By the time we hit the road the next morning, I still hadn’t heard anything from Chris. Well, he had said he was going to be really busy. I didn’t know exactly what that entailed for someone getting a master’s degree. Did he have finals? If I’d been thinking straight, maybe I would have remembered to look up the academic schedule at ASU online and see when finals even were, but it didn’t really matter now, one way or another. He should at least have time to check his voicemail, and if our schedules didn’t mesh, well, I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’d understand. Or so I told myself.
Aunt Rachel kept up a fairly steady stream of chatter on the drive south, asking me if I’d decided how I wanted to redo the kitchen, or whether I was going to tackle the bathrooms first. All of that felt d
