Chapter 1

Early in '93, my fiancé Lloyd Delgado got a special transfer into the national laboratory in River City.

I gave up my own chance to stay in the city as a teacher and went back to our small town to care for his aging mother.

But in six full years, I never once got a travel pass to visit him in the city.

That day, Lloyd's mother had a sudden stroke. Clutching the hospital's emergency notice, I traveled through the night to River City.

For the first time, the ever composed Lloyd lost his footing in front of me.

He blocked the laboratory door, lowered his voice, and told me to leave at once.

"Janice Swanson, you came to River City without registering ahead. It'll hurt my career."

"Don't listen to what people say. Scarlett Henson and I are only work colleagues. In the lab, background matters, and I need the resources her family has."

"Go back and look after Mom first. Once I get the reward for the core project, I'll bring you over."

I looked at his tired, sincere face, and the last of my resentment drained away.

The next day, I bought a ticket home by myself.

It stayed that way until six months later, when his mother died.

I went to handle closing out her records, and found that in Lloyd's marital status column it said married.

So all these years, he had left me in the small town to serve his mother in his place.

It was so he and his wife could live an easy life in River City.

I wiped away my tears, turned around, and bought a ticket heading south.

This time, I didn't tell a soul.

1

In the column recording Lloyd's household registration change.

The marriage date was three years ago.

That was exactly the time he'd said the project had hit its make-or-break stage, when he went months without a single phone call home.

So the "resources" he said he needed weren't some passing pretense.

They were a marriage certificate already stamped with an official seal.

I thought of years ago, when he'd gripped my hand at the train station before he left.

His palm was slick with sweat, his eyes frighteningly bright.

He said, "Janice, once I get my feet under me in River City, I'll come back and marry you in style."

I believed him.

For that one promise, I gave up the chance to stay in the state capital as a permanent teacher.

I hauled my luggage back to this remote little town and moved into his family's leaky old house.

His mother had been bedridden for years. Every day I got up before dawn to boil water, brew her medicine, feed her, and wipe her down.

From the constant lye water and herbs, my hands turned rough and cracked, the color of the medicine stains lodged in the creases where no washing could reach.

The neighbors talked about me behind my back.

"That Janice girl is a real fool. No title, no standing, and she waits on a cripple all day long."

"The Delgado boy's a big official in the city now. You think he'd still want her?"

Every time I heard it, I gritted my teeth and pretended I hadn't.

I trusted Lloyd. I trusted he wasn't the kind of man to forget what he owed.

My father had loved me most of all while he lived. When he was gravely ill, I was caring for Lloyd's mother and didn't even make it in time to see him one last time.

On his deathbed, my father took a neighbor's hand and had them pass word to me: "Tell Janice not to wrong herself too much."

And still I stayed on at the Delgado house, keeping watch over that empty, drifting promise.

The night before Mamie Delgado died, she was already delirious.

She clutched my sleeve tight with that withered hand, cloudy tears running down her wrinkled cheeks.

She mumbled, "Janice... Lloyd... the wedding..."

At the time I only thought her illness had muddled her, and I gently soothed her: "Mom, once Lloyd's done with this busy stretch, he'll bring me into the city."

Now that I look back, those tears of hers weren't grief at parting with me at all.

They were guilt.

She had known all along that her son had married another woman in the city.

She'd taken my care and helped her son keep it hidden from me.

I went back to the old Delgado house.

The room still hung heavy with a smell of medicine that wouldn't leave.

I walked to Mamie's bed and lifted that pillow with its moldy reek.

Underneath it lay a rusted iron box.

I opened it. Inside, besides the money orders Lloyd had mailed home, there was a photograph.

Half of it had been cut away, leaving only Lloyd and a woman in a wool overcoat.

The woman was very young, fair-skinned, smiling brilliantly.

They stood side by side at the door of the River City National Laboratory, wearing matching silver wedding bands.

At the very bottom of the box, pressed flat, was a letter that had never been sent.

The writing was crooked and unsteady. It was Mamie's hand.

"Janice, stop waiting for Lloyd. He has a family already. What he owes you, I can't repay for him."

I stared at that line, and my tears finally struck the paper, blurring the word "repay" into a smear of black ink.

So in all the world, I was the only fool.

I took out my key and packed everything of mine in the house into an old leather suitcase.

As for the old furniture I'd bought with my own hands, I called the scrap collector and sold all of it cheap.

That night, I carried the suitcase toward the train station.

Passing the public phone booth in town, my steps paused.

I stepped inside and dialed that number I knew by heart.

It connected quickly, and Lloyd's somewhat weary voice came through: "Hello, who is this?"

I didn't speak.

He seemed to sense something. His voice grew hurried. "Janice? Is that you? How's Mom? I'll definitely make time to come back next month."

I looked at the pitch-black night outside the window and said quietly, "Lloyd, there's no need to come back."

He froze. "What do you mean? Handle Mom's arrangements for now. I really can't get away here..."

I hung up on him.

I walked out of the booth, tore the slip of paper with his number into shreds, and threw it into the wind.

Lloyd, it's too late.