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radioactivity of promethium and hand-spooning him the information so that he would get a good grade.
    “Sure,” I said. “Of course.” I smiled and then walked outside, where I knew Dad would be at the curb, waiting in his whale of a Cadillac, Frank Sinatra crooning on the cassette player.
    “There’s my beautiful girl with the beautiful mind. How was the dance?”
    When I struggled to find words to tell Dad how the dance was, I finally said, “I think I’m being buttered up to do a science project for Joe. I thought maybe he liked me, but that would be dumb. Why would he like me?”
    Dad laughed and squeezed my knee with his giant basketball hand. I tossed it back to him. “Oh, Missy,” he said. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just happy that if a boy is using you, it’s for your smarts, not something else . . . If you know what I mean.”
    “Dad!” I shrieked.
    “Missy,” he said, now serious, his hand returning to my knee. “I’ll tell you why a guy would like you. Because you’re quick and funny, and smart and witty. And that mug of yours is pretty adorable, too.”
    That night, as I lay in bed, I replayed the splendor of the night. Slow dancing with Joe, the kiss at the end of the night, the offer that left me questioning his motives.
    Monday after school, Joe and I met in the library. I approached him cautiously, businesslike, as though the other night hadn’t happened. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t clueless about his intentions, that I understood he wanted help with his homework, and that dancing with me was the price he felt he needed to pay.
    “What’s up?” I said casually, like I’d heard the cool kids say upon greeting one another.
    “Hi, Missy,” he said sweetly, not at all matching my aloof tone. “Friday night was fun.”
    “It was okay.” My breathing was uneven.
    Joe looked down at his notebook, as though I had hurt him.
    “So you’re researching promethium,” I said.
    “Yeah, and you picked neptunium, right?” When Joe opened his notebook and scanned his pages and pages of slanted, microscopic boy-handwriting, I choked back my tears, because what I had thought was wrong. Or so it appeared. He had already done quite a bit of research. Joe wasn’t using me; he really just wanted to study together.
    “Friday night was really fun,” I said. When Joe looked into my eyes, I felt as though we belonged to each other. Try as I might to focus on the elements and their chemical reactivity, I was having a hard time extinguishing the chemical reaction that was heating my chest and pulling at my center of gravity. I just wanted to reach for him.
    After high school, we went off to college. Joe chose a military college three hours from William & Mary, where I opted to go. Time and distance and circumstance pulled us apart gradually, the way a shoreline disappears at high tide, until we no longer had any contact. The years passed. One day Joe sent me a friend request on Facebook. He was married with three children. They lived in Jersey. He was a marine, now retired from the service, working as a security consultant. His wife, a brown-haired beauty who could have passed for his sister, looked adoringly at him, as the three children balanced on their laps. I accepted his friend request and now peeked into their lives, wondering what it would have been like, to be married, to be a mom. To have a different kind of life.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    JOE
    I found Kate crying again last night. I had just finished watching an hour-long show on FX—an edgy military drama soaked in gratuitous violence and debauchery. Not that I turned it off. I should have. The last thing I needed was more grotesque images to invade my brain while I tried to sleep. I had enough tape from Afghanistan to last me a lifetime. I should do myself a favor and watch Happy Days before bed from now on. I used to love Happy Days .
    I had just clicked off the television and hobbled with my crutch to the back door to let our dog