Then there were the people who thought that Todd had just bailed on her. In some ways, they were the worst. Wild stories of him being seen at Dulles Airport the day of the wedding abounded, indicating that Todd might have sought a new life elsewhere on a 747. If this group saw her buying mac and cheese in a box at the supermarket, they turned their carts mid-aisle to avoid talking to her as though her misfortune were contagious. To avoid the look of pity, she started shopping at the all-night supermarket on the highway twelve miles away, peacefully steering her cart at three in the morning with the drunks and stoned college kids, bags of potato chips tucked under their arms. Then the daily copy of the Kerrigan Falls Express newspaper started going missing from the mailbox. Furious, Lara called the customer service line, only to learn that Caren, at Audrey’s request, had driven by each morning, snatching up the morning edition so Lara wouldn’t have to see that reporter Kim Landau had written yet another article on Todd’s disappearance. MISSING posters from well-meaning people went up around Kerrigan Falls like Todd was some cat who’d been let out in the night and never returned. A fundraiser was held. What the funds were for, Lara was never quite sure.

And what did she think? No one ever had the courage to ask her.

If they had, depending on the day or even the hour, Lara switched camps between the two prevailing theories, causing her to exist in a kind of limbo. Certainly the idea that Todd might be dead was a real possibility, yet a part of her couldn’t be sure. To give up on him felt like a betrayal. It was so tempting to get caught in the Todd Sutton and Peter Beaumont mystery, with its elaborate magical plot involving Wickelow Bend. In that theory, Todd was a victim, not a cad who’d abandoned her. She’d seen stories where loved ones left behind spearheaded these fantastical ideas only to look desperate and foolish when they were proven to be untrue. She couldn’t bear to let herself be embarrassed again. The wedding had been enough.

Lara was more of a believer in Occam’s razor. Publicly, this was the stance she’d taken, and it put her at odds with Todd’s family, who still held vigils at Wickelow Bend. He’d left her. Pure and simple. But even then, the question became: Where was he? His empty car being found the following morning threw a monkey wrench in this theory. Todd might have left her, but everyone who knew him agreed, he never would have abandoned his car.