“I don’t think I can eat.”

“Yes, you can.” Adele sat up on the bed and typed out a quick text. Within a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. “Relax,” Adele said when Lina’s body stiffened. “It’s just the ice cream.”

Seconds later Adele was returning to the bed with a half-gallon of cookie dough ice cream and two spoons. “Courtesy of the asshole.”

“What?” Lina asked. Then Adele showed her the cell phone and the text she had sent to Phil. You fucking asshole. Leave some ice cream outside the door and then go fuck yourself.

Lina laughed through her tears. “I love you.”

“I know.” She handed Lina a spoon. “Now eat.”

“What am I going to do?” Lina asked. They were stretched out, side by side in bed after finishing almost all the ice cream. “How am I going to get through this?”

“Rayburn women are survivors,” Adele said. “It’s our special talent—surviving.” It was true. Alice had been left with three daughters under the age of ten, and she’d survived. Adele had survived two divorces and still maintained her upbeat attitude.

“Maybe I should tell him to leave.” Just saying the words aloud brought on a feeling of panic.

“Do you want him to leave?”

“No,” Lina admitted. “But I wish I did. I wish I didn’t love him. This wouldn’t hurt as bad.”

“Do you know what you need to do?” Adele sat up. “You need to have an affair. Let the bastard see how it feels.”

“It could have been about anything,” Megan was saying to Logan when Katie came upstairs. They were in the upstairs family room, sitting beside each other on the couch. “Maybe they were fighting about Katie.”

“It wasn’t about me,” Katie snapped at Megan as she joined them. “Maybe they were fighting about you.”

“I’ve never seen Mom so upset,” Logan said, looking from Megan to Katie. “She was yelling that she hated him. What if they get a divorce or something?”

“They aren’t getting divorced,” Megan said. “Adults argue. It’s normal. Maybe they normally do it in their bedroom and we just don’t hear them.”

Katie planned to walk by them and into her room, but when she saw the tears in Logan’s eyes, she found herself dropping down into the chair across from him. He was pretty cool for a younger brother, and she felt bad that he was sad. “Grandma said they are like soulmates, and they have to be together, so I think that means they’ll never get divorced.”

“How could she possibly know that?” Megan asked.

“Through her astrology stuff.”

“Mom and Dad don’t believe in that,” Megan said.

“It doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Katie said.

Logan wiped his eyes, and Katie tried but failed to think of something to say to make him feel better.

“They’ve been together since they were teenagers. They’d never get divorced,” Megan said as she rubbed Logan’s back.