Footsteps? Someone running away?

Janet turned her head toward the back of her dad’s property where the sound seemed to originate, but it was dark and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the night. She strained her eyes, squinting.

Had she heard anything at all? Had it just been a dog, a jogger, a falling branch?

Janet turned back to the house. She went to the back door and gave it two solid tugs. It was locked. Dead- bolted. She looked up at Ashleigh’s window, where the light still burned. Janet considered going back inside and staying home, where she belonged, but she cut the thought off before it took root. Who said she belonged at home? Janet had never wanted to be that person-that woman-and she turned away from the house and back to the car, knowing her father was home with Ashleigh.

Janet hadn’t told anyone she was leaving. She left a note on the kitchen counter. Back in a bit, it said. She felt guilty being so abrupt, but a part of Janet was still angry with her daughter. Typical teenage boundary pushing, she knew, but how dared the little snot mouth off like that?

Ashleigh wasn’t the only one who could act immature, and immature was the right word for it. Janet felt like a teenager again, sneaking out of the house to see Michael. Jumping when he called, her body filled with a buzzing intensity at the sound of his voice. She felt it again that night as she drove away from the house-the same feeling she’d had in the parking lot. A pleasant tingling, the hint of possibility.

A traffic circle formed the center of Dove Point’s downtown. Like spokes on a wheel, four main streets radiated out, and businesses, all of them locally owned, ringed the circle. At night, parking was easy, and Janet found a spot two doors down from the coffee shop. She paused in the car, checking her face in the lighted vanity mirror behind the sun visor. Before leaving the house, she’d brushed her hair, trying desperately to bring it to life, and dusted some makeup across her face. She thought she looked tired, her eyes still a little puffy from crying, but a part of her didn’t care. This was Michael. He knew what she looked like. He knew who she was.

Still, she reached into her purse and pulled out a lipstick. It belonged to Ashleigh. Janet wasn’t sure how it ended up among her things. Maybe Ashleigh had left it in the bathroom once, or maybe Janet had found it sitting on the kitchen counter and tried it on herself. It didn’t matter. Janet almost never wore lipstick, but she opened the tube and ran some across her lips, then blotted with a Kleenex. She studied herself again. A nice touch, even a little sexy. She was trying.

But before she slipped out of the car, Janet pulled out her phone. She sent a text to Ashleigh: How are you?

Janet waited twenty seconds for a response: Um, fine. Why?

Janet wrote back: Just checking. And got out of the car.

Two teenagers, a giggling young couple, came out of the shop as she went in. They looked to be close to Ashleigh’s age, and probably attended Dove Point High with her. The kids looked so healthy, so happy, so all- American in their earnest devotion to each other. So normal. Would Ashleigh ever know that worry-free life? Would the weight of all that had happened to their family always burden the girl?

Michael waved when she came through the door. He was seated at a table halfway back in the little shop, a steaming mug in front of him. He gave a quick tilt of his head, the smile she always remembered spreading across his face. Janet went over. She settled into the seat across from him and ordered hot tea from the waitress.

“You got out past the old man,” Michael said.

“Like being a kid again.”

Michael smiled. The tea came, and she took a tentative sip. It warmed her, but not as much as knowing that she and Michael shared a past, one that extended to the present. “He really never did know everything that went on right in front of him,” Michael said. “Out of sight, out of mind.” He shook his head. “I remember the time he caught us taking a fifth of whiskey from his liquor cabinet. He acted shocked that we even wanted to drink.”

“I don’t think he’d care if you came over now,” Janet said. She opened two packs of sugar and dumped them into the cup. “It’s Tony he’s really mad at. You know, he still doesn’t remember to send Ashleigh a birthday card every year.”

“Do you ever talk to him about it?”

“No way. My dad is the closest thing to a male role model in Ashleigh’s life. He’s certainly not perfect, but he provides something. Some stability, I guess. He’s like a rock that’s always there. That’s part of the reason I moved back in with him. Of course, Ashleigh doesn’t seem to need much of anything.”

“She doesn’t see Tony?” Michael asked.

“She doesn’t even ask about him,” Janet said. “She understands who he is and the role he’s played in her life so far. I’ve raised her to be self-sufficient. Too self-sufficient sometimes.”

“And she never says she misses him or wants to see him?” Michael asked.

“She’s pretty strong-willed. And quiet. I’m trying to figure out if she has a boyfriend.”

“Really.”

“She has a guy friend she used to bring around all the time. They’d play games at the house, watch TV. Now they spend all their time together, but she never brings him to the house. Makes me wonder.”

“Maybe they’re just being teenagers.”

“Or maybe the kid’s afraid of my dad.” She stirred and sipped again. “How about your dad? How’s he?”

Michael’s face changed. Like someone dropped a curtain or threw a switch, the happiness that had been there since she walked in the door evaporated.

“We’re not really talking right now,” he said.

Janet studied his face longer, waiting for more. She noticed the flecks of gray at his temple, the sprinkling in the stubble on his chin.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine, you know,” he said, recovering some of the life in his eyes. “He and I just don’t agree about the world. We never have. I accepted it a long time ago. He just can’t get outside his world, you know? He’s trapped in it. He only sees the things right before him, this conventional life he leads as a bookkeeper. And anything outside of that is invisible.”

“A lot of parents are like that.”

“I was in Portland for a while.”

“Oregon?”

Michael nodded.

“Wow,” Janet said. “I’ve never been.”

“I met a lot of people out there who think for themselves, who aren’t hung up on all the little things people are hung up on here. People like my dad. Everything here is so stuffy. I don’t know how long I can stay.”

Janet felt her heart drop at the words. She took a drink of the still too hot tea. “Portland,” she said. “You know, it’s been a few years since I’ve even had a call or an e-mail from you. At least once a year I’d hear something from you, even just a lousy Christmas card. You even used to come back here from time to time. I was trying to remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen you. Wasn’t it Christmas about five years ago?”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’ve been distracted.” He smiled at her, and she knew he hoped that would make everything better. “I’m here now.”

“And how’s your mom?” she asked.

“She’s okay,” he said. “She’s lost weight, you know, a lot of weight, and she has high blood pressure.”

“I see her from time to time around town. She’s always so nice and asks about me and Ashleigh.”

“The years have been hard on her.”

“She’s never married anyone else, has she?”

“God, no,” Michael said. “The divorce ripped her up.” He shook his head. “She hasn’t been the same since.”

“My dad either,” Janet said. “Since Mom died.”

Some kids at the next table were playing a game. It involved stacking wooden blocks as high as they would go and then gently trying to pull out the ones at the bottom without toppling the whole structure. Jenga? Was that it? One of the kids sent the whole pile down, a great tumbling of wooden pieces across the table and onto the floor. They all groaned and laughed. And again Janet thought of Ashleigh. Such a serious kid. How often did she laugh like that?

“I couldn’t make it today,” he said. “I know you wanted me to see that reporter, but I couldn’t make it.”

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