The Saturday morning found her with her hair tied up in a high ponytail, wearing a shirt she'd bought at a concert she and Bess went to the year she was seventeen, so old that a hole had worn through at the shoulder and the hem was unraveling and the band graphic was so distressed that it was nearly illegible. She stood in the middle of the floor, looking around her bedroom.

Other girls, she knew, in this state, went through everything they owned for reminders and put it all into a shoebox and shoved it out of sight, into an attic, into a fire, off a bridge, into a body of water. After ten years, she supposed that the process usually took a storage trailer and a gallon of gasoline.

Nothing she owned reminded her of Frank. Everything she owned reminded her of him.

There were the songs they listened to, together, during long-distance phone calls, while she lay with her finger twisting in the cord, staring up at the ceiling, laughing. He wasn't one for letters or cards; in everything she owned, she doubted she had more than ten samples of his handwriting. A mixed CD hand-labeled with the track names, a note telling her that he had figured out the case and to meet him at the pier, the card he'd signed and tucked into a dozen roses. She had a ballcap she'd swiped from him during a run and pulled onto her own head, an oversized police department sweatshirt, a delicate thin-linked gold bracelet with a miniature magnifying glass charm. A picture of the two of them, his arms around her shoulders, both relaxed and grinning easily.

Bess knocked on her door, then came in with a plate of waffles, as Nancy folded up another shirt and dropped it onto her bed. "How was last night?"

"It was..." Nancy looked at the waffles, but shook her head when Bess offered her one. "I don't know what it was."

"That bad?"

"It was... it started out bad. Awkward. And I really didn't want to be there."

"I know, I know," Bess said, cutting off another section of waffle. "But after that?"

"We talked, a lot." Nancy smiled, then started flipping through her CD collection. "Then we went out to Flanders farm and..."

Bess's fork dropped to the plate with a clink. "What?"

"And talked some more," Nancy said loudly. "That was it."

"Didn't I hear you shouting something out the window last night when you got back?"

"It was-- nothing," Nancy said, but her cheeks colored faintly. "I think I probably turned him off anyway, I started talking about Frank..."

"Nancy, Nancy... never talk about the ex. Never."

"I thought it was only fair, I think I met half the girls he's ever dated at the reunion."

"What did they look like?" Bess's eyes were bright as she took another bite.

"All pretty, and thin, and... I think most of them were still kind of in love with him."

"I would be too," Bess declared. "Whew."

"So... I don't know."

Bess looked at the things on the bed, then turned to Nancy with sympathetic eyes. "Cleaning house?"

"Yeah," Nancy replied, briskly. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this stuff."

"If you want, I am entirely willing to go get drunk with you tonight, and then help you think up something suitable to do. Like maybe burn all of it, except a few things, and then mail the ashes to him in a box."

Nancy shook her head. "I don't hate him," she said softly. "I'm not out to hurt him. I'm just... sad." She sighed. "It would almost be easier to just clean all this stuff out and start over."

Bess shrugged. "Why not? I've been dying to redecorate this place."

Nancy sat down beside Bess, at the foot of the bed. "You know, it feels like... almost like what we had between us, was a child, a little bit of both of us, and I wasn't just Nancy anymore, I was Nancy-Frank's-girlfriend... but it's not a part of me anymore. He's not a part of me anymore. I thought he always would be."

Bess looped her arm around Nancy's shoulders and gave her a half-hug. "He always will be a part of you, a little," she said. "Maybe you don't have a baby to show for it, but you were with him for a long time. And I think even though I was surprised that you two stuck it out for as long as you did, this was entirely out of the blue for you."

Nancy dropped her chin to her chest. "It hurts," she said softly. "I wasn't ready for this to be over, but Ned said... that if I wanted to be with Frank, I'd be with Frank, instead of going to his high school reunion with him last night. I even pretended for a little while that I was his girlfriend, just because I didn't like the girl who walked up to us as soon as we came into the place."

"Ned promised he wasn't going to do anything like that, I can't believe--"

"Oh, he made it clear from the start, we were just playing it as friends. But... I don't know, training took over. I mean, it's not like I kissed him or anything."

"And babe, that is a damn shame," Bess laughed. "Now. We gonna redo your bedroom or what?"

Nancy looked around. "Nah," she said, and found a box in her closet, began to gather the detritus from her bed in great armfuls. When she was finished, she looked down at the full box at her feet, her cleared bed, and met Bess's gaze again. All the overt evidence of their relationship, of the child they'd never had and the union never legitimized, all so easily excised from her. Everything but the last swelled wash of tears behind her eyes.

"I think we just need to redo me."