The news was not good when Marie reached the hospital late on Sunday morning. Her father had indeed been moved to the ICU. Although it didn't seem possible, he was hooked up to even more tubes than he had been the day before. The beeps from the monitors provided a constant soundtrack, and every so often, an alarm would go off, startling them all. Then a nurse would come in and adjust something, and they would go back to their conversations.

Granny-Mae was chatting with Mama on the one side of the bed. Marie sat next to Papaw on the other. He was trying his darnedest to keep her spirits up, telling her stories of what he'd gotten up to in the past few years, and of all the gators he'd chased off the property. She only believed half of the tales, but that didn't matter. It was just good to be able to talk to him again. In turn, she told him about some of the kids at school, and about some of the places that she'd been.

"You always wanted to travel, I remember that," he said.

She pulled out her phone so that she could show him some of the pictures that she had taken.

"I've got one of those too!" Papaw shifted in his chair and reached into his pocket, pulling out an older model flip-phone. "It doesn't have any of those fancy thingamabobs on it, but look." He opened the phone, which had large numbers on the keypad, and pushed a few buttons and showed her the display. "It's my phonebook! I've got all my important numbers in here," he said.

"Wow, that's great, Papaw." He had never been one to shy away from new things, but she was genuinely impressed that he'd figured out how to program the numbers into the phone.

"Now, I just need yours."

They exchanged phone numbers, and she took a picture of Papaw to add to his contact and he took one of her. "You're a real pro at that," she said.

"Well, I wasn't for a while. I could never figure the damn thing out. I only bought it because, you know, we ain't spring chickens anymore. Emergencies happen, and you think I want to be down on the ground changing a tire at my age? No, ma'am!"

Marie smiled. "You figured it out eventually, though."

He shook his head. "Not me. Remy showed me how to use it."

Would she ever stop feeling that strange jolt when his name was mentioned?

Papaw was still scrolling through his phone. "Do you want his number too?" he asked. "I've got it right here."

Marie looked away before he showed her and she accidentally saw a picture. "No, that's okay. Thank you though. And please don't give him mine." Because if she hadn't said it, he might have.

He lowered the phone, and his voice. "Did he hurt you, Marie? Because if he did, I keep the shotgun oiled, and I'll run him off the property the next time he comes around. Promise."

"No, he didn't hurt me." She was the one that had caused all of the pain. "Things just didn't work out between us. That's all."

He put his phone away. "Well, it happens I guess."

She nodded in agreement.

After several hours of no change, everyone was getting tired, but too polite to mention it. And too afraid to leave. Thankfully, there had been no outside visitors allowed in the ICU. Marie didn't think she could've dealt with another round of random neighbors and friends popping in. She tried to get more comfortable in the chair, and closed her eyes to rest them for a moment.

Marie must have been tired because her thoughts kept drifting towards Remy. They'd met the summer she'd turned seven, but it had taken several more summers before he'd trusted her enough to tell her anything about himself beyond his name. By then, though, he had already become a permanent fixture in her life. She didn't even remember when they had officially started dating—it seemed like they had always just been together.

She didn't have any pictures of him because she had barely taken anything with her when she'd left Mississippi. She hadn't wanted any reminders, but there were some low moments over the years when she wished more than anything that she had kept a few photos.

She wondered how he was doing. He was probably still a thief—that was a job he'd have for life, he'd always told her. But it could be dangerous, and he had a penchant for getting into trouble. She used to worry about him when he was out on a job. Did he have someone in his life that looked out for him now? Someone that reminded him to stay out of trouble? Papaw would probably know if he had found another woman, but she didn't want to ask. She just hoped that he was happy.

He probably wanted a divorce, and maybe she had been selfish by disappearing and leaving him forever married to the woman that had ruined his life. When she got back to New York, she would have papers drawn up and then send them to Papaw to pass on to Remy. She owed him that much.

When Papaw tapped her on the arm, Marie opened her eyes and sat up straighter. They had been waiting for the doctor to give them an update, and he had finally arrived.

The doctor spoke with them, and explained how the night would likely go. When he left, the mood was somber, and the tension was high. Granny-Mae excused herself to use the restroom, hand clutching tissues. They all pretended not to notice.

Mama finally snapped. "This is all your fault," she told Marie. "He's being punished because of you. Your wickedness."

"I know you don't mean that."

"Oh, I do."

Thankfully, Papaw once again stepped in, and settled a hand on Marie's shoulder. "Why don't you go on home for a few hours, honey? Get something to eat, take a short nap," he suggested. "I'll work on calming her down."

"I don't know..."

"You've got time," he said gently, "And I'll call if things get worse."

xxx

Marie left the hospital, and stopped at the first fast-food restaurant that she saw. She ate, despite not feeling hungry and not really tasting the food, because she had already lied to one grandparent that weekend, and didn't want to have to lie to the other when he asked if she had eaten. As it was, she didn't have the heart to tell Papaw that she couldn't go back home. The trouble was, she didn't feel like going to a hotel and sitting around there either.

Instead, she drove around for a while in an attempt to clear her head. It proved impossible, however, because she couldn't stop thinking about everything that had happened since the morning, and about Remy, and she still had Becca's words rattling around in her brain. Remy had been in the driveway, working on his car. Either Marie had misunderstood, or Becca had seen someone else that had only looked like him.

It wasn't until Marie was on the outskirts of town that she realized where she was headed.

A few days after they had announced that they were getting married, Remy told her that he had bought them a house. Marie thought that he was joking at first—she was still seventeen, and he had only just turned nineteen. Where would two teenagers get enough money to buy a house from? After she realized that he was serious, she figured that he must have meant that he had bought a trailer.

In his typically secretive fashion, Remy offered her no further details. Instead, he took her for a drive that evening, heading south on the highway until the houses became further and further apart, and the trees became more abundant. Then, he stopped out front of a little one-story, brick house with white shutters.

The house was a common style for that area, with a carport on the right, and a small, gabled porch across the front of the house to the left. It sat on a large parcel of land, and the nearest neighbor was at least a half-mile down the road.

Remy had timed their arrival perfectly, and as the sun set behind the house, the sky lit up in a blaze of brilliant oranges and pinks. They stood looking at the house, awash in orangey-pink light, and Marie had no idea why they were there.

"What do ya think?" he asked.

"It looks cozy," she replied.

And then he told her that it was theirs. He even gave her a key, attached to his lucky fleur-de-lis keychain to prove it. But she hadn't believed him, not until he convinced her to try the key in the front door.

Thieving apparently paid well, even after the Guild dues and the cut that Jean-Luc insisted on, because Remy had indeed bought it, and they owned it free and clear of the bank.

Their own home. Away from his father, but not so far from her parents that she would feel lonely. It was everything they had both wanted at the time.

Marie stopped out front of the house. It was dusk, a little darker than the first time she had seen it, but there was still enough light to make out the details. Exactly as they were in her mind when she allowed herself to picture it.

Its existence proved nothing, however. That had never been in question. The question was ownership, and anyone could own it now.

But then she saw the mailbox. L BEAU. Marie had stuck those letters on there when they'd moved in. She'd been so proud of her new house and her new name. The letters had faded, and obviously one of the E's had gone missing, but Marie knew why Becca was convinced that it had been Remy in the driveway.

He'd never sold the house.

From the lack of a car in the driveway and an absence of lights on inside, it didn't appear that anyone was home. The porch light was on, however, because they always left it on at night, and like a beacon, it called to her.

It was crazy. Marie didn't even know why she was getting out of the car. Even if Remy still owned the house, it didn't mean that he lived there alone. She had moved on, it was reasonable to assume that he had too. She would be an unwelcome visitor. An intruder.

Despite her reservations, her feet carried her up the driveway. She walked the perimeter of the house—the yard wasn't fenced in. The old, detached garage in back was still standing, about as worse for the wear as it had been when they moved in. She passed the hydrangea bush she had planted, and the below-ground storm shelter that she'd only been in once because it creeped her out. Only a tornado could have enticed her to get back in there, and when she had told Remy that, he promised to remove the cobwebs and install some lights. She wasn't about to pry the heavy door open and check that he'd made good on his word, however.

She kept moving through the yard until she had rounded the corner and was back around front again. She tried to peek in the front windows from the porch, but the curtains were closed, and even if they weren't, Marie suspected that it would have been too dark inside to see anything.

Technically, the house was still half hers. If she wanted to go inside and check it out, it wouldn't be trespassing from a legal standpoint. She had a key, and if Remy hadn't changed the locks, well, then that was on him.

Marie weighed her choices. Turning around and getting back in her car would be the sensible thing to do. But for whatever reason, she couldn't. Maybe it was years worth of curiosity that had been building to that moment, maybe it was just the desperation of looking for a distraction. Something kept her from moving off the porch.

At least if the key didn't work, she'd know that Remy wanted to keep her out. And she did want to know, didn't she? It took her another couple of minutes of staring at the front doorknob to work up the courage to try it, but when she turned the key in the lock, it clicked open.

After what she'd found at her parents' house, Marie anticipated that this house would be much the same. Familiar, yet stripped of any reference to her. And that was fine. She was just there to satisfy her curiosity.

Marie closed the door behind her and turned on the lights in the front room. She didn't stop to look around, and the fact that the furniture was the same barely registered. Her goal was the kitchen. It had been her favorite room, and the soul of their house. It was bright and cheerful, with a window over the sink that looked out into the backyard. She used to love standing at it while she washed dishes.

The French doors that led into the kitchen were closed. Marie pushed them open, remembering at the last minute to catch the looser one on the right before it banged into the wall behind the kitchen table. She needn't have bothered. Remy had installed a door stop at some point.

He'd also patched the hole that the doorknob had made after she opened the door a little too quickly on their second morning in the house. The doors had been left open, permanently, after that incident. He must have shut them when he closed up the house.

The air inside was stale, but unlike the smells at the hospital, this scent brought back good memories. Marie turned on the light.

They didn't have many things to fill their kitchen—there hadn't been time for a wedding shower or anything like that—but several family members and friends had given them housewarming gifts. Granny-Mae had given them her good set of dishes. Marie opened the cupboard, and they were still there, right where she'd left them, in neat, orderly stacks. Unused because they had never thrown a dinner party.

It just didn't seem likely that someone else was living there. Who kept another woman's good dishes in her cupboard?

Marie went through the other cupboards too, just to confirm her suspicions. Her cookbooks and the box of recipes that she'd collected were all still there. The small hoard of empty margarine and Cool Whip containers hadn't vanished. Her cast iron skillet was in the cupboard above the stove where it had always been. She took it out and inspected the seasoning. Still intact, but hard to say if it had been used at all. She set it on the counter.

In the cupboard next to the sink, she found the everyday dishes that she and Remy had bought after arguing because they couldn't agree on the same set. In the end, they'd bought a set that neither of them had liked because the fact that the pattern was hideous was the only thing that they could agree on.

Even the refrigerator magnets were the same. She touched them, straightening them into a neat row out of habit, and remembered the ultrasound picture that Remy had stuck there. She had ripped it down after she'd come home from the hospital. Couldn't bear to look at it, but hadn't been able to throw it away. She didn't know what happened to it after that.

The fridge was empty inside, except for some condiments, bottled water, and beer.

It didn't look as though anyone was currently living there, so Marie continued her inspection in a confused daze. It didn't look completely abandoned either. There was hardly a layer of dust on any of the surfaces. Like it had been cleaned, but maybe not for a little while. She picked up the phone receiver off the wall as she passed it, but there was no dial tone.

Marie flipped on another light that illuminated the hallway off the kitchen. The bathroom door was open. Inside, she found the set of monogrammed towels that she had been given, hanging on the towel bars. They had only owned two sets when she left, and that was their best one. On the sink stood a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a man's razor. There was shampoo and soap in the shower. The house was just waiting for someone to come home.

Each discovery added more proverbial weight to her chest. When Marie finally opened the door to the bedroom, she was no longer surprised by what she saw. All of her most important possessions, which she had taken from her parents' house, were all there. Validating her existence. Even the wedding ring that she'd left on top of the jewelry box was still there. The thick layer of dust surrounding it indicated that it hadn't been touched in a very long time.

By that point, her eyes were blurring with unshed tears, so it was entirely possible that it wasn't actually her ring, or even real, but she wasn't going to touch it and find out.

Marie didn't open the smaller bedroom across the hall—she wasn't ready to deal with its contents, and wasn't sure she ever would be. Instead, she made a beeline for the front room, and that was when she saw the black and white picture on the fireplace.

Because they had married so quickly, and in a civil ceremony, they didn't have any pictures of their wedding day. They had a prom photo, though, and the last time she had been in the house, it had taken the pride of place on the mantel. It was gone, replaced by another picture. For a second, Marie thought it was of another couple—and that maybe she really was trespassing. But then she looked closer.

It was of her and Remy, taken during the last summer they spent in Louisiana, and on the day that her grandparents had thrown her a seventeenth birthday party. There had been a bonfire, and lightning bugs, and some of her friends from school had even made the trip. It was right before she had gotten pregnant, and the last time she could remember feeling so carefree.

She had never seen the photo before. They weren't even posed, so she figured Papaw must have taken it with his old film camera while they weren't paying attention. Remy had his arms around her, and she had hers around him, and his head was bent down to give her a kiss on the top of her head. She had never once doubted that he loved her. It was a universal constant.

She could still feel the embrace, smell his cologne...

It was all too much. The picture, her stuff, the house seeming like it had been waiting for her. It was the welcome home that she had been missing, but also the one that she deserved the least.

Marie had prepared herself for, and had expected—no, had wanted—all evidence of her life in that house to be gone. If Remy had forgotten her, and had moved on without looking back, then she could have too. But everything was still there, and that was so much worse.

Unable to stand any longer, Marie sank down on the couch and cried. Every last tear that she had been holding in for seven and a half years came spilling out.