I climb from the car, shaking my head. Why doesn’t Jack share the details of his personal life with me the way he expects me to share mine with him?

He opens the front door for me, smiling as he waits for me to enter. Conversation over. Well, maybe we’ve both talked enough serious shit for one day.

Jack goes in one direction to put my suitcases in my room and I make my way through the rooms, poking my head in here and there, looking for Maria. I pause at the entry to the family room.

Maria is sitting on the couch, folding laundry and watching her Spanish soap opera. Well, it’s noon. Even my coming home today doesn’t change her routine. Her eyes are fixed on the set, and she doesn’t even notice I’m here.

“Well, this is anticlimactic,” I say. “Not even a hello.”

Maria whirls on the sofa, and her round matronly face brightens with excitement.

“Chica. You are home. ¿Cómo está mi niña?”

Mi niña. My girl. Warmth moves through my veins. I feel really home, finally; I’ve now heard mi niña from Maria. I’m home.

“I’ve missed you, Maria.” I drop down on the couch beside her and she quickly pulls me into her arms. “I’m so glad to see you.”

She lays a palm on my cheek. “I am glad to see you, Chrissie. You look good. Everything going well for you?”

I nod, sinking down to sit cuddled up against her. “I’m doing great.”

She nods in a serious way, as if the important matters have been taken care of, and then starts folding the laundry again. I bite back my laughter.

“¿Tu novio no está aquí?”

I stare at her and frown. Nope, can’t translate that one.

“What does novio mean?”

Maria arches a brow. “Ah, you forget your Spanish, Chrissie. You have been from home too long. It means fiancé. Boyfriend.” She stares at me with wide eyes and makes a funny face. “Neil.”

I laugh. “I don’t hear a lot of Spanish these days. I’m surrounded by surfer boys and Brits.”

“So where is Neil?” she asks, in that nosy mother sort of way.

“Working. He wanted to come with me, but he couldn’t. He told me to ask if you would make enchiladas to take back to him. We can’t get good Mexican food on the east coast.”

“I like him.” She nods, takes a fast peek at the action on the TV, and then glances back at me. “He is a good boy. Remind me, Chrissie. I’ll make tamales just for him. You can take those back. They’ll travel better.”

My brows hitch up as I pull back from her. “Tamales, huh? You don’t even make tamales for me when I ask for them. Jeez, you are such a pushover for a cute guy.”

Maria gives me a stern look, but her cheeks flush a tad. “You are so full of it.”

I smile. “I’m glad you like Neil. I couldn’t date him if you didn’t.”

She rolls her eyes. “Chrissie does what Chrissie wants to do.”

“I’m not that bad.”

Maria tilts her head to the side and gives me the look.

“Maria! Stop it. You’re going to hurt my feelings and I haven’t been home five minutes.”

She pats the sofa beside her. “Sit down. Watch our program with me, and help me finish my work.”

I grab a towel from the basket. We sit together, eyes glued on the set, neatly stacking folded laundry on the coffee table. I come home and Maria puts me to work. Some things never change.

Maria shuts off the set, stands up, grabs the empty laundry basket from the couch and puts the piles of towels in it.

She points. “Carry that for me, Chrissie. I need to put it away.”

My eyes widen in surprise. She’s never asked me to do anything except help her fold, but then she’s not as young as she used to be.

I follow her down the back hallway to the linen closet, holding the basket until she’s emptied it again.

“Put it on the floor and come to my room with me,” she orders.

I set down the basket and follow her. When I enter her bedroom she is rummaging through her armoire. She turns back to face me and my heart drops to the floor.

“I did not keep this from you, chica. It came last week. I did not know how to send it to you, but I kept it because I knew you were coming home.”

She sets the envelope in my trembling hands and tears burn behind my lids. There is no return address, but I don’t need one to know who it is from. I recognize the handwriting with an instant jab to my heart.

I stare at it. Ten months. A single letter. Alan wouldn’t return a phone call, but he sent this. I get a single letter ten months later, probably just a briefly penned note to tell me to buzz off since I pathetically called him repeatedly after we first broke up.

I can’t feel my arms. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t breathe. I desperately want to open it. No, Chrissie, no. Be smart.

I shove it back at Maria. “Rip it up. Throw it away. And if he sends more don’t give them to me.”

I leave the room before Maria can answer me and rush down the hallway to my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and stand in the middle of the room, staring, trying to figure out if I should run back in there for Alan’s letter.

Do I retrieve it before Maria can destroy it? Or is it better never to read it?

I breathe in. I breathe out. Slowly I become aware that the trembling in me has stopped. I’m surprised by how quickly it left me. I’ve never before driven away the Alan internally messy so quickly. I feel myself easing into comfortable order again. It’s a new feeling, really good, and I know with a certainty that not reading his letter was the best thing for me.

OK, Alan panic attack over. But new panic is here to replace it.

What the hell do I do alone in Santa Barbara for two weeks? Rene’s not here. Neil’s not here. I don’t have any friends, not really. There’s Jack. But I can’t exactly hang exclusively with my dad all day. How pathetic that would be.

Shit, Chrissie, why didn’t you think of this before you came home? I’m never more alone than when I am in Santa Barbara, which is so bizarre because this is home.

I drop to my knees beside my suitcase and rummage through my clothes for my bathing suit. I quickly change, grab a towel, shove some things into a small carry tote, and head for the beach.

Sun. I’ll lie in the sun. Sun makes everything less awful.

I cut across the lawn to the steps built into the cliffs. I look in both directions. No one. Perfect. Not even Jack.

I trot down the steps and settle in a lush spot not littered with driftwood and seaweed. After spreading out my towel, I lie down on my stomach.

My mobile phone rings and I tense, wondering if it’s Neil and if this is how the two weeks apart are going to be, him calling me endlessly.

Then I chide myself for the snotty thought as I search in my bag for the phone, and I admit that I’m already kind of missing him. Not kind of, Chrissie. You do miss Neil.

Less than a day apart from him and I really miss him. I didn’t expect that. Nor did I expect it to be a surprisingly nice feeling. It’s so unlike me, but I’ve had two uncharacteristic nice feelings in a single day: not completely melting down over Alan and missing Neil.

I flip my phone open and hold it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Chrissie, I’m not bothering you, am I?”

Michelle Stanton. A smile covers my face because Neil’s mother is such a sweetheart and I’m more than a little thrilled that she called.

I sit up. “You’re not bothering me. I’m just lying out on the beach.”

“You take calls on the beach?”

She laughs and I shake my head. She makes that sound like the strangest thing in the world to her.

“Where I go, my mobile goes. You raised a worrier, Michelle. If Neil can’t reach me by phone he starts to call nonstop.”

She sighs.

“Yes, that boy is a worrier. Always has been. I haven’t the first clue why he’s that way. I think Neil was just born a worrier. But it’s sort of sweet that he cares so much that it’s important to him to talk to you, isn’t it?”