The first time, she’d stayed away for a long time and eventually I’d found another woman. Then that had ended well before Robin returned.

When we reunited, Robin had seemed a bit more fragile, but otherwise everything seemed to be fine. Then one day, she broke down and confessed. She’d found someone, too. A guy, just a guy, a stupid guy, she’d been stupid.

Really stupid, Alex.

I’d held her, comforted her. Then she told me. Pregnancy, abortion. She’d never told the guy—Dennis, I’d blocked out his name, goddamn Dennis had gotten her pregnant, and she’d left him, gone through the ordeal alone.

I kept holding her, said the right things, what a sensitive guy, the essence of understanding. But a nagging little voice in my head refused to let go of the obvious:

All those years together, she and I had waltzed around the topic of marriage and kids. Had been careful.

A few months away from me, and another man’s seed had found its way—

Had I ever really forgiven her?

Did she wonder about that, too? What was she thinking about, right now?

Where the hell was she?

I picked up the phone, wondered who to call, swept the damn thing off the desk and onto the floor—screw you, Mr. Bell.

My face was hot and my bones twitched and I began pacing, the way Milo does. Not limiting myself to one room, racing around the entire house, unable to burn off the pain.

Home smothering home.

I headed for the front door, threw it open, threw myself into the night.

I walked the glen, north, up into the hills. Did it the stupid way—with the traffic to my back, undeterred by the rush of approaching engines, the flash-freeze of headlights.

Drivers sped by honking. Someone yelled, “Idiot!”

That felt right.

It took miles before I was able to conjure up Janie Ingalls’s corpse and relax.

When I got back to the house, the front door was ajar—I’d neglected to shut it—and leaves had blown into the entry. I got down on my knees, picked up every speck, returned to my office. The phone remained on the floor. The answering machine had tumbled, too, and lay there, unplugged.

But the machine in the bedroom was blinking.

One message.

I ignored it, went to the kitchen, got the vodka out of the freezer. Used the bottle to cool my hands and my face. Put it back.

I watched TV for hours, ingested hollow laughter, tortured dialogue, commercials for herbal sexual potency remedies and miracle chemicals that attacked the most hideous of stains.

Shortly after midnight, I punched the bedroom machine’s PLAY button.