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crossed over to the sink with the dirty dishes, watching as the overdone chicken and uneaten asparagus slipped into the garbage disposal. She’d lost her appetite. It seemed they all had.
    She thought back to the conversation she and Brenda had had the day before when she and Chase had dropped off Emma so they could go on a date. Some date. They’d ended up at a pool hall instead of at the chick flick she’d asked to see.
    “I hope you’re being careful,” Brenda had said while Chase waited in the car, still doing his best to avoid her disapproving looks.
    “Mom, my whole life is about being careful,” she’d shot back, immediately feeling bad. Brenda was only trying to protect her from more heartbreak. She didn’t trust Chase, and with good reason.
    Macy felt Chase’s hands on her shoulders, bringing herback to the running water that was washing away the mess that had been dinner.
    “I don’t want to fight about this. If you don’t want me to go, I won’t go. I just thought it would be fun. And Emma wanted me to go.”
    She sighed and shut off the water, but didn’t turn to face him. He started to massage her shoulders, easing away the tension she felt. “There’s a part of me that wants you to go too. The part that knows Emma would love having you there. But it’s too soon. It’s just not time yet, especially where my family’s concerned.”
    He was quiet for a moment. “Do you remember that time I took you to Sunset Beach?”
    She smiled, remembering not only their time together, but also the crazy thing she’d done while Chase napped that one afternoon. She brushed away thoughts of the guest book. It had been weighing on her mind more and more as the trip got closer. “Yeah. Of course.”
    “I thought we could—you know—get back to being those people again. The people we were before we became so serious. Before we became parents.”
    “Chase, I became a parent. You disappeared.”
    In her mind she could go back to that time, swaying with her crying infant in front of the window of their apartment as she watched for headlights that never appeared. But she refused to revisit the past. It was useless to live there. Her thoughts returned to the guest book, and she wondered if that was the same type of thing.
    Chase stopped rubbing her shoulders. “So when
will
it be time for us to stop mentioning the stupid decision I made five years ago?” He walked to the door and yanked it open, not bothering to hide his anger. “I’m going to clean the grill.”
    Macy stood between the dirty dishes and the droning television and watched from the kitchen window as he vigorously attacked the grill grates, scrubbing for all he was worth.
    She wondered about all those times she’d wished for Chase to come back. Was this what she’d been wishing for? Was this even what she wanted anymore? So much had changed while he’d been gone that they might never be those people he wanted to find — the ones before everything changed. Because everything
had
changed, and neither of them could do anything about it.
    Later that night, after everyone had fallen asleep, the phone rang. In the silence of the house, it shocked Macy into an instant state of wakefulness. It wasn’t a first-time occurrence, but it was the first time it happened with Chase in the house. Chase had taken to sleeping on the couch at night as a persistent reminder that he was there if she changed her mind about letting him into her bed. She reached for the phone and whispered an impatient, “What?”
    She didn’t need to ask who it was. Max had been calling her for help in the wee hours since she was old enough to come to his rescue. Sometimes Macy had to pull a sleeping Emmafrom her warm bed so they could fetch him from a bar, a jail, or a questionable house in a scary neighborhood, fearful of what social services would say about a woman who did such things. Would they say she was neglectful or loyal? Was it possible to be both?
    “I’ve gotten