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That night, over dinner Julia shared every glowing detail about her day They put Ben to bed, then o or leaving If he didn’t think, if he just let hio and Chris didn’t even exist

And he liked—no, needed—it that way

THE NEXT DAY, Jesse headed to the luet the basic green/gray asphalt tiles for next to nothing, but for some reason he couldn’t walk past the cedar shake It sood on its pallets and he could picture how nice that yellow house would look with the wooden tiles

Mom would have loved that

It would take about double the time and work to install the cedar, which was ludicrous considering he needed to get to San Diego But, he reasoned with hiher price when he sold the house, so the effort would be worth it

He’d told Julia he was leaving Maybe not last night as he’d intended, but she knew that, had known fro part

Still, Julia didn’t have the ile, so…in need despite all the strides to independence she’d taken His sense of responsibility wouldn’t let hiht now

Bullshit, the voice of reality said You just can’t walk away from her At least have the balls to admit it

A teenager with bad skin approached him “Can I help you?”

“I’ll take three flats of the cedar,” he said and walked away before he could change his mind

“Delivered?”

“I can take theet started on this folly

Later that afternoon, Jesse pushed hiainst the chimney that wasn’t attached to any fireplace He stretched out some of the kinks in his back and wondered if he should bite the bullet and buy one of those couns It would make his life so damn much easier

“Excuse me”

Jesse ignored the voice and picked up his hammer, set another row of nails in between his teeth and bent back to work

“Excuse me! You, up on the roof”

Jesse peered over the eaves to see a guy wearing a suit and tie, standing beside a fancy SUV