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of his face.
    “I keep getting this wrong,” he muttered, sounding almost despondent. I wasn’t sure
     if he was talking to me, or to himself.
    I wanted to cry, for a variety of reasons, both simple and complicated, but I smiled
     instead. “It’s okay, Tristan,” I heard myself say. My voice came out sounding gentle,
     and a little raw. “We never did get along. Let’s just agree to disagree, as they say,
     and get on with our lives.”
    “As I recall, we got along just fine,” he said. I could tell he didn’t want to smile
     back, but he did. “Until one of us said something, anyway.”
    I laughed, but my sinuses were clogged with tears I wouldn’t shed until I was alone
     in Room 7, with a lake view. “Right.”
    “How’s Josie?”
    The question took me off guard. “Fine,” I said.
    “She was a kick.”
    “Still is,” I said lightly. “She’s into bikers these days.”
    Tristan brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers, and I had the usual cattle-prod
     reaction, though I think I hid it pretty well. “Got to be better than Bob,” he said.
    I felt a flash of guilt. “Listen, about Bob—”
    Tristan raised an eyebrow, waiting.
    I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that Bob was a vibrator. It
     was too pathetic. “Forget it,” I said.
    “Like hell,” Tristan replied.
    A stray thought broadsided me, out of nowhere. Tristan was a lawyer, and most likely
     the only one in Parable, given the size of the place. Which probably meant he was
     involved in the negotiations for the Bucking Bronco.
    “Who’s buying the tavern?” I asked.
    It was his turn to look blank, though he recovered quickly. “A bunch of investors
     from California. Real estate types. They’re putting in a restaurant and a marina,
     and building a golf course across the lake.”
    “Damn,” I muttered.
    “What do you care?” he asked.
    “You’re representing them, and my mother knew it.”
    “Well, yeah,” Tristan said, in a puzzled, so-what tone of voice.
    “She knew I would have done anything to avoid seeing you.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Well, it’s true. You broke my heart!”
    “That’s not the way I remember it,” Tristan said.
    I unfastened my seat belt, got out of the SUV, and started for the Lakeside Motel.
     By now, my phone would be charged. I intended to dial my mother’s number and hit redial
     until she answered, if it took all night.
    I had a few things to say to her. We were about to have a Dr. Phil moment, Mom and
     I.
    Tristan caught up in a few strides. “Where are you going?”
    “None of your damn business.”
    “I did not break your heart,” he insisted.
    “Whatever,” I answered, because I knew it would piss him off, and if he got mad enough,
     he’d leave me alone.
    He caught hold of my arm and turned me around to face him. “Damn it, Gayle, I’m not
     letting you walk away again. Not without an explanation.”
    “An explanation for what?” I demanded, wrenching free.
    Tristan looked up and down the street. Except for one guy mowing his lawn, we might
     have been alone on an abandoned movie set. Pleasantville, USA. “You know damned well what !”
    I did know, regrettably. I’d been holding the memories at bay ever since I got on
     the first plane in Phoenix—even before that, in fact—but now the dam broke and it
     all flooded back, in Technicolor and Dolby sound.
    I’d gone to the post office, that bright summer morning a decade ago, to pick up the
     mail. There was a letter from the University of Montana—I’d been accepted, on a partial
     scholarship.
    My feet didn’t touch the ground all the way back to the Bronco.
    Mom stood behind the bar, humming that Garth Brooks song about having friends in low
     places and polishing glasses. The place was empty, except for the two of us, since
     it was only about nine thirty, and the place didn’t open until ten.
    I waved the letter, almost incoherent with excitement. I was going to college!
    Mom had