why he hadn’t called and imagining that something terrible had happened. By the time he came home, she was frantic and Michael was drunk. “You don’t own me” was all he offered by way of explanation, and from there, the argument went downhill fast. They said terrible things in the heart of the moment. Sarah regretted all of them later that night; Michael was apologetic. But after that, Michael seemed more distant, more reserved. When she pressed him, he denied that he felt any differently toward her. “It’ll be okay,” he said, “we’ll get through this.”
Instead, things between them grew steadily worse. With every passing month, the arguments became more frequent, the distance more pronounced. One night, when she suggested again that they could always adopt, Michael simply waved off the suggestion: “My parents won’t accept that.”
Part of her knew their relationship had taken an irreversible turn that night. It wasn’t his words that gave it away, nor was it the fact that he seemed to be taking his parents’ side. It was the look on his face—the one that let her know he suddenly seemed to regard the problem as hers, not theirs.
Less than a week later, she found Michael sitting in the dining room, a glass of bourbon at his side. From the unfocused look in his eyes, she knew it wasn’t the first one he’d had. He wanted a divorce, he began; he was sure she understood. By the time he was finished, Sarah found herself unable to say anything in response, nor did she want to.
The marriage was over. It had lasted less than three years. Sarah was twenty-seven years old.
The next twelve months were a blur. Everyone wanted to know what had gone wrong; other than her family, Sarah told no one. “It just didn’t work out” was all she would say whenever someone asked.
Because she didn’t know what else to do, Sarah continued to teach. She also spent two hours a week talking to a wonderful counselor, Sylvia. When Sylvia recommended a support group, Sarah went to a few of the meetings. Mostly, she listened, and she thought she was doing better. But sometimes, as she sat alone in her small apartment, the reality of the situation would bear down hard and she would begin to cry again, not stopping for hours. During one of her darkest periods, she’d even considered suicide, though no one—not the counselor, not her family—knew that. It was then that she’d realized she had to leave Baltimore; she needed a place to start over. She needed a place where the memories wouldn’t be so painful, somewhere she’d never lived before.
Now, walking the streets of New Bern, Sarah was doing her best to move on. It was still a struggle at times, but not nearly as bad as it once had been. Her parents were supportive in their own way—her father said nothing whatsoever about it; her mother clipped out magazine articles that touted the latest medical developments—but her brother, Brian, before he headed off for his first year at the University of North Carolina, had been a lifesaver.
Like most adolescents, he was sometimes distant and withdrawn, but he was a truly empathetic listener. Whenever she’d needed to talk, he’d been there for her, and she missed him now that he was gone. They’d always been close; as his older sister, she’d helped to change his diapers and had fed him whenever her mother let her. Later, when he was going to school, she’d helped him with his homework, and it was while working with him that she’d realized she wanted to become a teacher.
That was one decision she’d never regretted. She loved teaching; she loved working with children. Whenever she walked into a new classroom and saw thirty small faces looking up at her expectantly, she knew she had chosen the right career. In the beginning, like most young teachers, she’d been an idealist, someone who assumed that every child would respond to her if she tried hard enough. Sadly, since then, she had learned that wasn’t possible. Some children, for whatever reason, closed themselves off to anything she did, no matter how hard she worked. It was the worst part of the job, the only part that sometimes kept her awake at night, but it never stopped her from trying again.
Sarah wiped the perspiration from her brow, thankful that the air was finally cooling. The sun was dropping lower in the sky, and the shadows lengthened. As she