The gravel driveway of the Squam lake house is a heat-trap of dust and pine needles. Hadley cuts the engine, the sudden silence of the New Hampshire woods ringing in her ears after the four-hour drive. She doesn’t move yet, her hands still curled around the steering wheel, her eyes fixed on the shimmer of the water through the trees.
Wes is there, standing at the edge of the dock with his back to the house. He looks leaner than he did at Christmas, his dark hair curling wildly against the collar of a grey t-shirt. There is no New York gallerist at his side, no fiancé leaning into his shoulder with a glass of wine. He is alone, the space where a ring should be on his left hand a pale, unadorned mark of absence. He’s really here without her.
He turns slowly, his grey-blue eyes finding her car through the heat haze of the windshield. He doesn't wave; he simply watches her with that heavy, familiar gravity that makes Hadley’s pulse stutter against her ribs. The wooden boards groan as a barefoot figure steps off the dock and begins walking up the lawn directly toward her car window.
