“Was it white?” I asked.

“White?”

“Never mind.” I was suddenly at a loss, back in time. “Thanks for coming to the trial,” I said. She’d been there every day, a sunburned child in faded clothes. At first, my father had refused her the right to be there. Not proper, he’d said. And so she’d walked. Thirteen miles. After that, he’d surrendered.

“How could I not be there?” More tears. “Tell me something else good,” she said.

I searched for something to give her. “You’re all grown up,” I finally said. “You’re beautiful.”

“Not that it matters,” she said blackly, and I knew that she was thinking of what had happened between us at the river, after she’d run from the dock. I could still hear her words: I’m not as young as you think I am.

“You took me by surprise,” I said. “That’s all.”

“Boys are so stupid,” she said.

“I’m a grown man, Grace.”

“And I’m not a child.” Her voice was sharp, as if she’d cut me with it if she could.

“I just didn’t know.”

She rolled onto her side, showed me her back. And I saw it again, saw how badly I’d handled it.

She was barely into the trees before I knew that I had to go after her. She owned a corner of my soul that I’d learned to shy from; a locked place. Why? Because I’d left her. Knowing how it would hurt, I’d gone to a distant place and sent letters.

Empty words.

But I was here now. She was hurting now.

So I ran after her. For a few hard seconds she continued to fly, and the soles of her feet winked brown and pink, then dark red as the trail dipped and she hit damp clay. When she stopped, it was sudden. The bank dropped away beside her, and for an instant it looked like she might take to the river, like she might step left and drop away. But she did not, and the hunted-animal look faded from her eyes in seconds.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“For you to not hate me.”

“Fine. I don’t hate you.”

“I want you to mean it.”

She laughed and it cut, so that when she turned to leave, my hand settled on her shoulder. It was hard and hot, and she stopped when I touched her. She froze, then spun back to me, pressed into me like she could own me. Her hands found the back of my head and she kissed me hard, rocked her body against mine. Her bathing suit was still wet, and the water trapped in it had warmed; I felt it soaking into me.

I took her shoulders, pushed her back. Her face was full of defiance and of something else.

“I’m not as young as you think I am,” she said.

I was undone yet again. “It’s not age,” I told her.

“I knew that you’d come back. If I loved you enough, you’d come back.”

“You don’t love me, Grace. Not like that.”

“I’ve loved you my whole life. All I needed was the courage to tell you. Well, I’m not scared anymore. I’m not scared of anything.”

“Grace-”

Her hands settled on my belt.

“I can show you, Adam.”

I grabbed her hands, grabbed hard and pulled them away. It was all wrong. The words she’d said, the look growing on her face as my rejection sank into her. She tried one more time and I stopped her. She stumbled back. I watched her features collapse. She flung up a hand, then turned and ran, her feet flashing red, as if she was running over broken glass.

Her voice was small. It barely made it over her shoulder. “Did you tell anybody?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“You think I’m a silly girl.”

“Grace, I love you more than anyone else in the world. What does it matter what shape the love is?”

“I think I’m ready to be alone now,” she said.

“Don’t make it like this, Grace.”

“I’m tired. Come see me later.”

I stood, and thought of embracing her again; but she was locked up. So I patted her on the arm, on a place unmarred by contusions, bandages, or needles placed under her skin.

“Get some rest,” I told her, and she closed her eyes. But when I looked back in from the hallway, I saw that she was staring at the ceiling, and that her hands were clenched on the washed-out sheets.

I walked into the diffuse light of another dawn. I had no car, but there was a breakfast joint not too far away. It opened at six, and a couple of cars pulled around back after I’d been waiting a few minutes for the place to open. A metal door slammed against the cinderblock wall, someone kicked a bottle that clattered over concrete. Lights came on and sausage fingers flipped the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

I took a booth by the window and waited for the smell of coffee. The waitress came over after a minute, and the ready smile slid off of her face.

She remembered me.

She took my order, and I kept my eyes on the plaid sleeve of her polyester shirt. It was easier for both of us that way. The old man with the fat fingers recognized me, too. They spoke in whispers by the cash register, and it was clear to me that accused was the same as convicted, even after five years.

The place filled up as I ate: blue-collar, white-collar, a little bit of everything. Most of them knew who I was. None of them spoke to me, and I wondered how much of that came from mixed feelings over my father’s stubbornness and how much came from the belief that I was some kind of monster. I turned on my cell phone, and saw that I had missed three calls from Robin.

The waitress shuffled over and stopped as far away as she could without being obvious. “Anything else?” she asked. I told her no. “Your check,” she said, and put it on the table’s edge. She used her middle finger to push it toward me.

“Thanks,” I said, pretending that I’d not just been flipped off.

“Anytime.”

I sat longer, sipping the last of the coffee, and watched a police cruiser pull up to the curb. George Tallman climbed out of it. He dropped some change into a newspaper machine, then looked up and saw me through the glass. I gave him a wave. He nodded back, then made a call from his cell phone. When he came into the restaurant, he slipped into my booth and put his paper on the table. He held out his hand and I shook it.

“Who’d you call?” I asked.

“Your dad. He asked me to keep an eye out.” He raised an arm to get the waitress’s attention. He ordered a massive breakfast and gestured at my empty coffee cup. “More?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“And more coffee,” he told the waitress, who rolled her eyes.

I studied him there in his uniform, a navy jumpsuit with lots of gold trim and jangling metal; then I looked out the window, saw the big dog sitting upright in the backseat of his car.

“Are you on the canine unit, too?” I asked.

He grinned. “The kids love the dog. Sometimes I take him with me.”

The breakfast came.

“So, you and my dad get along pretty well?” I asked.

George cut his pancakes into neat squares, and laid his knife and fork carefully on the dry edge of the plate. “You know my story, Adam. I come from nothing. Deadbeat dad. On-and-off mom. I’ll never have money or position, but Mr. Chase has never looked down on me or acted like I wasn’t good enough for his daughter. I’d do anything for your father. Guess you should know that up front.”

“And Miriam?” I asked.

“People think I’m into Miriam for the money.”

“There’s always the money,” I said.

“We can’t pick who we love.”

“So, you do love her then?”

“I’ve loved her since high school, maybe longer. I would do anything for Miriam.” His eyes filled with sudden conviction. “And she needs me. Nobody has ever needed me before.”

“I’m glad that it’s all good.”

“It’s not all good, don’t misunderstand me. Miriam is… well, she’s a fragile woman, but like good china, you know. Fragile, beautiful.” He lifted his heavy hands from the table, held his fingers as if he was holding teacups by tiny handles. “I have to be gentle.” He lowered the pretend cups to the table and lifted his hands, fingers spread. He smiled. “But I enjoy that.”