John spent the few minutes it took Angie to come downstairs speaking firmly to himself, going over the best way to handle things. Then she came in, smelling of sleep, her shape rounded in the old blue T-shirt he had tried so hard to put out of his mind. The battle for reason, for self-denial and patience, was lost at that moment.

Angie stood breathing deeply, her hands twitching at her sides. She noticed how sweet the air was here; it always took her by surprise, jasmine and honeysuckle, like sugar on the tongue. The branches of the old oak that overhung the porch brushed over its roof with the breeze. She heard the low hum of the kitchen light, crickets and tree frogs and the beat of her own heart.

She heard those things, but she saw John. She went up to him and touched him, lightly, on the shoulder.

He turned toward her gracefully, quickly, and put an arm around her waist to pull her up against him, half lifting her off her feet.

“Hey,” she said, putting the flats of her hands on his back. “Hey. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair and drew in a deep breath. “I couldn’t stay away. I meant to, but I couldn’t.”

She stepped back and caught his hand. “Come sit down.” With a small tug she pulled him toward the couch and the oblong of yellowish light put out by the single lamp at its far end. She tried to read his expression and saw nothing good there. Angie’s throat constricted but she forced the words up and out.

“John,” she said. She dropped his hand and curled herself in the corner of the couch, feet tucked up, arms tight around her knees. “Just tell me, okay? Don’t drag it out, that won’t make it any easier.”

Something clicked in his face, some understanding and following quickly, surprise. He sat down, his body twisted toward her.

He said, “I never had a chance to talk to Caroline when we drove to the lake, not once. I meant to tell her. Maybe she knew that, somehow. Maybe she guessed. But I couldn’t leave it, so I wrote a letter, and Rob drove me up there to deliver it last night. She must have it by now, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

“A letter,” Angie echoed. “You took a letter up to the retreat house?”

He nodded, started to say something, stopped.

They were silent for a long moment. Angie tried to imagine such a letter, the things he might have said; whether or not he had used her name. She hoped he had left her out of it, and knew that it was a cowardly thing to wish.

“Go on,” she said. “Tell me the rest of it.”