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It was what he had hoped when he had decided to let her go. Even he wanted more. “It's too late for us.” Andy knew she was talking about Joe. “Our timing is pretty grim. He's engaged.”

“I remember when everyone thought he was dead, and you still believed he was alive. You've been dead for two years, Kate. You need a life again. All you've ever wanted was to be with him.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Crazy, isn't it? I always did. The first time I met him, I was hooked. It was the damnedest thing. Like some giant fishhook in my gut. We never seem to be able to cut the line.”

“Then don't. Swim back to him. Do whatever you have to do, but follow your dream.” He had, but the dream he had followed had belonged to someone else, and he knew it always would. She had always been Joe's and never his.

“Thank you,” she said, and he bent down to kiss her cheek.

“Get some sleep,” he said, and left her room.

She lay in bed thinking about Andy after he left her room that night. It was strange how little she felt, not sadness, not relief. She felt nothing at all, and hadn't for two years. She had been numb. She thought of what he'd said to her about Joe, and wondered if it was even possible anymore. Follow your dream… swim … fly… go to him… She smiled as she turned over and went to sleep. It was hard to believe that the dream would ever be hers. It had always been just out of reach. And it was again. He was engaged, or maybe even married by then. She felt she had no right to turn his life upside down again. Whatever he had now, he had a right to it. And it was odd to realize that in the end she had lost them both, Andy and Joe. Whatever Andy said now, out of guilt, she knew it was too late to call Joe. Her gift to him this time was to let him go."

"Andy took her to the hospital when the baby came. It was a little girl this time. They named her Stephanie. And two weeks later, Andy moved out. It was surprisingly unemotional. Everything between them had been dead for so long that neither of them felt anything but relief.

Kate left for Reno with both children and a nurse when Stephanie was four weeks old. She stayed for six weeks, and came back on the train, divorced, on December 15th. She had been legally married to Andy for three and a half years, and in reality only for one. She heard from a friend that Andy was going out with someone else by then, and supposedly madly in love. She hoped he was. They had both been lonely for long enough. She wished for him that he would marry again and have more kids. He deserved a lot better than she'd given him, although they both loved Stephanie and Reed. He was going to see them every Wednesday afternoon, and alternate weekends. It had all been so neatly and quietly done, as though it had never happened at all. Now that it was over, it seemed like a dream. Her parents mourned the marriage far more than either she or Andy did. They had never fully accepted or understood why it died.

A week after they got back from Reno, she took Reed to buy a Christmas tree, and she felt like herself for the first time in years. They sang Christmas carols as they walked along, and when they got to the lot on the corner, Reed picked an enormous Christmas tree. She was telling the men where to deliver it, as Reed jumped up and down clapping his hands, when she saw someone get out of a car with his head down in the cold. It had just started to snow. He was wearing a hat and a dark coat, and she knew it was him even before he turned around, and as soon as he did, he saw her. It was Joe. He stopped and then smiled at her. They hadn't talked on the phone in months, or seen each other in two years.

As he walked toward her, she smiled in spite of herself. Destiny. There he was. Just seeing him reminded her of the magic they had always shared. Their paths crossed and then disappeared again, separately, and then suddenly there he would be. At the barbecue, on the ship, at the ball when she was seventeen. It had been twelve years since then. And just seeing him brought back the dream.

“Hello, Kate.” He had come to buy a Christmas tree. She didn't even know where he was anymore. California, New York. Somewhere else. She hadn't called or written to him. They had put each other through enough two years before. It was done, she had told herself. If nothing else, she owed him peace. But some power or force had intervened, and brought him back to cross her path yet again.

“Hello, Joe.” She smiled at him. It was so good to see him in spite of everything. He looked the same. And her heart ached at the sight of him.

“How's your life these days?” There was a lot he wanted to know, but it seemed awkward to ask with a lot of people milling around, and Reed standing next to her. He was old enough to understand what they said.

Kate laughed, remembering Andy's words before he left. Tell him. Call him. Find him. He had found her. She decided to jump in.