Diana Muir wasn’t her mother. Maggie wasn’t her grandmother. She blinked but it did no good.

Neil slid something toward her. A box of tissues. His voice was gentle. “I came prepared this time. Not that my shirt didn’t work just fine last time.”

A laugh caught in her throat. Or maybe a sob. She pulled a tissue free. “I just didn’t realize how much I wanted it to be her . . . until I knew it wasn’t.”

She’d felt the prick of disappointment when Tate had first pointed to CarleeAnn’s face in the photo. But not until she’d been alone in Neil’s truck had she experienced the full force of it.

She pressed her tissue to her eyes. “I’d been telling myself no matter which one birthed me, it wouldn’t really change things. Both are gone. But it does change things. Because if it had been Diana, then I would’ve known or at least been able to assume that . . . she wanted me.”

“At least I did the right thing. Leaving you . . . at least I did that.”

There was no dam for her tears now. There was only Neil sliding from his seat and moving around the table, pulling her up and against him.

“I-I didn’t mean t-to do this again.” Her voice trembled through her cries, muffled by Neil’s shirt. “But a-at least I’m standing this time. I won’t fall asleep on you.”

“I didn’t mind you falling asleep on me at all. In fact, I might’ve enjoyed it quite a bit.”

She didn’t know how, but somehow she laughed. Through her tears, through the heaviness of her day, already hurting at the thought of talking to Maggie . . . she laughed.

And then cried some more. And finally, when he must’ve felt her still, Neil moved his hands to her face, tipping her head back just slightly, thumbs tracing the tears under her eyes. “Tatum Carter is an idiot.”

Another small, strangled laugh.

“Was Tate able to tell you much about CarleeAnn?”

“It was a summer fling before she went off to college. I guess he and CarleeAnn and Diana had become friends as teens, but apparently Tate’s mother wasn’t a fan of the girls, or maybe Maggie, so they kind of kept it on the down-low. I didn’t really understand that part of the story.”

But by the look on Neil’s face, maybe he did. “Apparently Tatum and Maggie were . . . something. At some point. I don’t know much, only what Tate mentioned the other day.”

“Well, anyway, Tate and CarleeAnn had a fling but he never knew she got pregnant. Not until that weekend when she came home.” The same weekend of Diana’s accident. “She showed up at his house out of the blue almost two years later.” Much like Sydney had done today. “She was toting a toddler, told him she—I—was his and said she needed a favor. Asked him to watch her while she went home and talked to her parents.”