school with an unchecked enthusiasm he hadn’t experienced since adolescence. He thought of her frequently and sometimes in the strangest of situations—standing in a grocery store while selecting a packet of pork chops, stopped at a traffic light, mowing the lawn. Once or twice, he thought of her as he was taking a shower in the morning, and he found himself wondering about her morning routines. Ridiculous things. Did she eat cereal or toast and jelly? Did she drink coffee or was she more of an herbal tea fan? After a shower, did she wrap her head in a towel as she put her makeup on or did she style it right away?
Sometimes he would try to imagine her in the classroom, standing in front of the students with a piece of chalk in her hand; other times he wondered how she spent her time after school. Though they exchanged small talk every time they met, it wasn’t enough to satisfy his growing curiosity. He didn’t know much about her past at all, and though there were moments when he wanted to ask, he held himself back from doing so for the simple reason that he had no idea how to go about it. “Mainly I had Jonah work on spelling today and he did great,” she might say, and what was Miles supposed to say next? That’s good. And speaking of spelling, tell me—do you wrap your head in a towel after you shower?
Other men knew how to do these things, but damned if he could figure it out. Once, in a moment of courage supplied by a couple of beers, he’d come close to calling her on the phone. He’d had no reason to call, and though he hadn’t known what he would say, he’d hoped that something would strike him, a bolt from the sky that would imbue him with wit and charisma. He’d imagined her laughing at the things he was saying, being positively overwhelmed by his charm. He’d gone so far as to look up her name in the phone book and dial the first three numbers before his nerves got the better of him and he’d hung up.
What if she wasn’t home? He couldn’t dazzle her if she wasn’t even there to answer the phone, and he certainly wasn’t going to have his ramblings recorded on her answering machine for posterity. He supposed he could hang up if the answering machine picked up, but that was a little too adolescent, now, wasn’t it? And what would happen, God forbid, if she was home but was on a date with someone else? It was, he realized, a distinct possibility. He’d heard a few things around the department from some of the other single men who’d finally caught on to the fact that she wasn’t married, and if they knew, then others certainly knew it as well. Word was getting out, and soon, single men would start descending on her, using their wit and charisma, if they already hadn’t.
Good Lord, he was running out of time.
The next time he picked up the phone, he actually got to the sixth number before chickening out.
That night, lying in bed, he wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
On an early Saturday morning in late September, about a month after he’d first met Sarah Andrews, Miles stood in the fields of H. J. Macdonald Junior High School, watching Jonah play soccer. With the possible exception of fishing, Jonah loved to play soccer more than anything, and he was good at it. Missy had always been athletic, even more so than Miles, and from her Jonah had inherited both agility and coordination. From Miles, as Miles would mention casually to anyone who asked, he’d inherited speed. As a result, Jonah was a terror on the field. At that age, Jonah played no more than half a game, since everyone on the team was required to play the same amount of time. Yet Jonah usually scored most, if not all, of the team’s goals. In the first four games, he’d scored twenty-seven times. Granted, there were only three people to a team, goalkeepers weren’t allowed, and half the kids didn’t know in which direction they were supposed to kick the ball, but twenty-seven goals was exceptional. Almost every time Jonah touched the ball, he took it the length of the field and kicked it in the net.
Truly ridiculous, however, was the burst of pride Miles experienced when watching Jonah perform. He