Part 2
The circled date on the back of the honeymoon photograph was April eighteenth.
For almost ten minutes, I stared at it as if the ink might rearrange itself into an explanation.
April eighteenth.
Not our wedding anniversary.
Not Claire’s birthday.
Not the day we met.
Then it came back to me with the cruelty of a door opening in a dark room.
Bar Harbor.
Our third morning in Maine.
I had woken before sunrise and found Claire gone from bed. I’d panicked for half a second before seeing her through the cabin window, standing on the rocks near the water, wrapped in my old college sweatshirt, laughing because the wind kept throwing her hair across her face.
I had gone out barefoot, cursing the cold, and she had pulled me down beside her.
“Promise me something,” she had said.
“Anything.”
“Promise that if we ever lose each other, we’ll come back here before we give up completely.”
I had kissed her hand and said, “We’ll never need to.”
But she had insisted.
“Promise.”
So I did.
And then, like a fool, I forgot.
Claire had not.
Marcus stood across my living room while I packed a bag with shaking hands.
“Maine?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You think she went back there?”
“I think she wanted me to remember that I once knew her.”
His face hardened. “Adam, slow down. This could be a trap.”
I looked at him.
“A trap set by my ex-wife?”
“A trap set by someone who knows you’ll do anything now.”
That stopped me.
“Someone like who?”
Marcus held my gaze for a second too long.
Then he said, “You’re not thinking clearly.”
