Chapter 13: Two Hours in the Rain

Dylan came to Megan's house on Sunday morning, in the blue blazer from the club, holding a bunch of grocery-store roses.

I watched him through the blinds of the spare room.

He stood on the wet lawn and looked up at the windows, waiting.

Two neighbors had already come out, one with a dog and one with a leaf blower he was not using.

"Mare," Megan called from the hall. "Your ex is on my grass."

I went down in her sweatshirt and stopped on the porch step.

"Camille left," Dylan said. "She packed a bag last night and said the ring was all my idea."

"It was."

"Babe, I made the biggest mistake of my life. You don't throw away four years."

"You threw them away in front of sixty people," I said. "You had a fork."

"I was scared. I'm better with you. Come home, and I'll pay the money, all of it, and we'll forget the rest."

"You'll pay the money because you owe it," I said. "Not to get me back."

His face went soft and hurt, the face that had worked on me for four years.

"Say you'll think about it."

"No," I said.

I said it slowly, so the street could hear.

"Not at the house, not at a dinner, not over coffee. No, Dylan."

The man with the dog said, "Good for you," and Megan leaned in the doorway behind me with her arms folded.

"Four Thanksgivings I sat across from you," she said. "Get off my lawn."

Dylan laid the roses on the mailbox and drove away, and the leaf blower finally started.

"Don't turn around," Megan said in my ear. "Look at the maple across the street."

Harrison stood under it with no umbrella, in the same charcoal suit he had worn to the club.

The rain had been coming down since dawn, and it ran off his hair and his jaw.

"He's been there two hours," Megan said. "He never rang the bell. I've decided I hate that I'm impressed."

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