heir days followed a familiar pattern. Monday through Friday, Annie showed up at Nick’s house bright and early. He made pancakes and eggs for breakfast, and then the three of them spent the day together. Rain or shine, they were outside, fishing along the crumbling rock banks of the river, riding bikes on the trails around the lake, or window-shopping on Main Street. Today they had hiked deep into Enchanted Valley, and now, several hours and even more miles later, each of them was exhausted. Poor Izzy had fallen asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

Annie leaned down and kissed Izzy’s forehead, murmuring a quiet good night.

“ ’Night, Annie,” Izzy mumbled back, her eyes closed.

Annie drew back. This was the time of the week she hated most. Friday night. She wouldn’t see Nick and Izzy again until Monday, and though she enjoyed the time she spent with Hank, she couldn’t wait to get back here Monday morning. She didn’t often let herself think about how much she liked Nick and Izzy, or how right it felt to be with them. Those thoughts led her down a dark and twisting road that frightened her, and so she pushed them away, buried them in the dark corner that had always housed her uncertainties. She had come to the sad realization that Blake wasn’t going to change his mind, that she wasn’t going to receive the apologetic phone call she’d fantasized about for weeks. Without even that slim fantasy to cling to, she was left feeling adrift. Sometimes, in the midst of a lovely spring day, she would stumble across her fear and the suddenness of it shocked and frightened her.

Those were the times when she turned to Hank—but his comforting words he’ll be back, honey, don’t you worry, he’ll be back didn’t soothe Annie anymore. She couldn’t believe in them, and somehow the not believing hurt more than the believing ever had. Terri was the only one who understood, and a phone call to her best friend, often made late at night, was the only thing that helped.

She started to turn away, when she noticed something through the window, a movement. She pushed the patterned lace curtains aside.

Nick was standing down alongside the lake, his shadow a long streak across the rippling silver waves. As usual, he’d helped with the dinner dishes, read Izzy a story, and then bolted outside to stand alone.

He was as lonely as she was. She saw it in his eyes all the time, a sadness that clung even when he smiled.

He was trying so hard. Yesterday, he’d spent almost two hours playing Candy Land with Izzy, his long body crouched uncomfortably across the multicolored board. Every time Izzy smiled, Nick looked like he was going to cry.

Annie had never been as proud of anyone as she was of him. He was trying to do everything right—no drinking, no swearing, no broken promises. Nothing but soft, sad smiles and time spent with the little girl who still studied him warily and didn’t speak to him.

So often, during the day, she was reminded of Blake, and the kind of father he’d been. Never there, physically or emotionally, for his daughter, taking so much of his life for granted. It was partially Annie’s fault; she saw that now. She’d been part of what their marriage had become. She had blindly done everything he’d asked of her. Everything. She’d given up so much—everything of herself and her dreams; she’d given it up without a whimper of protest... and all because she loved him so much.

Her life, her soul, had faded into his, one day, one decision at a time. Little things... nothing by themselves...

A haircut she didn’t have because Blake liked her hair long, a dress she didn’t buy because he thought red was a tramp’s color.

She’d done what they “agreed” she should do. She’d stayed home and become the perfect suburban wife and mother, and in her quest for quiet perfection, she’d let Blake become a bad husband and bad father. And all the while, she’d thought she was the perfect wife. Only now she saw how wrong she’d been: she’d made all those sacrifices not out of strength and love, but out of weakness. Because it was safer and easier to follow. She had become what she’d set out to be, and now she was ashamed of her choices. But still she had no true understanding of where she would go from here.

Alone. That was all she knew. Wherever she went from here, it would be as a middle-aged woman alone.

She wished she had Nick’s strength, his willingness to shove past his fear and try.

She touched the glass softly, feeling the cool smoothness beneath her fingertips. “You’re going to make it, Nick.”

And she believed it.

She closed the bedroom door behind her and went downstairs. Plucking her purse from the sofa, she headed for the door. Outside, the cool night air breezed across her cheeks.

She stared across the blackened lawn at Nick. It was at times like these, at the quiet end of the day, that memories of their lovemaking floated to the surface of her mind.

She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the feel of his hands on her naked skin... the softness of his lips...

“Annie?”

Her eyes popped open. He was in front of her, and when she looked at him, she was certain that it was all in her eyes: the naked, desperate need for companionship and caring. She was afraid that if she spoke to him, if she said anything, and heard the soft tenor of his voice in response, she would be lost. She was vulnerable now, longing to be held and touched by a man... even if it was the wrong man... even if she wasn’t truly the woman he wanted.

She forced a quick, nervous smile. “Hi, Nick... ’bye, Nick. I’ve got to run.”

Before he could answer, she ran to her car.

But a mile later, all alone in her car, listening to Rod Stewart’s scratchy-voiced song about his heart and soul, and an attraction that was purely physical, she was still remembering....

Saturday morning, Izzy stood on the porch in her bright new overalls and rain boots, watching her daddy. He was kneeling in the yard, beside that tree they’d planted on the day of her mommy’s funeral. The skinny cherry tree that wouldn’t turn green, not even now when everything around it was blooming. It was dead, just like her mommy.

Her daddy was all hunched over, like a character from one of her books, wearing dirty gloves that made his hands look like bear claws. He was yanking up weeds from around the baby tree, and he was humming a song, one Izzy hadn’t heard in a long time.

All of a sudden, her daddy looked up and saw her. He gave her a big smile and pushed the silvery hair away from his face. The glove left a big streak of brown mud across his forehead. “Heya, Izzy-bear,” he said. “Wanna help me pull up weeds?”

Slowly, she moved toward him, past the row of primroses Annie had planted last week. He was still smiling when she came up beside him.

All she could think was that her daddy was back and she wanted a hug more than anything in the world, but she was afraid. What if he didn’t stay again? She almost said something to him, she even opened her mouth and tried.

“What is it, Izzy?”

The words wouldn’t fall out. They were jammed in her throat behind a big old lump. Come on, Izzy, she told herself, just say, “Hi, Daddy, I missed you.”

But she couldn’t. Instead, she reached out her hand and pointed to the trowel that lay on the ground. He bent down and picked up the big fork, handing it to her slowly. “It’s okay, Sunshine,” he said softly. “I understand.”

I love you, Daddy. Tears stung her eyes; she was sad and embarrassed that she couldn’t force herself to say the words. She squeezed her eyes shut before he could see the stupid, babyish tears. Then she took the trowel and moved in beside him.

He started talking, about the weather and flowers and the beautiful day. He talked so long she forgot she was embarrassed and sad and that she was a stupid little girl who couldn’t talk to her daddy anymore.

Sunday was the kind of day that tricked people into moving into this damp, soggy corner of the world. The kind of day when hapless tourists who stumbled into the rain forest tended to draw in deep breaths of awe and then find themselves driving their rental cars slowly past real estate offices. Almost involuntarily, they reached for pamphlets about cabins for sale, and called their faraway families with stories of the most gorgeous land they’d ever seen.

When Nick flung back the living room curtains and looked outside, he was as awestruck as any foreigner. A bright yellow sun had just crested the trees; lemony streamers of light backlit the forest and gave it a translucent, otherworldly glow. Lake Mystic swallowed the surrounding images and held them against its blue mirrored surface. On the far bank, a single gray heron stood on one leg, proudly surveying his domain.

It was a perfect day for a father-daughter outing. He hurried up the stairs and woke his sleeping child. He helped her brush her teeth and get dressed in warm woolen clothes. While she was sleepily making her bed, he went downstairs and packed a picnic lunch—smoked salmon bought fresh from the Quinault tribe at the local roadside stand, cream cheese and crackers for him, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and string cheese for Izzy. Annie had left a quart of homemade lemonade, and he poured it into a thermos, then crammed everything into a picnic basket.

Within the hour, they were driving down the winding coastal road that seemed to bisect the world. On one side stood the darkest, densest of all American woodlands, and on the other, the crashing wildness of the Pacific Ocean. Along the coastal side, the evergreen trees had been sculpted by a hundred years of gale winds; their limbs bent backward in an unnatural arc.

Nick parked in one of the turnouts that were designed to showcase the view to tourists. Taking Izzy’s hand, he led her down the trail toward the beach.

Below them, huge, white-tipped waves crashed against the rocks. When they finally dropped onto the hard-packed sand, Izzy grinned up at him.

The silver-blue ocean stretched out for a thousand miles away from the land. Sometimes, the wind along this stretch of the Pacific howled so hard no man could draw a breath, but today it was almost preternaturally quiet. The air was as crisp and delicious as a sun-ripened apple. Cormorants and kingfishers and seagulls cawed and wheeled overhead, landing every now and then on one of the wind-sculpted trees that grew atop house-size rocks in the surf.

Nick set the basket down on a gray boulder near the land’s end. “Come on, Izzy.”

They ran across the sand, laughing, creating the only footprints for miles, searching for hidden treasures: sand dollars, translucent quartz stones, and tiny black crabs. Around a bend in the coastline, they stumbled into a knee-deep mass of tiny blue jellyfish, blown ashore by the wind—a sure sign to old-timers that tuna would appear off the coast this summer.

When the sun reached its peak in the sky and sent its warmth through their layers of wool and Gortex, Nick led Izzy back to where they’d begun. He threw a huge red and white blanket over the hard sand and unpacked the basket. They sat cross-legged on the blanket and ate their lunch.

All the while, Nick told stories—about the Native Americans who had first combed this beach, hundreds of years before the first white settlers appeared; about the wild parties he had attended in high school on this very same stretch of sand; about the time he’d brought Kathy here when she was pregnant.

Once, he’d thought that Izzy was going to say something. She’d leaned forward, her brown eyes sparkling, her lips trembling.

He’d put down his glass of lemonade. Come on, Izzy-bear. But in the end, she’d held back. Whatever had made it to the tip of her tongue was lost.

That silence was worse than the others, somehow. It lodged in his heart like a steel splinter; he felt it with every in-drawn breath afterward. But he forced a smile and went on with another story, this time about a night long ago when he and Annie had climbed to the top of the town’s water tower and painted GO PANTHERS on the metal sides.

At the end of their picnic, they loaded up the basket with their leftovers and made their slow, silent way back up to the car. They drove home in the last fading rays of the setting sun. Nick found it difficult to keep talking, to keep spilling his soul into the stony silence that surrounded them, but he forced himself to do it. When they passed Zoe’s, the need for a drink rose in him, relentless as the surf. He hit the gas harder and they sped beyond the tavern.

When they pulled into the driveway, day had given way to a pink and gold evening. He held Izzy’s hand as they quietly made their way back into the house.

“What do you say we play a game?” he said, shutting the door behind him.

Izzy didn’t answer, but scampered away. In a few moments, she appeared again, with the big, multicolored Candy Land box mashed to her tiny chest.

He groaned dramatically. “Not that—anything but that. How about Pick-up Sticks?”

A tiny smile tilted her mouth. She shook her head. “You think I don’t want to play that because I never win, but that’s not true. It’s because I fall into a coma. Come on—Pick-up Sticks. Please?”

She gave him a grin that bunched her cheeks. Her index finger thumped on the Candy Land box.

“Okay. One game of Candy Land, then Pick-up Sticks.” She released a giggle, and the simple sound of that soothed the ragged edges of his nerves. He quickly made a fire, then they set up the board in the middle of the living room floor.

One game turned into another and another. When Nick had finally lost his fine motor skills, he tossed the tiny blue and yellow board pieces into the oblong box. “I give up. You’re the queen of Candy Land. No one can beat you. Come on, Izzy-bear, it’s dinnertime. Even cooking is better than this game.” He got slowly to his feet—he’d lost half the bloodflow into his legs—and staggered to a stand.

She lurched up and grabbed his hand. Worry furrowed her brow.

He smiled down at her. “It’s okay, honey. I’m just old, and old people wobble a bit. Remember Grandma Myrtle? She used to totter around like a broken toy.”

Izzy giggled.

In the kitchen, they sat at the big plank table and ate store-bought macaroni and cheese until their skin took on the orange glow of whatever passed for cheese in that little white packet. Izzy helped Nick wash and dry the dishes and put them away, and then they went upstairs. He helped her into her nightgown, brushed those incredibly tiny white teeth of hers, and together they climbed into her narrow twin bed.

He pulled the tattered copy of Alice in Wonderland off the bedside table. Curling an arm around Izzy’s tiny shoulders, he drew his daughter close and began to read.

When he closed the book, her eyes were heavy and she was more than half asleep. “Good night, Sunshine,” he said softly, kissing her forehead. Slowly, he drew back and stood up.

She reached out suddenly and grabbed his hand. He turned back, stared down at her. “Izzy?”

“Daddy?”

For a second, he couldn’t breathe. It was the first time he’d heard her sweet child’s voice in almost a year. Slowly, slowly, he sat down beside her. Tears stung his eyes, turned his precious baby into a blur. “Oh, Izzy,” he whispered, unable to find any other words.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said, and now she was crying, too.

He pulled her into a bear hug, hiding his face in the crook of her neck so she wouldn’t see him crying. “Oh, Izzy-bear, I love you, too,” he whispered over and over again, stroking her hair, feeling her tears mingle with his on the softness of her cheek. He held her tightly, wondering if he’d ever have the strength to let her go.

She fell asleep in his arms, and still he held her. Finally, he laid her head gently on the pillow and tucked the covers up to her small, pointed chin. When he looked down at his sleeping child, he felt a rush of emotion so pure and sweet and all-consuming that no single word—not even love— could possibly be big enough.

Triumph was a trembling, high-pitched aria in his bloodstream. And all because of something as simple, and as infinitely complex, as a child’s I love you. Three little words he’d never take for granted again.

He couldn’t contain the enormity of his emotions; they were spilling over, breaking one after another in waves. He felt the most incredible urge to laugh out loud. He wanted to share this moment with someone he cared for.

Annie.

He knew it was dangerous, this sudden desire to talk to her, be with her, tell her what he was feeling. Knew it, and didn’t care. Couldn’t care.

He went into his room and picked up the phone.

Monday was a magical day, filled with laughter. Once again the sun banished the clouds from the sky. Nick and Annie and Izzy rode bicycles and collected wildflowers and made crowns from the dainty purple and white flowers that had opened during the night.

Annie couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. Blake had never spent a day like this with his girls, just the three of them; even when he’d had a rare day at home, he’d spent it on the phone or the fax or the computer. Annie was only now beginning to realize how lonely her life had been.

As she pedaled her bike down the National Park trail, she found herself recalling bits and pieces of her phone conversation with Nick last night. She talked to me, Annie. She told me she loved me. The awe in his voice had brought tears to Annie’s eyes, and when he went on, telling her about their day at the beach, she’d envied them the easy perfection of it all.

Though neither one of them had mentioned the conversation today, it hung in the air between them, like dust motes that were occasionally thickened by a flash of sunlight. They’d woven a new strand of intimacy during their conversation. The distance of the telephone had made it easier somehow.

In the middle of it all, Annie had begun to remember the old Nick—the young Nick—and how she’d loved him. And when she closed her eyes while he was talking, she saw the boy who’d first kissed her beneath a starry night sky. The boy whose gentle, tentative kiss had made her cry.

She could feel herself drifting into dangerous waters. So many things about Nick touched her, but it was the depth of his love for Izzy that tangled her up inside and left her aching. No matter how hard she tried to forget the life she’d lived in California and the choices she’d made, Nick brought it all up again. Annie had raised a daughter who would never truly know the comforting embrace of a father’s adoration.

And she had been a wife in love alone for too many years.

She had felt pathetic and small as she crossed the rickety bridge to that realization. For years, she’d mistaken habit and affection for true love. She had assumed that the love she gave her husband was a reflection of the love he felt for her, and now, because of her blindness, she was alone, a thirty-nine-year-old woman who faced her “golden” years without a child at home or a husband in her bed.

At that moment, she and Nick were separated by miles, and she was glad because if he’d been beside her, she would have reached for him, would have begged him to hold her and kiss her and tell her she was beautiful... even if the words were a lie.

Now, as they drove home after their bike ride, Annie prayed that Nick hadn’t heard all that loneliness and pain in her voice. Every time he looked at her today, she’d looked away, fast.

By the time they returned to the house, she was a wreck. She sat quietly at the table, her eyes focused on her food, her right foot tapping nervously on the floor.

As soon as dinner was over, she bolted from the table and hustled Izzy up to bed, leaving Nick to wash and dry the dishes.

“Good night, Izzy,” she said, tucking the child into bed. “Your daddy will be up in a minute.”

“ ’Night, Annie,” Izzy muttered, rolling onto her side.

Annie closed the bedroom door and headed downstairs. She found Nick in the living room, staring out at the lake. Even from this distance, she could see that his hands were shaking. There was a damp dishrag lying at his feet.

The last step creaked beneath her foot and she froze.

He spun toward her. His skin was pale in the lamplight, and sweat sheened his forehead.

“You want a drink,” she said.

“Want?” His laugh was low and rough. “That doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Annie didn’t know what to do. It was dangerous to touch him, but she couldn’t turn away. Cautiously, she moved toward him. He reached for her hand, his sweaty fingers coiling around hers with a desperate squeeze.

After a long minute, she said, “How ’bout a bowl of Chocolate Chip Mint instead?”

“Great. I’ll just go say good night to Izzy, then... I’ll meet you by the fire.” He gave her a relieved smile before turning and bolting up the stairs.

Annie went to the kitchen and scooped out two bowls of ice cream. The whole time she told herself that it was nothing, just a bowl of ice cream between friends. By the time she was finished, Nick was back downstairs. Together, they sat on the sofa.

In silence, they ate. The tinny clang of spoons on porcelain seemed absurdly loud. She was sharply aware of everything about him, the uneven way he tapped his foot anxiously on the floor, the way he kept tucking a flyaway lock of hair behind his right ear.

All at once, he turned to her. “How long will you be here?”

So that was it. She sighed. “About another month and a half. Natalie gets home on the fifteenth of June.”

His gaze caught hers, and she felt as if she were falling into his blue eyes.

Annie’s breath caught in her chest. She found herself waiting to hear what he would say next, though she couldn’t imagine what it would be.

“What do you think of Mystic?” he asked slowly, watching her. “You sure couldn’t wait to leave after high school.”

“It wasn’t Mystic that sent me running.”

It was a long minute before he answered softly, “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“You scared me.”

She felt it blossom again at his words, that delicate bud of intimacy that had drawn them together last night. It scared her, especially now when she was so close to him. She tried to brush it away with a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

He leaned forward and set the bowl down on the coffee table. Then, slowly, he turned toward her. One arm snaked down the back of the sofa toward her, and she had to fight the urge to lean back into it. “I think our lives are mapped out long before we know enough to ask the right questions. Mine was cast in stone the day my dad abandoned my mom. She had... trouble handling life. Before I even knew what was happening, I was her caretaker. I learned what every child of a drunk learns: don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t care. Hell, I was an adult before I was ten years old. I shopped, I cooked, I cleaned... wherever we lived. I loved her, so I took care of her, and when she turned on me or became violent, I believed what she said—that I was worthless and stupid and lucky she stayed with me.” He leaned back into the sofa.

Annie felt his fingertips brush her shoulders. She gazed at him, remembering how handsome he had been, how when she’d looked at him for the first time, she hadn’t been able to breathe.

“Living here with Joe was like a dream for me. Clean sheets, clean clothes, lots to eat. I got to go to school every day and no one ever hit me.” He smiled at her, and the heat of it sent shivers through her blood. “Then I met you and Kath. Remember?”

“At the A and W, after a football game. We invited you to sit with us. There was a K-Tel album playing in the background.”

“You invited me. I couldn’t believe it when you did that... and then, when we all became friends, it stunned me. Everything about that year was a first.” He smiled, but his smile was sad and tired around the edges and didn’t reach his eyes. “You were the first girl I ever kissed. Did you know that?”

Annie’s throat felt dangerously tight. “I cried.”

He nodded. “I thought it was because you knew. Like you could taste it in me somehow, that I wasn’t good enough.”

She wanted to touch him so badly her fingers tingled. She forced her hand into a fist. “I never knew why I cried. Still don’t.”

He smiled at her. “See? The paths are set before we’re aware. Kathy was so much simpler. I understood her. She needed me, even then she needed me, and to me that was the same as love. I just plopped into the role I knew. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Ask you to give up Stanford? Or wait for you, even though you hadn’t asked me to?”

Annie had never once considered being bold enough to talk to Nick about how she felt. Like him, she’d fallen easily—tumbled—into the role she knew. She did what was expected of her; Annie the good girl. She went away to college and married a nice boy with a bright future... and lost herself along the way.

“I always figured you’d be famous,” he said at last, “you were so damned smart. The only kid from Mystic ever to get an academic scholarship to Stanford.”

She snorted. “Me, famous? Doing what?”

“Don’t do that, Annie.” His voice was as soft as a touch, and she couldn’t help looking at him. The sadness in his eyes coiled around her throat and squeezed. “That’s a bad road to go down. Believe me, I know. You could succeed at anything you tried. And screw anyone who tells you different.”

His encouragement was a draught of water to her parched, thirsty soul. “I did think of something the other day....”

“What?”

She drew back. “You’ll laugh.”

“Never.”

Dangerously, she believed him. “I’d like to run a small bookstore. You know the kind, with overstuffed chairs and latte machines and employees who actually read.”

He touched her cheekbone, a fleeting caress that made her shiver. It was the first time he’d deliberately touched her since that night by the lake. “You should see yourself right now, Annie.”

Heat climbed up her cheeks. “You probably think I’m being ridiculous.”

“No. Never. I was just noticing how your eyes lit up when you said ‘bookstore.’ I think it’s a great idea. In fact, there’s an old Victorian house on Main Street. It used to be a gift shop until a few months ago. When the owner died, they closed it up. They’ve been trying to find a renter. With a little elbow grease, it could make a great location.” He paused and looked at her. “If you wanted to open that bookstore in Mystic.”

The fantasy broke apart. They both knew that her life wasn’t in Mystic. She belonged in another state, beneath another sun, in a white house by the sea. She stared down at her diamond ring, trying to think of something to say, a way to brush off the silly daydream and pretend she’d never voiced it.

He said suddenly, “Have you seen Same Time, Next Year?”

She frowned. “The Alan Alda movie—the one about the couple who have an affair for one weekend every year?”

“Yeah.”

She found it difficult to breathe evenly. The air seemed electrified by the simple word: a fair. “I-I always loved it.”

“It’s starting in ten minutes. You want to watch?”

Her breath expelled in a rush. She felt like a fool for reading something into a simple little question about a movie.

“Sure.”

They settled onto the sofa and watched the movie, but all the while, Annie had the strangest sensation that she was falling. She kept glancing at Nick, whom she often caught staring at her in return. She didn’t want to consider how much he had begun to matter, but there was no way to avoid the obvious.

Last night, she’d learned that he liked chocolate chip ice cream and hated beets... that blue was his favorite color and professional sports bored him to tears... that he liked his baked potatoes with butter and bacon bits, but no salt or pepper, and that sometimes a kiss from Izzy, given as she snuggled close to him, had the power to make him cry.

She knew that often the need for a drink rose in him with such sudden ferocity that it left him winded and glassy-eyed. In those moments, he would push away from Annie and Izzy and run into the forest alone. Later, he would return, his hair dampened by sweat, his skin pale and his hands trembling, but he would smile at her, a sad, desperate smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and she would know that he had beaten it again. And sometimes, in that moment, when their gazes locked across the clearing, she could feel the danger, simmering beneath the surface.

She didn’t want to care too deeply about Nick Delacroix, and yet she could feel each day bringing them closer and closer.

When the movie ended, she couldn’t look at him, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes... afraid of what he’d see in hers. So, she grabbed her box of tissues and her purse and ran for the door. She hardly even mumbled a good-bye.