As I finished my glass of water, I tried to remind myself again of the joy I had felt earlier in the morning, but I found it seeping from me. I found myself missing Ashley’s mordant laugh. The sound of her moving about in her room upstairs. Her books left tented on tables around the house. I found myself missing the timbre of Paul’s voice. His smell in the sheets. His little touches, on my shoulder, on my back, to let me know he was there behind me, as I was cooking, or brushing my teeth. I took out my phone and hovered my thumb over Ashley’s number. I imagined her scrolling through her phone, as Paul put a frozen pizza into the microwave oven for them. Surely she couldn’t bear to live with him in that studio apartment on a pull-out couch for the entire summer. Maybe she had already begun crashing with friends. Focus. I was having what Jo called ‘a wobble.’ A moment of despair, of doubt, of missing my old life, but I couldn’t go back. I needed to push forward. I needed to focus on the unfolding miracle of now.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket just as the doorbell rang. I glanced out the living room window and, to my shock, saw Cass’s red Toyota Prius parked in the driveway. I was stunned for a moment. I couldn’t possibly imagine what she was doing there, and why on earth she would show up like that unannounced. I rushed to the door, hesitated, and opened it. Cass was standing there wearing a characteristically bright and billowy yellow blouse with one of her signature chunky statement necklaces. She broke into a big, easy smile. I smiled back, out of reflex. It was dizzying to consider how much my life had changed since I had last seen her, backing out of my classroom with that strange look on her face. How much I had lost. How much I had gained.

Cass.