And here’s where his thoughts swing hard in another direction entirely—this moment doesn’t belong to him alone. Darla, his graduate student, brought the samples in. As part of his research team, yes, but she has some ownership as well. This will help her on the job market as much as it will help him secure his golden handcuffs as associate professor. And frankly, he needs her, because he remains clueless about so much, including the habitat she sampled.

He tries calling her, without success, so he logs on to the department directory and finds her address, only a mile from campus. He starts down the hall a few steps and then circles back. Out of his valise he pulls a legal tablet. He uses a Sharpie to scrawl a message: Experiment Under Way. Do Not Enter! Thx. Dr. Abernathy. He rips out the sheet and hangs it from the clip anchored to the door.

Rain spits from the sky. He pulls up his hood, steps into the gloom of the day, and hurries along at such a pace that he barely notices his phone buzzing in his pocket. He fumbles it out and discovers it’s not Darla calling but . . . Nora?

He can’t remember the last time they communicated. Over a year? She texted him a photo she had found of Mia tucked in a hollow log, poking her head out of its shadows and grinning one of her gap-toothed smiles. He didn’t know how to respond. He resented her for sending it, but he was also grateful she’d sent it. Was it better to forget or hang on to what they shared? The first was easier, but the second was more important. He began and deleted a dozen different versions of God, I miss her, and he imagined Nora looking at the message and waiting for him to finish typing. In the end all he could manage was a heart emoji.

And now she’s trying to contact him. It’s not that he doesn’t want to speak to her—just not right now. His mind is too loud and her voice will confuse it further. So he declines the call, but before he can even get the cell back in his pocket, it rings again. They used to play this game when they were married. She would keep calling until he relented. He answers with a “Hey. Can I call you back later?”

“Something important has come up,” she says. “I need you to—”

“I don’t have time,” he says, nastier than he intended. Need? She needs him to do something? Of course that’s the only reason she’d reach out to him. Because she needs something. Probably some book she’ll claim is hers. The demanding tone she took always felt like a tightening leash that made him want to yank back in the opposite direction.