Free Lost Along the Way by Erin Duffy

was on the right side of the law. Jane had misjudged him. When the time was right, she’d tell Cara that. She’d tell her that she was just trying to protect her, but she had gone about it all wrong. She’d tell her that she should’ve kept her mouth shut and been on time for her engagement party and been supportive and happy for her back then. She’d tell her all of it—if Cara would only give her the chance.
    She dropped her bag on the floor next to the console table just inside the foyer. The spindled staircase circled up from the right of the entry, a grandfather clock ticking away quietly in the corner.
    â€œCome with me,” Cara said. “We can put your bag in the spare room.” Jane followed Cara up the stairs, and tried very hard not to be shocked at how strange it all felt. When they were little they used to walk in and out of each other’s houses without even ringing the doorbell. Now she felt like she was standing in a museum or something, afraid to touch the grass cloth on the wall, nothing feeling familiar. They walked past the master bedroom, and Jane peeked her head in and saw the large leather headboard and stark white sheets, a huge flat-screen TV, and two pairs of men’s lace-up dress shoes sitting in the corner next to a StairMaster. They continued down the hall and passed another bedroom, the bed once again covered in white linens, with a large overstuffed chair sitting in the corner. It wasn’t the color palette that made Jane look twice, it was the assortment of objects on the bureau under the window: a bottle of perfume, a hairbrush, a porcelain dish holding bangle bracelets, and next to it all, in a large silver frame, the old black-and-white picture of Cara’s mother that she recognized from Cara’s childhood home. She also noticed a pair of slippers sitting neatly next to the bed and a book on the nightstand, next to the alarm clock.
    When they got to the end of the hallway, Cara opened a door and ushered Jane into a third white bedroom. This room had a four-poster bed with a white duvet, white curtains on the windows, and a small bureau with a lamp resting on it.
    Before Jane opened her mouth to ask Cara if someone else was staying in the second bedroom, she caught herself. There were no other guests.
    Cara and Reed were sleeping in separate bedrooms.
    It hadn’t occurred to Jane when she decided to parachute into Cara’s life that things might be anything other than perfect. Now she felt like she had stumbled into something Cara didn’t want her to be a part of, and she understood, a little bit at least, why Cara was so angry when she showed up unannounced. I was right! Jane thought. I was right, I was right, I was right! She realized that she shouldn’t feel vindicated by discovering that her friend’s marriage wasn’t perfect, but she couldn’t help it. Oh man, it felt good to know that her instincts weren’t completely wrong. She may have drastically misjudged her own husband, but she had Reed right all along.
    Jane pretended she hadn’t noticed anything. “Thank you so much for this,” she said as she gazed out the window at the backyard. There was a large oak tree in the corner of the property, and for a second, Jane inadvertently smiled. A long time ago, in a life now far, far away, Jane used to climb trees like that in her own backyard. She’d swing from the lower branches and scrape her legs on the bark as she shinnied up the trunk, trying to climb higher than the squirrels running along the limbs with abandon. She’d loved the view—the tops of the houses across the street, the giant hill that led down to the brook running behind the train tracks. It had been a very long time since she’d thought about that.
    â€œIt’s not a problem. Maybe a good night’s sleep will help you find a way out of this mess,” Cara said.
    â€œI doubt it, but it will probably help the