From there on out the spring seemed to fly by. I started attending Missy’s small group every Monday evening. They were studying the book of James, which I instantly loved, and they were amused by my insatiable appetite for information about God and the Bible, which I’d never read before this. Every other Friday Missy and I still hosted our girls’ night, which was expanding to the almost unmanageable size of fourteen but was such fun we couldn’t bear to limit it or stop. And on top of it all, I joined the college band, and we rehearsed Sunday afternoons, and the college group met on Wednesday nights; soon nearly every evening was chock-full. I was in heaven.

JACK

SHOOTING WRAPPED at the end of January, and then I was home. It felt weird to be back in my apartment: I still hadn’t managed to rid the place of Dianne’s memory, and I was beginning to doubt I ever would. After talking to some friends and getting their advice, I finally hired a Realtor, and she set me up with a great flat on the other side of the city. It was huge and beautiful; even my unsophisticated eye could tell this was an impressive place. I moved at the end of March.

Working with Franklin confirmed that film was the direction I wanted to head with my career. Television was fun and steady work, but film was a different kind of fun—and where all the real money was anyway. I was getting a lot of scripts now too, so after moving into my new place I started reading them and talking with directors. I was finally moving up the ranks of Hollywood society. I was one of the lucky few whose dream of a fruitful acting career was actually coming true.

And yet something had been eating at me since Christmas. B.J. said going home had been good for me, and I believed her, but as time wore on, something in my life was feeling more and more wrong. I kept thinking about Abby, the twins, my parents, Reily, my time there with them and how fulfilling it had been. They had a lot of things I didn’t have: stability in their lives, true love, family—normality. Of course, I had a lot of things they didn’t have: over two million sitting in the bank, established directors sending me scripts, an exciting life. There was nothing exciting about living in Reily with 2.5 kids and a minivan.

But there was something attractive about being content. And that’s what they all were: content. Happy with their jobs, their families, their spouses, their lives. Honest about the fact that nothing was perfect, but also perfectly okay with that.

I was not content.