Because he could no longer count on Gabby’s income, Jason worked even harder. But he also started drinking more to cope with all the newfound stress.

The final straw came without warning. Late one night, Jason stumbled through the doorway of their home, blind drunk and enraged over a lucrative real estate deal that had gone bad that afternoon. He slammed his fist into Gabby’s face, knocking her to the floor. For several moments she simply lay there, dazed and unbelieving.

The ensuing divorce process was heart wrenching and expensive. Gabby’s parents did their best to help her and Trevor financially, but they were not well off. Just as the divorce was to become final, Jason died. And he took two innocent people with him.

Jason’s death benefits helped for a time, but Gabby soon realized that she would have to return to work. And so she decided to accept another position teaching history. After a time she also started coaching the girls’ swim team. The town house she rented in Boca for herself and Trevor was pricy, but lovely.

With Jason gone, Trevor became her entire world. She tried to be a good disciplinarian, and most of the time she succeeded. But sometimes, when real sternness was called for, she remembered how much Trevor mourned his late father, and she couldn’t bring herself to enforce the tough love that her son so badly needed.

Trevor was fourteen now, and although he had yet to embroil himself in serious trouble, Gabby could see it coming. But as a single parent, she was unable to afford counseling for him. Then, to her surprise, Jacobson called her at home, asking her to come and discuss the New Beginnings Program. Only after her arrival at the church did she learn that it was Wyatt Blaine’s program, and that he was also attending this meeting.

At first Gabby wanted to be angry with Jacobson for not telling her everything. But as she sat waiting, her anger morphed into a kind of nervous hopefulness. Not only would she be talking to Wyatt for the first time, but to a certain degree he would be passing judgment on her and her son.

Although she loved Trevor and enjoyed her job, Gabby remained lonely. The few dates she had gone on since Jason’s death had been disappointing, to say the least.

One man who took her to dinner ended up talking about himself the entire night. After she refused to sleep with another, he tersely announced that he was married, anyway. Marriage suited Gabby, but it seemed that the possibility of finding a good man to share her life was becoming more of a dream than a reality. She had made a mistake once, and she couldn’t help but worry about her ability to make the right choices in men.

She was a modern woman, but at the same time she could be stubbornly old-fashioned about certain things, and finding romantic love was one of them. She would rather remain lonely than surrender her deepest hopes and dreams to some matchmaking service to synthetically produce a chapter in her life that she believed should unfold naturally. For her, such artificial measures took the magic out of the experience and reduced it to a mere business deal. She wanted the fairy tale, that much was true. But she was just stubborn and traditional enough to want it without the contrivances, or not at all.

“What was she like?” she asked Jacobson.

“Who?” he asked in return.

“Wyatt’s late wife. What was she like?”

After rummaging through one of his desk drawers, Jacobson produced a framed photograph. He handed it to Gabby. “That’s Krista in the back row, third from the right.”

Gabby looked at the photo. It had been shot outdoors and at night.