While I Was Gone by Sue Miller

Jo Becker has everything a woman could desire: a loving spouse, contented children and a nice dog or two. When her New England veterinary practice takes on a new client, however, her past comes back to haunt her. Long ago, it seems, Jo had escaped her family and identity for a commune in Cambridge. Her Aquarian illusions came to an abrupt, bloody end when one of her housemates was brutally murdered.

Now this unhappy era returns in the person of Eli Mayhew, who had been the odd man out in Jo's boho household. His appearance is both tantalising and upsetting:
"Inside, I slowed down. I felt numbed. I had two last patients, and then I told Beattie to go home, that I'd close up ... I re-filed the last charts, sprayed and wiped the examining table. I reviewed my list of routine surgeries for Wednesday. All the while I was thinking of Eli Mayhew, and of Dana and Larry and Duncan and me, and our lives in the house. Of the horrible way it had all ended."

 I enjoyed this book. I loved the language. The ending was a bit disappointing to me.

I liked this line,  made me think of us,

"We always took one day a week off together, and if the weather was good, we often went fishing. Or my husband went fishing and I went along, usually with a book to read."