"She was my wife."
Clare closed her eyes.
Dean continued.
"We got married five years ago."
"So when I called..."
"Evan had just been born."
Clare nodded.
"I hung up."
"She thought it was wrong number."
"Probably."
"Why didn't you call again?"
Her eyes snapped open.
"Dean."
"What?"
"You had a wife and an infant son."
"I wasn't going to call back and announce that your first love from five years earlier had finally decided she was ready."
He had no answer.
Clare turned away.
"I sat on my kitchen floor for almost an hour."
"Then I deleted the number."
"Again."
Dean felt an emotion he hated because it had no clean name.
Not regret.
Not exactly.
He loved Anna.
That truth remained solid.
Their marriage had not been a consolation prize.
Anna had been funny, impatient, fierce, and kind. She gave him Evan. She held Dean together when his father died. She believed his repair business could work when he did not. He would never wish that life away.
But somewhere in London, four years earlier, Clare had called.
A different life had touched his for thirty seconds and vanished without him knowing.
He looked at her.
"I wish I'd known."
Clare's eyes glistened.
"What would you have done?"
Dean considered.
The honest answer mattered.
"I don't know."
She nodded.
"Exactly."
He stood slowly.
"I wouldn't have left Anna."
"I know."
"I loved her."
"I know."
"Evan was everything."
"I know, Dean."
He looked away.
Clare stepped closer.
"I'm not telling you because I think we missed some magical alternate universe."
"Then why?"
"Because you asked what I was hiding."
She wiped one tear before it could fall.
"And because I spent four years believing you chose a whole life without ever thinking of me again."
Dean stared at her.
"That's not what happened."
"I know that now."
"And you thought I had a family..."
"So I stayed gone."
He shook his head.
"God, Clare."
She laughed weakly.
"Timing was never our talent."
"No."
Dean looked toward the sedan.
They had forgotten about it.
He crouched again.
Clare wiped her face.
"You're really going back to the car?"
"Yes."
"Right now?"
"If I don't do something with my hands, I'm going to say something stupid."
She smiled.
"Some traditions survive."
Dean reconnected the steering module plug and checked for moisture.
Clare crouched again, though farther away.
"What are you going to say?"
"Nothing."
"Dean."
"Clare."
"I flew from London to New York three months after that call."
His head snapped around.
"You what?"
She immediately looked guilty.
"See? This is why I should have stopped."
"You came back?"
"For a conference."
"Did you see me?"
"No."
"Did you try?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I looked you up."
Dean stared.
"Social media."
"I saw Anna."
"And Evan."
"One photograph."
She smiled sadly.
"You were asleep on a couch with him on your chest."
Dean remembered the picture.
Anna had taken it.
He had worked fourteen hours.
Evan refused to sleep anywhere except on him.
Clare continued.
"You looked happy."
"I was."
"I know."
She nodded.
"So I went back to London."
Dean looked beneath the car again because seeing her face had become difficult.
"Why did you leave me originally?"
Clare inhaled.
"Dean."
"No."
"We never really answered."
"You said you couldn't stay."
"That's what twenty-five-year-old me said."
"What was the truth?"
She sat on the wet pavement without worrying about her white trousers now.
"The truth was that I was terrified."
"Of what?"