The most recent cloud to pass overhead made everything in the clinic’s parking lot seem gloomy. Jess shivered and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. Duffy hadn’t argued with anything Jess had said about who he was or what he wanted from life. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted him to want her until he’d stood there as distant as the clouds. Sadness sat like a lump in her throat. She should have been excited that Duffy’s parents wanted to meet her. Today. Without delay. But she couldn’t shake the sense that she’d already lost something, something she wouldn’t gain by meeting them. “What now?” Duffy asked, sounding irritated, as he pulled into his driveway. Agnes stood in front of a dated green Buick parked at the curb. Rose and Mildred waved from behind foggy windows. Eunice stood on Duffy’s front steps, a rain-slickered guard who still had a lopsided hairdo. “We came to show Jessica the town.”
