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instrumental break before the second verse. The crowd was dead silent. Maybe they were loving the song. Or maybe they hated it so much, they were sitting on their hands in protest.
    He didn’t care.
    I lock the door upon myself
    Because as the day brightens
    Something in my chest tightens
    Ventricles bubbling, panic attacks
    Only in my solitude can I relax
    Please don’t judge me when I stay inside
    ‘Cause I know in this world there are no free rides
    As Marcus continued, he took a glance stage-right, hoping Charlotte and Miles would be there, cheering him on. The truth was, he needed the assurance of seeing them, because he was feeling the song deeply, and he needed to remind himself that, today anyway, his kids were right there with him.
    Sure enough, there they were with Ryan, and they both waved broadly, huge smiles on their faces. Thank God they don’t understand these sad-sack lyrics , he thought, smiling back. And thank God Bianca hasn’t turned them against me.
    It was normally quite dark backstage, but a mirrored panel from the stage floor was reflecting light directly on the three of them, spinning across their faces like a kaleidoscope. The effect was beautiful and otherworldly, and Marcus didn’t break eye contact, not just because of the kids, but because of Ryan, who had an arm around each of their shoulders. She had to be more than twenty feet away, but Marcus could see the unreal green of her eyes perfectly, and her beauty sent a shock through him.
    Suddenly, he had no idea what the next lyric was. Something about a vent, and a fire escape? But the words were just not coming to him, and he had to stop playing to gather himself.
    “Oops, I told you this was a new one, right?” Marcus said to the audience. “It’s so new, I guess I haven’t even memorized the words yet!”
    Some awkward tittering, and a few encouraging cheers. Then some doofus yelled, “Play ‘Love of My Life’!”
    “I’ll get to that one,” Marcus said. “Promise.” He was thinking, Shut up, dickweed. He was so tired of playing “Love of My Life.”
    He recovered quickly enough, launching into the final verse and chorus of “I Lock the Door” before reverting to acoustic versions of some of his most beloved songs. The audience hadn’t responded to his new, darker direction, but he didn’t care. All he was thinking about was Ryan, that perfect vision of her standing beside his children. The image of her, with Charlotte and Miles, made him feel strong. And for the first time in too long, alive, fully alive.

Chapter Seven
    A Glimmer of Light
    On the bus ride to Portland, Ryan struggled to keep her eyes open. She was exhausted, which wasn’t very convenient, given the fact that Miles was going bonkers, running up and down the aisle, while Charlotte kept pestering her with precocious questions. Sometimes being a nanny felt like being in combat, stuck in the trenches with two tiny soldiers who either didn’t know, or simply disregarded, the rules of engagement.
    “Were you ever married?” Charlotte asked.
    “No.”
    “Have you had lots of boyfriends?”
    “Not really. Just one serious one.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Charlotte, that’s really kind of personal.”
    “Come on, please…” The girl looked as steely and unmovable as the toughest of the journalists who, Ryan had seen firsthand, followed her father around with the sole intent of pulling out of him some unknown detail from his past. “Just tell me.”
    “His name was Nick.”
    “And why aren’t you with him anymore? Did he stop loving you, like Bianca stopped loving Daddy?”
    Ryan still couldn’t get her head around the fact that Charlotte called her mom by her first name (Miles still called her Mommy, thank God for him).
    “It was more complicated than that,” Ryan said.
    “What do you mean? If you still loved him, and he still loved you, you’d still be together, right?”
    “I guess.”
    “Did he just stop loving you, then? Did he