I have deleted all the phone messages that were not of importance, Kai had written. Here are the rest: 1. Your car will not be ready until next Monday. 2. President Bray’s assistant called to ask if you will have dinner with him and some of the alums on Thursday after your talk. 3. Lucy will arrive here on Friday morning by car.

His mother, on top of everything else. John collapsed on the couch and concentrated on thinking of nothing at all. Not Caroline or Angie or work, and certainly not of his mother or Saturday, when he was supposed to be getting married.

All the things he wanted to stop thinking about followed him, as he half knew they would, and ran amok in his dreams. John dreamed of his mother driving toward Ogilvie in a huge old Pontiac convertible, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses and her hair and long neck wrapped in a silk scarf. In the dream he was in the backseat, and they were talking to each other on cell phones that beeped and buzzed and faded in and out.

He woke to the sound of fireworks, a long hiss followed by a muffled boom. Outside the sky would be filled with cascades of hot color, but the house—this house he loved so much and would live in for the rest of his life—was a safe place, cool and dark. John sat up, pressed the heel of a palm into an eye, and took stock: he was thirsty, and he smelled of barbecue smoke and sweat and Angie.

He thought of calling her. She could come over here, if they were careful. She could spend the night with him in his own bed, and he would wake up to find her hair a tangle across the pillow. John glanced at his watch and calculated when it would be safe to try her cell phone. Time to take a shower and change.

On his way through the front hall he saw the FedEx envelope. Either he had stepped over it as he came in the door, or it had been delivered while he was asleep on the couch. For a long moment John stood looking down at the colorful cardboard rectangle, then he turned on the hall light and picked it up.

His name and address had been written by Caroline. Her handwriting was unmistakable, sharp and black and slanting backward. The only return address was a FedEx office outside Savannah, nowhere near the last place he had seen her. John took a deep breath and opened it.

Dear John,

I left the retreat house yesterday afternoon shortly after you dropped me off, because I have some crucial things to think about and I can only do that in a more neutral setting. Please don’t worry. I’ll be back on Friday and we’ll sort things out then, I promise.

Love,
Caroline