“Some of them are your family,” he said.

“No. All of them are my family.”

“Fine,” he said. “They’re your family. But what about me?”

“You are my love,” I said. I thought about that beautiful house on the beach, the one I had redone with such tender care, looked after because in some weird way I was convinced that, if I could just make that house good enough, it would bring Jeremy back to me. But Jeremy was dead. The dream was dead. And it had taken me years to realize that. I was scared by how certain I felt, but I knew it was true when I said, “I think I have to leave that house.”

Elliott scrunched his nose. “Bad juju?”

“Something like that.” I knew he was thinking about Walter, about his death-by-ladder. But it wasn’t Walter who haunted me in that house. It was Jeremy. And I knew a part of me didn’t want to let him go. Because if I did, then it was really over. I chastised myself constantly for harping on something that had happened eighteen years ago. Was it even normal to hold on to a love so tightly for so long?

“So do you want to move in here?” he asked.

Elliott’s house was fine. It was small and masculine, and his boat was right there. I had had a change in my financial situation as of late that would have made selling my house and moving into his the most feasible option. But I couldn’t very well kick everyone else out just because I had moved on.

“A fresh start?” I asked.

He smiled. “Sure. I’ll start looking. You do the same.”

I nodded. “But, Elliott, I can’t put a timeline on this. I have to let Julie, Grace, and Charlotte know and give them plenty of time to make a new plan.”

“Sure,” he said. “I get that. I can’t imagine that we’ll find the perfect house right away anyway.”

Was I really doing this again? Mingling finances and lives with another man? Leaving the safety of the mommune? Was I ready for all that? Maybe I was and maybe I wasn’t. But I reasoned that I’d never know unless I tried.

I didn’t want Elliott to leave. But he had a job and a life, and he needed to get to it. “You’re going to be late!” I piped up, trying to sound sunny. “I’ll walk out with you.”

“Stay as long as you like,” he said.

He kissed me, long and deep and sweet. “One day,” he said, “I’m going to sweep you off your feet. I’m going to whisk you away to a lavender field in Provence and keep you all to myself.”

“That sounds lovely.”