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her hand or, rather, took her hand and held it. Hannah introducedChloe to a very tall, grandfatherly gentleman, soft-spoken and modest in manner. Surely that wasn’t Martyn?
    Chloe had thought no more about it, except in January when Hannah asked to be driven to Bangor again because the admissions office needed to go over a couple of things.
    That couldn’t be the man Hannah needed to break up with. Chloe had it wrong. It couldn’t be him because he was . . .
    â€œI’m sorry, but how old is Martyn?”
    Hannah studied the lilac bedspread as if the answer was written there like a cheat sheet. “Sixty-two,” she said.
    Chloe jumped off the bed.
    â€œSit down. What are you getting all riled up about?”
    â€œHannah!” Chloe couldn’t sit. She could barely focus on Hannah’s aggrieved face. “Please tell me you’re not involved with a man forty years older than you. Please.” Was Chloe the only one who thought this was gross?
    â€œOkay,” Hannah said. Metallica segued into Nirvana. Come as you are. As a friend. “Forty-four years,” she corrected Chloe.
    Come as you are.
    Hannah was flushed, blinking rapidly, breathing through her mouth, as if she was catching the strands of the plot on her tongue and was about to jump on her computer and write a story for the ages. “He’s very much in love with me,” she said musically. “He’s a widower. He’s been very lonely. At first he told me I was just for company. He knew we couldn’t last. He’s the one who told me it wouldn’t!”
    â€œBut you’ve only seen him the few times I’ve driven you to Bangor,” Chloe said dumbly. “Right? I mean . . .”
    â€œDon’t be naïve. We’ve been meeting every Tuesday at the Silver Pines Motor Court. And some Saturdays. He finishes teaching early on Tuesdays.”
    Chloe’s expression must have been a sight.
    â€œ That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Hannah said.
    Where had Chloe been that she hadn’t noticed Hannah’s twice-weekly disappearance? What did Hannah tell Blake abouther regularly scheduled absence from their already convoluted life? How could he not know? Chloe had been busy squirreling away her own secrets from Hannah—which now seemed pathetically small in comparison—and perhaps was grateful for a few days a week when she didn’t have to look away every time Hannah waxed poetic about the University of Maine they would both be attending in the fall. But what was Blake’s excuse?
    Tonight Chloe had nothing to say about Hannah’s dilemma. She remained stuck on the man’s age. He was thirteen years older than her father! Yet Hannah seemed unconcerned with this most startling detail: that she was sleeping with Cain and Abel’s uncle. Hannah sighed as if in a romance novel. “It’s very flattering to be loved like that,” she said. “So intensely. Oh, Chloe! Do you know what it’s like to be loved so intensely?”
    â€œOh, sure.” Chloe stared into her hands as if they loved her intensely. “Quite a situation you’ve gotten yourself into, girlfriend,” she said.
    â€œDon’t you think I know that?” For a moment, Hannah looked ready to cry. Yet Chloe knew that to be false, for Hannah didn’t cry. She only appeared to look to be ready to cry. Her big round eyes were permanently moist. She evaluated you before she pretended to cry, and then you loved her. That was Hannah. Always fake-crying to be loved.
    â€œI gotta go,” Chloe said, rising from the bed. “Hey, look on the bright side. My parents probably won’t let me go anyway.”
    â€œHow is that the bright side?” said Hannah.
    Chloe wanted to say she was being ironic but couldn’t find her voice suddenly.

4
Paleo Flood at Red River
    I T WAS DARK OUTSIDE AND HER FATHER’S BLACK D ODGE Durango was already parked