joy. You’re not heartbroken.”

“Says who?”

“You’re the strongest person I know. That day my car broke down and you drove up and you were this beautiful vibrant person, so alive and strong, zooming around in your Jeep, with your delicious little whoopie pies . . .”

No. She wasn’t going to let him bring the pies into this. That made it all seem too easy. There were still moments that Joy’s heart felt like an open, weeping wound. Dustin had found another wife, had produced another child, and in those momentous gestures plus plenty of smaller ones that came before and after, he was saying, I tried you, Joy, and you weren’t good enough. She knew heartbreak as well as anyone. She said, “You don’t own heartbreak, you know.”

“I never said I did!”

“You’re acting like you do.”

He bristled at that. The tenderness was dissolving. Good. Let it. Joy wanted Anthony to feel bad, just as she felt bad. “I am not,” he said.

“You are too, Anthony not-Jones. You walk around here with your head low, like the world has dealt you a bad hand, all hangdog, like we’re all supposed to feel sorry for you.”

Something in his face changed, got harder. “I’m not acting like anything. Maybe I actually am sad. Maybe I’ve had a pretty shitty year and when I got here the only person who wanted to talk to me from my old life was Shelly Salazar, of all people . . .”

Joy snorted.

“And I’ve destroyed my relationship with my father, my wife, and my son, and probably also my mother, who called me every day until she gave up on me too . . . All I did was make one stupid mistake. I have to lose everything over it? Everything?”

“I’m sorry,” Joy said, “if I didn’t RSVP to your pity party, but I’m having a very, very hard time with all of this.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a great line,” he said. Then, more softly, like he was whispering a secret, he repeated, “I’m sorry if I didn’t RSVP to your pity party.” He patted his pockets—was he searching for a notebook?

“Don’t,” she said. “You can’t use it, you don’t have permission. That’s my line.” Joy inhaled deeply. It was a lot to take in, all at once. “Let me see if I have this straight,” she said. “Your wife left you when you got caught for plagiarism?”