Part of me was haunted by the fact that I never saw my father’s body. I didn’t want to make the same mistake here. But, to keep within this lame metaphor, I had now seen the dead body. There was no reason to check the pulse or poke at it or hang around it longer than necessary.

I tried to make my departure as inconspicuous as I could. This is no easy feat when you’re six-five and are built, to use Natalie’s phrase, “like a lumberjack.” I have big hands. Natalie had loved them. She would hold them in her own and trace the lines on my palm. She said they were real hands, a man’s hands. She had drawn them too because, she said, they told my story—my blue-collar upbringing, my working my way through Lanford College as a bouncer at a local nightclub, and also, somehow, the fact that I was now the youngest professor in their political science department.

I stumbled out of the small white chapel and into the warm summer air. Summer. Was that all this had been in the end? A summer fling? Instead of two randy kids seeking activity at camp, we were two adults seeking solitude on retreat—she to do her art, me to write my poly-sci dissertation—who met and fell hard and now that it was nearing September, well, all good things come to an end. Our whole relationship did have that unreal quality to it, both of us away from our regular lives and all the mundanity that goes along with that. Maybe that was what made it so awesome. Maybe the fact that we only spent time in this reality-free bubble made our relationship better and more intense. Maybe I was full of crap.

From behind the church door I heard cheers, applause. That snapped me out of my stupor. The service was over. Todd and Natalie were now Mr. and Mrs. Stubble Face. They’d be coming down the aisle soon. I wondered whether they’d get rice thrown at them. Todd probably wouldn’t like that. It’d mess up his hair and get stuck in the stubble.

Again I didn’t need to see more.

I headed behind the white chapel, getting out of sight just as the chapel doors flew open. I stared out at the clearing. Nothing there, just, well, clearing. There were trees in the distance. The cabins were on the other side of the hill. The chapel was part of the artist retreat where Natalie was staying. Mine was down the road at a retreat for writers. Both retreats were old Vermont farms that still grew a bit of the organic.

“Hello, Jake.”

I turned toward the familiar voice. There, standing no more than ten yards away from me, was Natalie. I quickly looked toward her left ring finger. As if reading my thoughts, she raised the hand to show me the new wedding band.

“Congratulations,” I said. “I’m very happy for you.”

She ignored that comment. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

I spread my arms. “I heard there would be great passed hors d’oeuvres. It’s hard to keep me away from those.”

“Funny.”

I shrugged while my heart turned into dust and blew away.

“Everyone said you’d never show,” Natalie said. “But I knew you would.”

“I still love you,” I said.

“I know.”

“And you still love me.”

“I don’t, Jake. See?”

She waved the ring in my face.

“Honey?” Todd and his facial hair came around the corner. He spotted me and frowned. “Who is this?”

But it was clear that he knew.

“Jake Fisher,” I said. “Congratulations on the nuptials.”

“Where have I seen you before?”

I let Natalie handle that one. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder and said, “Jake has been modeling for a lot of us. You probably recognize him from some of our pieces.”

He still frowned. Natalie got in front of him and said, “If you could just give us a second, okay? I’ll be right there.”

Todd glanced over at me. I didn’t move. I didn’t back up. I didn’t look away.

Grudgingly he said, “Okay. But don’t be long.”

He gave me one more hard look and started back around the chapel. Natalie looked over at me. I pointed toward where Todd had vanished.

“He seems fun,” I said.

“Why are you here?”

“I needed to tell you that I love you,” I said. “I needed to tell you that I always will.”

“It’s over, Jake. You’ll move on. You’ll be fine.”

I said nothing.

“Jake?”

“What?”

She tilted her head a little. She knew what that head tilt did to me. “Promise me you’ll leave us alone.”

I just stood there.

“Promise me you won’t follow us or call or even e-mail.”

The pain in my chest grew. It became something sharp and heavy.

“Promise me, Jake. Promise me you’ll leave us alone.”

Her eyes locked on to mine.

“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

Without another word, Natalie walked away, back to the front of that chapel toward the man she had just married. I stood there a moment, trying to catch my breath. I tried to get angry, tried to make light of it, tried to shrug it off and tell her it was her loss. I tried all that, and then I even tried to be mature about it, but I still knew that this was all a stall technique, so I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I would be forever brokenhearted.

I stayed there behind the chapel until I figured everyone was gone. Then I came back around. The minister with the cleanly shaven head was outside on the steps. So was Natalie’s sister, Julie. She put a hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m super,” I said to her.

The minister smiled at me. “A lovely day for a wedding, don’t you think?”

I blinked into the sunlight. “I guess it is,” I said, and then I walked away.

I would do as Natalie asked. I would leave her alone. I would think about her every day, but I’d never call or reach out or even look her up online. I would keep my promise.

For six years.

Chapter 2

SIX YEARS LATER

The biggest change in my life, though I couldn’t know it at the time, would arrive sometime between 3:29 P.M. and 3:30 P.M.

My freshman class on the politics of moral reasoning had just ended. I was heading out of Bard Hall. The day was campus-ready. The sun shone brightly on this crisp Massachusetts afternoon. There was an Ultimate Frisbee game on the quad. Students lay strewn all over the place, as though scattered by some giant hand. Music blasted. It was as if the dream campus brochure had come to life.

I love days like this, but then again, who doesn’t?

“Professor Fisher?”

I turned to the voice. Seven students were sitting in a semicircle in the grass. The girl who spoke was in the middle.

“Would you like to join us?” she asked.

I waved them off with a smile. “Thanks, but I have office hours.”

I kept walking. I wouldn’t have stayed anyway, though I would have loved to sit with them on such a glorious day—who wouldn’t? There were fine lines between teacher and student, and, sorry, uncharitable as this might sound, I didn’t want to be that teacher, if you know what I mean, the teacher who hangs out a little too much with the student body and attends the occasional frat party and maybe offers up a beer at the football game tailgate. A professor should be supportive and approachable, but a professor should be neither buddy nor parent.

When I got to Clark House, Mrs. Dinsmore greeted me with a familiar scowl. Mrs. Dinsmore, a classic battle-axe, had been the political science department receptionist here since, I believe, the Hoover administration. She was at least two hundred years old but was only as impatient and nasty as someone half that age.

“Good afternoon, sexy,” I said to her. “Any messages?”

“On your desk,” Mrs. Dinsmore said. Even her voice scowled. “And there’s the usual line of coeds outside your door.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Looks like a Rockettes audition back there.”

“Got it.”

“Your predecessor was never this accessible.”

“Oh, come now, Mrs. Dinsmore. I visited him here all the time when I was a student.”