Most of the guys weren’t real talkative, and I didn’t have to carry on a conversation with anyone if I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes the only noise was the sound of our tools and the classic rock music coming from the boom box. I never wore a shirt and pretty soon I was almost as tan as I’d been on the island.

At night, Ben and I drank beer. I missed Anna and thought about her constantly. Without her next to me I slept like shit. Ben knew better than to say anything about her, but he seemed worried about me.

Hell, I was worried about me.

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Chapter 63 – Anna

The temperature reached eighty-five degrees by two in the afternoon. The heat rolled off me like the sweat that ran down my face as my feet pounded the pavement.

It didn’t bother me. I could handle heat.

All through the end of June and July I ran – six, then eight, then ten miles every day, sometimes more.

I didn’t cry when I ran. I didn’t think, and I didn’t second-guess myself. Breathing deeply in and out, I put one foot in front of the other.

Tom Callahan called in early August. When the name came up on my caller ID my heart leapt, plummeting a second later after I answered and realized it wasn’t T.J.

“The seaplane charter settled this morning. T.J.’s already signed the papers. Once you add your signature, it’s done.”

“Okay,” I grabbed a pen and scribbled down the address he gave me.

“How are you, Anna?”

“I’m fine. How is T.J?”

“He’s keeping busy.”

I didn’t ask him what that meant. “Thanks for letting me know about the attorney. I’ll make sure to sign the papers.” There was silence on the other end for a second and then I said, “Please say hello to Jane and the girls for me.”

“I will. Take care, Anna.”

That night, I curled up on the couch with Bo to read a book. Two pages in, someone knocked on my door.

Hopeful excitement washed over me, my stomach filling with butterflies. I’d wondered all day, after talking to his dad, if T.J. might reach out to me. Bo went crazy, barking and running around in circles, as if he knew it was him. I ran to the door and flung it open but it wasn’t T.J. standing there.

It was John.

He wore a guarded expression. His blond hair was shorter than it used to be, and he had a few lines around his eyes, but otherwise he looked the same. He held a box in his hands. Bo nudged his legs, sniffing and circling.

“Sarah gave me your address. I found some more of your things and thought you might want them back.” He looked over my shoulder, trying to see if I was alone.

“Come in.” I shut the door after he crossed the threshold. “I’m sorry I never called. That was rude of me.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

John set the box on the coffee table.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Sure,” he said.

I went into the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, and poured us each a glass. My choice of beverage reflected my sudden need for alcohol more than any desire to be hospitable.

“Thanks,” he said when I handed him a glass.

“You’re welcome. Sit down.”

He sneezed twice. “You got a dog. You always wanted one.”

“His name is Bo.”

He sat in the chair across from the couch. I set my glass on the coffee table in front of me and started pulling items out of the box. It was like seeing my clothes hanging in Sarah’s spare bedroom closet. Possessions I had almost forgotten but recognized immediately as soon as I saw them again.

I removed the rubber band from a stack of pictures. The one on top showed John and me standing in front of the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, our arms around each other, him kissing my cheek. I leaned across the coffee table and handed him the picture. “Look how young we were.”

“Twenty-two,” he said.

There were vacation pictures and group shots with our friends. A picture of my mom and John standing in front of the Christmas tree. One of him holding Chloe in the hospital a few hours after Sarah had given birth.

Looking at the pictures reminded me of the history I had with John, and that a lot of that history had been good. We’d started out with so much promise but then our relationship stagnated, crushed under the weight of two people wanting different things. I snapped the rubber band back on the pictures and set them on the table.

I pulled out an old pair of running shoes. “These have some miles on them.” The next item – a Hootie & the Blowfish CD – made me smile.

“You played that constantly,” John said.

“Don’t make fun of Hootie.”

There were a couple of paperbacks. A hairbrush and a ponytail holder. A half-empty bottle of Calvin Klein CK One perfume, my signature scent for most of the nineties.

My fingers grazed something near the bottom. A nightgown. I looked at the sheer black fabric and recalled a hazy memory of John taking it off me in the middle of the night, shortly before I left Chicago.

“I found it when I changed the sheets. I never did wash it,” he said softly.

Reaching in one last time, I came up with a blue velvet-covered box. I froze.

“Open it,” John said.

I lifted the lid. The diamond ring sparkled, nestled in satin. Speechless, I took a deep breath.

“After I dropped you off at the airport I drove to the jewelry store. I knew if I didn’t marry you I’d lose you, and I didn’t want to lose you, Anna. When Sarah called to tell me your plane went down, I held that ring in my hand and prayed they would find you. Then she called and told me you were presumed dead. The news devastated me. But you’re alive, Anna, and I still love you. I always have, and I always will.”

I snapped the box shut and hurled it at John’s head. With surprisingly fast reflexes, he deflected my throw and the box bounced off his crossed forearms and skittered across the hardwood floor.

“I loved you! I waited eight years for you and you strung me along until my only option was to break my own heart!”

John stood up from his chair. “Jesus, Anna. I thought a ring was what you wanted.”

“It’s never been about a ring.”

He crossed the room and paused at the door.

“So it’s because of the kid, then?”

I winced at the mention of T.J. Standing up, I marched over, scooped the ring off the floor, and handed it to him. “No. It’s because I would never marry a man who only asked me because he felt he had to.”

The next morning I went to the attorney’s office, signed the papers promising I wouldn’t sue the seaplane charter, and collected a check. I deposited it at the bank on the way home. Sarah called my cell phone an hour later.

“Did you sign the papers?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s too much money, Sarah.”

“If you want my opinion, one point five million wasn’t nearly enough.”

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Chapter 64 – T.J.

I dragged my ass up the stairs at 9:30 on Saturday night and as soon as I walked in the door, I figured out that the party had started without me. There were at least fifteen people drinking beer and taking shots in our kitchen and living room.

The guys on the crew and I were trying to finish framing a rush job in Schaumburg and we’d been putting in fourteen hour days, six days a week, for the last month, working until it got dark. I wanted everyone in our apartment to disappear.

Ben came out of his bedroom, a girl trailing behind.