Page 71 of The Long Way Found

Luke shrugged once.

She put her hand briefly on his arm.

"It's a great party," he said. "You did an amazing job."

"You good?"

"Yeah."

He was not entirely good. He was forty years old at his own birthday party, watching the door like a teenager, aware of how ridiculous that was and unable to stop.

He was spinning Patty under his arm, and she was laughing, light on her feet, when his phone vibrated.

It was "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Half the room was singing along. “Ba-de-ahh, say, do you remember…?”

He kept dancing. He held it together until the song ended, then excused himself with a strained smile and walked out into the hallway.

Nervously, sure who was texting and what the text said, but still hoping—hoping—he was wrong, Luke looked at his phone.

Jack's name was on the screen.

“I can't get away. I'm really sorry. Have a great night.”

He read it once. Then he called.

It rang four times and went to voicemail.

Luke stood in the hallway and looked at the wall till his eyes crossed. The hotel wallpaper had some inoffensive pattern that seemed to animate a bit as he fixed on it. He breathed.

Then he called again.

Voicemail again.

Something hot moved through him, fast and clean, and he let it move through.

He called a third time, knowing he would get voicemail. He needed one more irrefutable point of evidence before he could force himself to turn this corner with Jack. The one that was now unavoidable.

He put the phone in his pocket.

For a minute, maybe two, he stood still and let himself be furious.

He walked to the storage closet farthest down the hall, found it open, went inside, and screamed as loud as he could into a stack of fresh towels in anger more than pain.

That fucking asshole. That was the thought. He didn't dress it up. He let it be exactly what it was, flaming mad in a janitor’s closet on his fortieth birthday.

Because this was what Jack did, the presence, the warmth, the full-beam attention, and then the withdrawal. The choosing of the next necessary thing. He'd felt it building the way you feel the weather changing, and then deliberately looked away.

And wasn't that the other thing? The pattern Suze had pointed at more than once. The way Luke found a good man and waited for the floor to fall out, and then behaved in ways that made sure it did. The way he kept enough distance made the abandonment inevitable.

But his father leaving. How was that his fault? He was 12, and he could still remember sitting on his bed, still in uniform after a Little League game, when he hit two home runs and couldn’t wait to rush home and share the news. But no one was there.

And Jack leaving the first time? No one’s fault, right?

Except it started Luke on an endless path of casting every decent guy he dated in the role of Person Who Would Eventually Leave.

And here he was, having done it again.

He thought about that Christmas twenty-four years ago, waiting. Jack had said he'd come home for the holiday break. He hadn't. Spring break, nothing. Then the calls stopped, and Luke had told himself he was fine. He would spend years actually getting there.