Betsy hugged me, and I hugged her back.

She felt like home. She felt like Mom.

I had two moms, two dads, two sisters, and three aunts. I was a lucky gal.

* * *

I talked alone with Johnny, too. We talked about how he had lost his mother to a violent man and how my best friend, Emily, had lost her mother to a violent man.

“A man should be strong but gentle, protective and caring to his wife and kids,” he said. “I don’t understand these men who act otherwise. It’s not how a true man acts.”

I told him about the guilt I had felt about Patsy, and he told me about the searing guilt he had felt about his mother, about not being able to protect her. “I know, though, that Patsy and my mother would not want us to feel that way. I think we honor them by being loving in our lives to others.”

I sat and thought about that and had to agree with him. I ended up telling him how I felt about Marco, and the sailboat drowning premonition, how messed up I was, and how my premonitions and not wanting to leave the island would be difficult for anyone to live with.

“Evie,” he said. “I love your mother with all my heart, with all that I am. Not seeing her for ten years nearly killed me. She is much like you, not only in terms of her premonitions but in the other things that she deals with, the depression and anxiety, although both have lifted completely since you found each other. My point is that I want Betsy in my life no matter what. I can’t live right without her. I am not Johnny without Betsy. We have gone through the hardest ravages of life, but still, we’re together. We laugh. We talk. We are of one heart. Do you believe yourself to be of one heart with Marco?”

“Yes.”

“You love him beyond yourself?

“Yes.”

“And he loves you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you preventing your two hearts from being together as one? Marco knows you. He embraces you as you are, as I have always embraced your mother. That’s the important thing: He loves you as Evie.”

Who knew my father, a prisoner for ten years, who still boxed and had an intimidating face when he wasn’t smiling, could be so romantically poetic? So right?

“Takes a lot of courage to take that leap, Evie.”

“I don’t know if I have it.”

“I think you do. You have shown courage throughout your life. Let me ask you another question, if I may?”

“Please.”

“If you had died in that car accident with Betsy . . .” He stopped, took a deep breath and rubbed his face with both hands, clearly shaken at the thought, before he started again. “Would you regret not being with Marco?”

Whoa. Put that way! “Yes.”

“Do you have your answer, then?”