...“I’ve got a lot of baggage,” Harvey said. “I’m not going to burden it on a wife.”

“Oh. But you shouldn’t…condemn yourself to being alone. Of course, I made the mistake of marrying for that reason.” Zach grimaced and shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think of Anne as a mistake. But…”

“It wasn’t right,” Harvey finished softly. They were silent for a moment, the only noise the sound of the tires against the road. Then… “Did you love her?”

“I…” It was an easy question. Did you love your late wife? The woman you vowed to cherish and honor? The woman who helped you through school when you were operating on nothing more than coffee and cigarettes? Did you love her? “Not like I should have.”

But Harvey nodded like he understood. It had always been that way. The more time they spent together, the closer it got to the way things had been overseas, when nobody had understood Zach the way Harvey did.

“And that’s why I won’t ever get married. Better for me to be alone on my own than to drag someone else into a relationship where we’re both lonely.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes a sort of sense.” It killed Zach to see his friend like this. At least he had a huge city surrounding him, full of interesting people doing interesting things. He could go out every night with a different friend and meet somebody new. From his office window, he could see the entire city, sparkling in the sun. But it killed him even more to know that he could not reach over and at least alleviate Harvey’s isolation.

“It’s not so bad. Really. I stay busy, I’ve got a job I love.” The smile he flashed was meant to be reassuring, but Zach found it difficult to buy. “I’m not saying it isn’t better with you here, but it could be a lot worse.”

That was true. He could have lost his leg. Or he could have died. And Zach had had enough nightmares about that very thing. “Would you ever think about leaving? Or are you pretty much rooted here?”

Harvey shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“But…what if you did?”

He heard Harvey inhale as if to argue, but words didn’t come. Zach watched him think about it, the lights from the dashboard reflecting up onto his face. It was fuller than he remembered, though that could have been an effect of the beard. His hair was longer, too, and he knew without needing to touch it that it would be slightly coarse and thick.

“I don’t think I’ve had real roots in a very long time,” Harvey finally said. “If I thought someplace else could give me something I didn’t have here, I could probably do it.”

Zach’s fingers tingled with the words. Now wasn’t the time to convince Harvey to go with him to California. Later. If he stayed for the week, and everything went well, and it was just like old times, he could try. But a part of him—a large part of him—didn’t want to go home without Harvey. He would do it, of course, but he wouldn’t like it.

“Well, that’s the thing about you, Harvey. You could always do what needed to be done. Even if the choice wasn’t easy.”

It was Harvey’s turn to glance at him. “You say that like you couldn’t, and we both know that isn’t true.”

“I don’t know. The last time I had a hard choice to make, it took me ten years to do it.”

More silence. This was one of the things that was different. This Harvey seemed to like taking time putting his thoughts together a lot more than the Harvey he remembered.

“We never used to have a problem with getting past the tough decisions.” Though his voice was low, almost tense, Harvey’s grip on the steering wheel remained lax and sure. “I don’t want to be a hard choice for you, Zach. That was one reason why I let you go.”