I stopped.
Thirteen years disappeared.
There he was.
Michael Hartley.
Fifty-one years old now.
Silver beginning at his temples.
Expensive navy suit.
A watch that probably cost more than the car
I had driven there.
He looked heavier than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, but unmistakably Michael.
Beside him stood Rebecca.
And beside Rebecca stood a teenage boy wearing the dark green blazer of St.
Augustine Preparatory Academy.
For one strange second, none of them noticed me.
Michael was bent slightly toward the boy, adjusting something on his lapel.
“Evan, relax,” he said.
“You’ve done harder things than this.”
The boy—Evan—gave a tight smile.
Rebecca touched his shoulder.
Then Michael looked up.
Our eyes met.
His face changed so quickly that it almost fascinated me.
Confusion.
Recognition.
Shock.
Then something colder.
“Laura?”
I had imagined this moment many times over thirteen years.
Sometimes I thought I would tremble.
