I couldn’t talk about this anymore. I was having trouble getting deep breaths. I do not like when I can’t get deep breaths. It reminds me of anxiety, and I hate having anxiety. I stood up and said, “I love you,” to all of them and walked home through the moonlight, through rows of roses, which now had a deeper meaning for me than before. I stopped to smell several, trying to calm down.

I heard my mother call my name, her voice broken. I heard my aunts call my name, their voices filled with pain. My sister did not call my name. She knew I needed to be alone.

Sundance walked beside me.

Once again I headed to our beach. I felt like I could hardly walk, as if I were moving through a wave of lies and deceit. Butch and Cassidy came running, bursting out of the cat/dog door at my house. Ghost tumbled on over, as did Mars.

I sat on a log and cried and cried. For me, for Johnny and Betsy, who had had their baby ripped out of their lives, and for Tilly. I cried for the terrible things that had happened to both of them in jail and, for Tilly, in foster care, traumatized and not speaking, that had been detailed in online articles that I’d read for hours.

I cried because my life had been cracked open and filled with lies. I cried because my father wasn’t even here to comfort me and I wanted his comfort, even though I was mad at him, too. I cried because of Marco and how much I loved him, and wanted him, and I cried because I felt bad for this happening right before Jules’s wedding.

When I was cold, I called to Butch and Cassidy and went home. The goats hopped around and I said hello but didn’t bother chasing them back to their blue home, which was clearly a disappointment to them. I took a bath and didn’t even eat my pie that night. I climbed the stairs to the loft, my body feeling as if it had been beaten up, the dogs and cats following behind me. I was so screwed up I couldn’t even read. I turned out the light.

Sundance plopped his head right next to mine and licked my tears. “You’re my best furry friend,” I said to him, whispering, in case Butch and Cassidy heard. Jupiter and Ghost appeared and found their favorite sleeping spaces.

My hot tears dropped into Sundance’s fur.

* * *

It had been a long day at the bookstore. Lots of tourists, and we’d sold a fair amount of books. They loved the desserts, the white chocolate cranberry cake and bourbon caramel spiced pie, and our tea specials: Sweet Cinnamon Milk and London Fog.