Chapter 1

On the night of our third wedding anniversary, Stan James left me at an abandoned tollbooth in a downpour so he could go pick up his first love.

I clutched his sleeve and begged him not to go.

He pried my hand off.

"She can't manage without me right now. Don't put yourself in the same league as her."

Forty minutes later, a truck lost control and plowed into the tollbooth.

I woke from the coma remembering my parents, remembering my friends, remembering all twenty-eight years of my life.

Everything except Stan James.

He came to me holding our marriage certificate, eyes red, and told me we'd been childhood sweethearts for fifteen years and husband and wife for three.

Later, when he saw me smile at another man, he stood at the far end of the corridor and, all at once, his tears fell.

But he could spend every year that followed and never once win back a single turn of my head.

————————

Rain hammered the windshield.

I fit an old cassette tape back into its case.

The words on the cover had faded, and only one line was still legible.

For Viola Delgado, age ten.

It was the last recording my father ever left me.

It had taken me six months to separate the tape where the damp had fused it together. Tonight only the final restoration was left, and Stan had promised to come with me to the center to hear the finished version.

Tonight was also when he'd promised to get Agatha Winfield out of our lives.

We'd just cleared the North Loop overpass when his phone rang.

The screen showed a single word: "Agatha."

Stan glanced at me and didn't answer right away.

I gripped the tape case tighter.

"Take it."

The call connected. Agatha's crying came through in broken pieces under the rain.

"Stan, the power's out at the theater."

"I'm locked in backstage, my phone's almost dead, I can't breathe."

Stan's hands clenched hard on the wheel.

"Where's your assistant?"

"I can't reach her."

"Don't be scared. I'm coming."

By the time he hung up, the car had already turned toward Riverside Theater.

I watched the red line on the navigation stretch long again.

"Call the police first."

"She's claustrophobic. She can't wait for a patrol car."

"We can go together."

Stan was silent for two seconds.

"She's not stable right now. Seeing you would only make it worse."

For three months now, he'd always had a reason like this.

Agatha had just moved back to the States and couldn't stomach hotel food, so he brought her congee in the middle of the night.

Agatha's wrist hurt from rehearsals, so he canceled my center's opening ceremony to take her to the hospital.

Agatha couldn't sleep when anyone brought up their breakup back then, so when they met, it was better if I didn't call.

Every time, there was a reason.

Every reason mattered more than I did.

I turned my face to the window and looked at my own reflection in the glass.

"Stan, tonight is our third wedding anniversary."

His brow pressed down low.

"I know."

"You also know my father died in rain exactly like this."

"Viola, she's locked in a dark room. You're sitting safe in a car."

His voice was clipped, the ranking already settled in his head.

"Stop turning everything into a comparison."

I said nothing more.

The road ahead was sealed off by floodwater. A traffic officer waved a light stick, routing cars to detour through the old tollbooth.

Stan checked the time again and again, and the car went faster.

Agatha sent another voice message.

She was crying his name.

When he finished listening, he slammed on the brakes.

That tollbooth on the roadside had been out of use for years. A single white light with a bad connection was all that lit the canopy.

"Wait for me here."

I thought I'd misheard.

"What?"

"The theater's right up ahead, twenty minutes round trip at most. Taking you the long way is too slow. I'll grab her and come straight back."

Outside, the rain came down like a wall.

Most of the tollbooth's glass was broken. There were no shops nearby, and no gas station still open.

I turned the phone screen toward him.

"Six percent battery left. You can't get a ride out here."

Stan opened the glovebox, pulled out an umbrella, and pushed it at me.

"You can stay dry in the booth."

I didn't take it.

"I'm not getting out."

He looked at me, and the urgency in his eyes turned to impatience.

"Agatha's already having an attack."

"She has an assistant. She has theater staff. She can call the police."

"But she'll only let me come!"

The car went quiet.

I've known Stan James for fifteen years.

The year I was fourteen, my father went missing in a flood, and it was Stan who sat with me outside the police station, holding me, telling me that no matter how hard it rained after that, he would never leave me alone.

The year I was twenty-two, when Agatha left without a word and he drank until his stomach bled, it was me who stayed at his bedside.

At twenty-five, he asked me if I wanted to get married.

He said we'd known each other too long, that we could never really be pulled apart.

And I actually took those words for love.

I looked at the man in front of me and suddenly wanted to know: all those years, when he was holding me, who was he really seeing.

My voice shook, and my hand slowly loosened on the tape case.

"Stan, I'm asking you one last time."

"Are you going to leave me here?"

He avoided my eyes, got out, and opened my door for me.

"Don't make it sound so dire."

"Twenty minutes. I promise."

Rain poured into the car and soaked half my dress in an instant.

I didn't move.

He bent down and grabbed my hand, hurried and rough.

"Viola, Agatha really can't wait."

He hauled me out of the car, and my shoes went into the standing water.

The umbrella never opened. The wind flipped it inside out.

Stan set my bag and the tape inside the booth and turned to go.

I chased two steps after him and caught his cuff.

"I'm scared."

Saying those two words, I threw away the last of my dignity.

He looked down at my hand.

"You're not a child anymore."

"Agatha's the one who could actually get hurt."

He peeled my fingers loose.

The door shut, and the taillights vanished into the rain.

The white light over the booth flickered twice, then died.

I stood there, afraid even to breathe too hard.

The sound of the water from the year I was fourteen came rushing back into my ears.

My father had pushed me onto the rescue boat and gone back for the tape that held the first cry I made when I was born.

He never came back.

Stan knew what I was afraid of was never the rain.

What I was afraid of was being left behind.

Four percent battery left.

I dialed his number.

The first time, no answer.

The second time, he cut it off.

The third time, he sent a voice message.

"I'm driving, don't be difficult. I'll come back once I've got Agatha."

I held the phone to my ear and listened to it twice.

Rainwater ran down off my chin. I couldn't tell if I was crying.

Far off, a truck came toward me.

Its body swung sideways all at once.

A shrieking horn tore through the rain, and the headlights swept straight into the booth.

I wanted to run, but my legs were pinned in place, as if by the flood from the year I was fourteen.

In the last second, I hugged that tape to my chest.

The glass shattered with a loud crash.

Somewhere far off, someone shouted.

"Get out of the way!"

Then the world went completely black.