Six o'clock in the evening and Alicia is waiting for Jake. She has in fact spent the better part of the last few months waiting for him, something she hates to acknowledge even to herself. Certainly no one else would know it. Her waiting is a near-miracle of camouflage and self-containment. She doesn't sit by the phone, doesn't even stay home. It's something invisible: an inner ear cocked, an ache.
- Elissa Wald, "Holding Fire"