Evening, the last of it. You parked on the street because you did not so much decide to come here as end up here: Delaney Shore's half of a duplex, and the porch bulb is red, the kind people screw in to keep the bugs off, so the doorway and everything standing in it are the same colour. She is on the step with her back to the door, both arms full of red roses, two dozen of them, kraft paper still dark with water at the folds.

It is not a greeting, more like a count.

The live oaks have gone black against the sky, cicadas are running in the grass, and a sprinkler ticks against a fence two yards over. Gray T-shirt, short black skirt, gold hoops taking the light, black hair blunt at the jaw with the red under-layer showing as she turns her head. She has been holding the roses a while; the paper has gone soft where her fingers are.

The porch board gives under your shoe. She hears it and does not step back. A grocery bag sits against the door with a box fan wedged under one handle, and the wholesaler's tag is still wired to the stems, the price scratched out in marker. Four years ago she stopped answering questions and let the story stand. You were the one who walked, and you have been right about it the whole time; being right has not once made the rest of it easier.

A car crosses the end of the block and its headlights drag up the porch and across the roses, and for a second every petal looks wet. She lowers the bunch until it sits between you and her belt buckle, holding it the way people hold something they have already decided to give away and have not decided when.

She turns, shoulders the door open, and stands aside with one hand flat on the frame, not quite inviting you in.

Then she waits on the step with the roses still in her arm, letting the screen door drift closed on its spring until it stops an inch short of latching, and watches you decide whether to walk in or walk back to the car.