Then I printed it.
The next morning, I got into my car.
I drove for almost four hours.
During the entire trip, I kept thinking about Carol.
Why had she known Anna had tried to find me?
Why had she never told me?
Why had Anna disappeared?
And most importantly—
what did my wife have to do with any of it?
When I finally reached Anna’s neighborhood, I drove past her house twice before stopping.
I sat in the car with both hands resting on the steering wheel.
I was suddenly twenty years old again.
Except I wasn’t.
I was sixty-three.
A widower.
A man carrying thirty-six years of marriage behind him.
And I was sitting outside the home of the woman I had once planned to marry.
I almost drove away.
Then I remembered Carol’s voice.
“Find Anna.”
I got out.
I walked to the front door.
My hand hovered over the doorbell.
Then I pressed it.
A few seconds later, the door opened.
And there she was.
Anna.
I knew her immediately.
Her hair was gray now.
There were lines around her eyes.
She was older, just like me.
But her eyes were the same.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
