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“No, I have to drive home.”
“I could make Jake drive you again.”
“If you make Jake drive me one more time, he’s going to personally stage an intervention. He probably thinks I’m drunk every night.”
“No, just on Sundays and a few special Tuesdays like today.”
Isabelle gave them both sincere hugs, but when she got to her car, she breathed a sigh of relief. She needed to be alone. Maybe for a few months. She just needed to shut off the world and her feelings and paint.
April evenings weren’t exactly warm, but it wasn’t freezing, either, so she drove home with the window open and the fresh air on her face.
It was spring, and that was something to be thankful for. It was spring, and she had a new life and maybe that could be enough. Because it didn’t matter how brave she pretended to be; she couldn’t call Tom. She never would. She’d move on and pretend that she’d never really wanted him. For once, she’d make that choice, instead of being the one standing there, begging, crying.
Her hands were sore from clutching the steering wheel by the time she passed Jill’s house. She noticed the black SUV in Jill’s drive, but she was too upset to be curious. The evening was lovely, but her mind was a mess. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her house. Her hiding place.
Then she saw the box on the doorstep, just at the edge of the circle of porch light.
She hit the brakes so hard that the seat belt caught her. Just a UPS package, maybe. Except she hadn’t ordered anything.
So it was probably a bomb. Great.
She got out and pulled open the garage door, pretending for a moment that the package wasn’t there.
She couldn’t call 911 to say that someone had left a mysterious package on her doorstep until she determined that it was mysterious, so she pulled calmly into her garage, turned off the engine and got out.
Halfway to her porch, it occurred to her that the box could be a ploy to get her to walk to her porch in the dark. She hesitated for a moment and waited, but when she heard nothing, she headed for the steps, unwilling to cower in the night. The box wasn’t from UPS. There was a letter attached.
With another glance around to be sure no one was sneaking up on her, she reached slowly out to grab the edge of the envelope. It wasn’t taped to the box. It didn’t trigger an explosion. And no powdery substance sifted out when she opened it.
“Dear Isabelle,” it started, and then she began to cry.
I was really hoping to see you today. I’m not sure how to say this in a letter, because I meant to say it in person.
I’m sorry...
She didn’t read the rest of it. She dropped the letter and started running. The black SUV in Jill’s driveway. It had to be Tom. It had to.
She’d gone to dinner only two hours before. He wouldn’t have left without stopping in to see Jill.
The heels she’d worn to dinner were making running downhill treacherous, so she stopped to take them off and then kept running, hoping she didn’t turn an ankle on her rough driveway.
When she hit the road, it was much smoother. She was so caught up in the triumph of that that she hardly noticed the shadow walking up the hill toward her.
Isabelle gasped and slowed her frantic run until she could stop without pitching forward onto her face. The figure was still fifty feet away.
“Isabelle?” he said.
It was Tom. And all her fear was back, twisted into a fear for her heart instead of her safety. “Hi,” she whispered. He kept walking, and she was afraid he hadn’t heard her. “Hi,” she tried again.
“I’m sorry if I scared you. I left something for you. I saw you drive past Jill’s. I didn’t know...”
He stopped. He was ten feet away. She couldn’t quite see him. She wanted to see him, but he didn’t come closer.
“Did you just get here?” she asked.
“Yes. An hour ago.”
Her only comfort was that he sounded as unnatural as she did. “For work?”
