Stepping backward, I blink in surprise as Lisa walks in, setting her suitcase down. As I close the door, I ask her, “What are you doing here?”

“Well… see, I have this little sister who has been ignoring my calls, texts, and emails for two f**king weeks, so I was worried about her.”

“How did you even know I was here?” I ask, astounded that she’s standing in my living room.

“Because I called Randall and he told me what happened. How could you, Moira? How could you go through all of that and not even tell me? Not even let me help you?”

Her voice is laced with chastisement but also a huge dose of sympathy. My lower lip trembles. Then she’s opening her arms to me, and I’m sinking in to them.

I start sobbing loudly on her shoulder as she strokes my back and coos words of comfort to me.

“Let it out, sweetie,” she cajoles. “Let it out.”

And I do… for the first time since Zach left me, I pour out every bit of my heartache and loneliness onto her in the form of tears and a little bit of snot.

When I am finally able to get myself under control, I take a deep breath and pull back from her. She eyes me critically. “God, you’re a hot mess.”

I stare at her a moment, and then we both burst out laughing. I cover my mouth with my hand as the laughter dies down, and Lisa looks at me with soft eyes.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to go get a shower, because damn girl… you stink. Then we’re going to go out to a nice dinner, and you’re going to tell me everything. Okay?”

I nod at her even as a few stray tears leak out of my eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I’m always here for you,” she tells me as she shoos me toward the bathroom.

“The not knowing what happened to Zach is killing me,” I tell Lisa as I pick at the chicken primavera on the plate in front of me. The food isn’t holding much interest, but I had managed to down two glasses of wine before our dishes came, and I was pleasantly buzzed.

“Of course that would be worrying you,” she sympathizes. “But you’re also battling a broken heart that he’s gone. You have a lot on your plate, baby.”

Nodding my head, I spear a chunk of chicken with my fork and tentatively put it in my mouth. Oh, damn… that’s good. After I chew and swallow, I stab another piece of chicken, waving my fork in the air at her. “He just left so suddenly… and he wouldn’t talk to me other than to say he wasn’t coming back.”

Misery overwhelms me and I let the fork fall from my hand, where it clatters loudly on my plate.

“How long do you think you’ll be sunk in this misery, because frankly… it’s a little annoying?”

“Excuse me?” I jerk backward, and anger rises within me.

“Oh, come on, Moira. You’re not one to sit around and wallow in pity. Your man left you… yeah, that sucks. He could be in danger, and it’s worrying you silly. I get it. But my baby sister is a dynamo. She’d never sit back and just wait around for bad news to arrive.”

“What in the hell do you think I should do?” I ask bitterly. “It’s not like I can call him on his cell phone.”

“Well, no shit, Sherlock. So get off your ass and go find out what happened.”

“Go find out what happened?” I ask stupidly.

“Listen… if he’s dead, you need to know. If he’s not, you need to know. So go find out.”

“You mean go to Caraica?”

“Why not? You’re a freaking anthropologist. You’ve been to Amazonia before and you know how to get there. You have the resources at your disposal, the money with which to do it, because I know Randall will pay for the trip, and you have nothing but time on your hands. Unless you’re going to go ahead and go back to teaching in the fall?”

Shaking my head, I reach over and grab my wineglass, knowing I’m going to need more fortification. “No, the university has already arranged for a temporary substitute for my classes. I’ll be starting back in the winter.”

“Then there’s nothing holding you back,” she asserts.

“Except the fact that Zach left me. He didn’t want me to go with him, even though I offered. He didn’t even say he was sorry… or that he’d miss me… or that he wished things were different. He barely said a word to me,” I grumble, now aiming my anger at Zach.

“Come on, Moira. Think about what the guy was going through. He’d just found out his home had been attacked and his friends had died. You know he was struggling with the desire to return home anyway. You know, deep down, that it was impossible for him to even concentrate on anything except his need to get back to his people. So give him a break.”

Her words are hard, but they ring with truth. I’ve been so immersed in my own tortured feelings that I had given little credence to what Zach had been going through when he got the terrible news. All I could think about was holding on tight to him, and that did me little good.

“I don’t know,” I hedge, because even though I’m terrified to discover that Zach may be dead, I’m probably just as fearful to find him alive and unhappy to see me. He made a firm decision that he was returning permanently, his last words to me that he wasn’t going to come back to me burning an acid-like hole in my heart. “Maybe I just need to let it go.”

Lisa snorts, and my eyes rise to hers. I ask angrily, “What? What’s with the passive aggressiveness?”