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That was the same sentence I had used the first time. It had been easier then, because I’d believed it. Dean and I hadn’t done anything people could point to. No motel rooms. No dramatic kisses in the rain. Just conversations that went on too long, looks that lasted longer than they should, and the slow betrayal of wanting someone while letting another man plan your future.

My mother studied me over the top of her sunglasses. “Be careful.”

I closed my eyes.

That evening, Paul came by after work. He brought almond cookies from the bakery because he remembered I liked them.

He wore a pale blue shirt with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled to his forearms. His Saab gleamed in the driveway. His hair was neat. He smelled like Polo cologne, and he looked handsome in the easy, polished way that had once made me feel safe.

We sat on the patio while my mother made herself busy in the kitchen.

“I talked to Dad today,” Paul said. “About Cleveland.”

I set my glass down. “Cleveland?”

“He wants me to spend more time at the office there after Labor Day. Learn the larger accounts. He thinks it would be good for continuity.”

“Yours?”

“Ours, eventually.”

Paul wasn’t trying to trap me. He was following the path laid in front of him, trusting I was walking beside him because no one had told him otherwise.

“Eventually,” I said.

He looked at me. “If things go the way everyone hopes.”

He reached across the little table and took my hand. His thumb moved over my knuckles in a familiar, soothing rhythm. In another life, that hand had held mine in hospital rooms, funeral homes, parent-teacher conferences, and quiet restaurants after the children left for college.

“I don’t want to rush you,” he said. “And I don’t want you to feel pushed.”

“I know that.”

His face softened. “I want to take care of you.”

Once, that sentence had felt like shelter. Now it felt like a beautiful house where someone else had chosen all the furniture.

After he left, I stood in the driveway and watched his taillights disappear between the trees.

Inside, my mother would be putting almond cookies on a plate and pretending she hadn’t been listening. Upstairs, the legal pad with my children’s names waited in my room. Across town, Side A Records would be closing soon. I pictured Dean flipping the sign, counting the drawer, sliding whatever record had been playing back into its case.

Maybe thinking of me.

I’d gone there yesterday with bacon in a napkin and a pocketful of apologies, acting as though showing up could erase weeks of disappearing. It couldn’t. Dean had given me the closing shift on Wednesday, not forgiveness.

Maybe that was what made him different from Paul. Paul wanted to smooth the road before I’d even decided where I was going. Dean had handed me one shift and let me feel the distance between wanting a place and earning it back.

On Wednesday, I would go to Side A. I would work the shift he’d given me, stand beside him under the buzz of the fluorescent lights, with Otis snoring under the counter and music turning quietly between us, and I would find out whether Dean Wyatt was the love I’d lost or only the regret I’d kept polished because it hurt less than admitting I’d chosen the life everyone wanted for me.

Either way, this time I was going to stay long enough to know.

5

Lorrie

Tuesday — August 14, 1984

By afternoon, Madison had reached that point in August when the heat seemed to rise from the pavement as eagerly as it came down from the sky. The Rabbit had been sitting in the sun long enough to make me wish I’d worn long pants instead of shorts as my thighs burned on the vinyl upholstery.