laughing, mouth open, head tilted back. Ecstatically, irrevocably happy.
They’d both gone to Auburn University in Alabama, Paul because it had one of the top architectural programs in the country, Claire because it was far enough away from home to be meaningful. That she ended up with a boy who had grown up less than twenty miles from her childhood home was just further proof that no matter how far you ran, you always ended up back where you started.
Paul had been a breath of fresh air compared to the other boys Claire dated in college. He was so sure of himself, so sure of what he wanted to do and where he was going. His undergrad had been paid by a full ride scholarship and graduate school was taken care of by the money he inherited when his parents died. Between a small life insurance policy, proceeds from the sale of the farm, and the out-of-court settlement from the trucking company that had owned the eighteen-wheeler that killed the Scotts, there was more than enough money for tuition and living expenses.
Still, Paul had worked the entire time he was in school. He had grown up on a working farm, where he was expected to do chores at the crack of dawn. In ninth grade, he’d won a scholarship to a military boarding school in southeast Alabama. Between the two home lives, routine had been drilled into his system. He was incapable of being idle. One of his jobs during college was at Tiger Rags, a university bookstore. The other was as a tutor in the math lab.
Claire was an art history major. She had never been good at math. Or at least she’d never tried to be, which was the same thing. She could vividly remember the first time she’d sat down with Paul and gone over one of her assignments.
“Everyone knows you’re beautiful,” he’d told her, “but no one knows that you’re clever.”
Clever.
Anybody could be smart. It took a special somebody to be clever.
Claire returned the photograph to its spot. She sat down at Paul’s desk. She rested her arms where his arms used to rest. She closed her eyes and tried to find a trace of his scent. She took a deep breath until her lungs ached, then slowly sighed it out. She was almost forty years old. She didn’t have any children. Her husband was dead. Her best friends were probably drinking margaritas at the bar down the street and gossiping about how washed out she had looked at the funeral.
Claire shook her head. She had the rest of her life to think about how lonely she was. What she needed to do right now was get through today. Or at least the next hour.
She picked up the telephone and dialed Adam Quinn’s cell phone number. Paul had known Adam longer than he’d known Claire. They’d been dorm-mates their first year at Auburn. They’d gotten their architectural degrees together. Adam had been best man at their wedding. More importantly, Adam and Paul tended to use the same people to manage their lives.
He picked up on the first ring. “Claire? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, but only now that she had something concrete to do did she feel that way. “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know who our insurance agent is?”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” He sounded confused, probably because this was the last question he expected from Claire on the day of her husband’s funeral. “Her name is Pia Lorite.” He spelled the last name. “I can text you her info.”
“I don’t have a cell phone,” Claire realized. “The Snake Man took it. I mean, the guy who—”
“I’ll email it to you.”
Claire was about to tell him she couldn’t access her email, either, but then she remembered her iPad. It was an older model. Paul kept threatening to replace it with a laptop and she kept saying it was fine and now she would probably pack it up to take with her in thirty-odd years when she went into a nursing home.
“Claire?” Adam’s voice was muffled. She gathered he was walking into another room. How many phone calls had there been between them where Adam had gone into another room? Half a dozen, maybe.
So meaningless. So stupid.
He said, “Listen, I’m really sorry about this.”
“Thank you.” She felt tearful again, and she hated herself for it because Adam was the last person she should be tearful with.
“I want you to know if you