PART 4:

Her car stayed gone. The house stayed dark. The pond sat still, the fish circling endlessly with no one to watch them. Emma noticed, too. “Where’s the pretty lady?” she asked on the second morning, standing at the kitchen window with her cereal bowl. “She had to take care of something,” Daniel said, scrubbing at a coffee stain that had probably been there since the ’90s.

“Is she coming back?” “I don’t know.” “That’s a bad answer again.” “It’s still the truth.” Emma made that face, the one that said she was filing away his inadequacy for future reference. Then she went back to her cereal and Daniel went back to pretending he wasn’t worried about a woman he barely knew anymore.

Except he did know her, or he had, and that was the problem. The memory kept surfacing at inconvenient times. Victoria at 12, dirt on her knees, laughing at something stupid he’d said. Victoria at 16, crying behind the school because her mother had left and her father was too drunk to notice.

Victoria at 17, standing on her porch the night before Daniel left for college, saying nothing because there was nothing left to say. He’d promised to call. He didn’t. He’d promised to visit. He didn’t do that either. The ring had been a joke, a kid thing. 25 cents from a machine outside the grocery store, plastic painted to look like gold.

He’d given it to her because she’d been sad and he didn’t know how else to make her smile. The promise that came with it was just words. Kids said stupid things all the time, except Victoria had kept it. Kept the ring. Kept the box. Kept the promise alive while Daniel had buried it under years of deliberate forgetting. That made him the He knew that, didn’t need a road map to figure it out.

On the third day, he saw her car pull in just after sunset. He was outside trying to fix the porch railing that had rotted through in three places. Emma was inside doing homework she’d complained about for an hour. The screwdriver slipped, scraped his knuckle, drew blood. He swore, loud enough that it echoed.

That’s when Victoria’s gate opened. She looked worse than when she’d left. Thinner, maybe, or just worn down in a way that didn’t show in pounds. Her hair was messier, her clothes rumpled. She walked slowly, like each step required a decision. Daniel set down the screwdriver and stood, wiping his hand on his jeans.

Blood smeared across the denim. He didn’t care. “How is he?” he called across the fence. Victoria stopped halfway up her driveway, turned to look at him. For a moment, he thought she might not answer. Then she walked over, stopping at the fence line close enough to talk without shouting. “Stable,” she said. “For now.” “That’s good.” “Is it?” Daniel didn’t know how to respond to that.

Victoria leaned against the fence, and he realized how exhausted she looked. Not just tired, hollowed out. “They said it could be days, could be weeks, could be months if we’re unlucky.” She laughed, brittle and sharp. “Unlucky, like more time watching him fade is a gift.” “I’m sorry.” “Everyone’s sorry. The doctors are sorry, the nurses are sorry, the social worker is sorry.

Nobody nobody can do anything, but they’re all very sorry.” Daniel stepped closer, lowering his voice. “What do you need?” “I don’t know.” She looked at him, and something in her expression cracked. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been making decisions for 3 years, and I still don’t know if any of them are right.

” “You’re doing your best.” “My best isn’t enough.” “It never feels like it is.” Victoria stared at him, and for a second he saw the girl he used to know. The one who’d climb trees and stolen candy bars, and believed that leaving Willow Creek would fix everything. “You got out,” she said quietly. “You left.” “You built something.

” “I built nothing. I ran away, and it caught up with me.” “At least you ran.” “I stayed.” “I thought I could do both, build something and stay. Turns out you can’t. You just end up half-assing everything.” Daniel wanted to argue, but he couldn’t, because she was right. And because he’d done the same thing, just in reverse.

“Emma’s been asking about you,” he said, changing the subject before it got heavier. Victoria’s expression softened slightly. “Yeah?” “Yeah, she likes the fish.” “She can come see them anytime.” “I don’t want her to be a bother.” “She’s not.” Victoria pushed off the fence, straightening. “Honestly, she’s the only thing that’s felt normal in the last week.

Daniel didn’t know what to do with that, so he just nodded. Victoria started to leave, then stopped. “I’m going for a run tomorrow morning,” she said, “early. If you want to join.” “I don’t run.” “You used to.” “That was 15 years ago.” “So, start again.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just walked back toward her house, disappearing through the front door like a ghost retreating to its haunt.

Daniel stood there, staring at the blood stain on his jeans, trying to figure out what just happened. Inside, Emma called for him. Something about fractions. He went back to being a father, because that was the one thing he knew how to do, even if he did it badly. But, the next morning, he set his alarm for 5:30. The run nearly killed him.

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