He was still wearing the outfit he’d worn during Liz’s burial—his favorite jeans and gray University of Texas T-shirt. He could have changed into fresh clothes but he opted not to. He wanted his entrance into Hannah’s hotel room to be dramatic. And his wardrobe matched his mood; he felt as if he’d survived a great battle.

Rob grabbed a small duffel bag and a backpack for the trip. In them, he packed a week’s worth of outfits and a paperback book that had been sitting untouched on his coffee table. It was a novel told from the perspective of a child with autism. His coworkers at the library had raved about it, and it was next on his list. He decided to bring it, despite his misgivings about the dog on its cover.

The flight cost about six hundred dollars, which Rob had put on his one credit card. It would have been more affordable to buy a round-trip, but he wasn’t sure when he wanted to return so he’d left it open-ended. He planned to call his boss at the library and explain that there had been a death in the family. The women at work knew Liz and would allow him to take bereavement leave. And he wouldn’t be missing much at the library. Late September was slow in acquisitions. The students had bought their textbooks for class and were not yet interested in pleasure reading.

Rob arrived at the airport just in time, making a flat-out run to the gate just seconds before it closed.

He was able to get a good three hours’ sleep on the plane and even read a quarter of the autism book. By the time his plane landed at BWI, the sun had started to rise. Rob was disoriented from the lack of sleep. The shuttle ride didn’t help. The inside of the white van had a weird odor that made Rob carsick. It was a blend of artificial vanilla and cinnamon that made him cover his nose and mouth with his T-shirt until he was dropped at the tip of Annapolis’s shopping district, just past the main rotary.

“The Robert Johnson House is right up on State Circle,” the driver said. Had Rob not been close to gagging he would have asked for walking directions, but instead he nodded and slammed the door, taking a big gasp of fresh air as soon as the vehicle pulled away.

He soon found himself wandering down what looked like the city’s main retail drag, a line of tiny shops with Naval Academy sweatshirts in the windows. The store directly to the right of him displayed a red apron with brown mallets painted on the chest. The front of it read, “I got crabs in Maryland.” Rob smiled.

At the end of the cobblestone strip, Rob found the water. The calm waves of the Atlantic lapped against the white sailboats anchored not far from the shoreline. Rob was motionless, his hair barely shifting in the light ocean breeze. He’d forgotten what it was like to be this close to the shore.