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following the path He has laid out for you. A path of righteousness. It is the devil that tempts you now. The devil makes you feel lust for a man who is not your husband.” Father O’Hara does his best to guide her, though Emma knows he can show her the path but he can’t force her to walk it. What she does with his counsel is between her and the Lord.
    Emma says her penance, and leaves the church just as lonely and confused as when she entered.
       
    It’s raining. Eric drives along the slick roads with no aim, looking for a distraction. He passes Sean’s house, but he can’t go in. He won’t be able to keep himself from flirting with Sean’s fiancée. He’s thought of a million ways to fuck her since he met her, and his almost nonexistent will won’t allow that scenario to end well. He needs a hobby. He considers everything from buying a bike to adopting a dog. He passes a liquor store and there’s his answer.
    Eric drives with his brand new copilot: a large bottle of red wine that rests on the seat beside him. He pulls onto his street. The sheets of heavy rain obscure his view of the old white house. He stops at the top of his driveway and stares at her lonely window. The light is yellow and warm. A beacon in the storm. A small salvation. Down his dark, muddy driveway, the trees hang low, almost forbidding entry. All that waits at the end is a cell, a cage. Isolation. No comfort, no way to escape his thoughts or to rein in his sick desire. He looks back at her house and convinces himself she must live alone. There’s no ring on her finger and one car in her driveway. He grabs the wine and runs out into the rain.
       
    The sound of the falling rain is a choir, steady and melodic. It slaps against the window and Emma imagines it’s a baptism. There’s enough rain to wash her sins away. She stares at it as she takes the roast out of the oven. The wind picks up and makes the old house creak. It tosses her wind chime around with brutal force. The chime bangs against itself, crying out a plea to be saved from the savage gusts.
    Emma hears it and thinks of her neighbor. She tries to steel herself against impure thoughts as she carves the roast. Instead, she thinks of all the dinners she cooked and ate with Aaron. She tries to think of the happy times. The times that he said, “Thank you” and “Tastes great, babe”. She tries not to think of the times they ate in silence, the times they had no appetite.
    Thump. Thump. Thump.
    Emma jumps and wipes her hands on the dishrag as she walks to the door. She can feel who waits on the other side and her breath leaves her. The rain continues to punish the house and the wind whistles as she opens the door. Against the night and the weather, his eyes look different. Less tortured, less ravenous. They almost look pained, and her heart clenches at the sight of him. He’s soaked. The rain has caused his black shirt to cling to him and water drips from the darkened locks on his head. A gust of wind blows his scent toward her. She can smell his skin, woodsy and fresh.
    “What do you want?” Her words are harsh and they leave her mouth before her brain has a chance to filter them. She regrets them in an instant.
    He shifts his feet, the cockiness she has so often witnessed now absent. He extends his hand, offering the bottle of wine to her. “I thought I would apologize—”
    As he speaks, the wind chime clangs against itself, interrupting him, as if on cue. Their eyes lock, thunder booms in the distance, and then a strange thing happens—Emma laughs. Laughter bursts forth from her and she puts her hand to her stomach to try to contain it.
    She hears the sound of Eric’s laughter joining her own. “That thing has a personality of its own, I guess.” He side-eyes the wind chime.
    “Yes. I guess it does.” She wipes a tear from her eye as the last tremors of her laughing fit roll through her.
    She dares to look at him again and is surprised to discover the person