“I’m not sure about anything yet.” But wasn’t I? Hadn’t today given me an awful lot of clarity? I had spent years clinging to this sainted image of a man who wasn’t even real. Or, at least, he certainly wasn’t who I’d thought he was. I had bought this house because it felt like some sort of invisible tie to him. Knowing what I knew now, it wasn’t hard to let it go. Knowing what I knew now, I was ready to move on.

Iris stood up and stretched. “Well, no looking back, Alice.” She paused. “Mom, can I go see Chloe and Dabney? They’re probably worried since I left school early.”

Charlotte looked aghast. “Are you kidding me? No. I am Velcroing you to my side. I will be going to school with you and sitting in the desk beside you for all eternity now.”

“I’ll go with her,” Merit said.

Charlotte sucked in her breath. “Fine,” she said. “But I want your phone on, and when I text or call, you better answer within two seconds or I’m calling the police. And be home by dinner.”

Iris hugged her mom and then me. “Our last supper.”

My eyes filled.

As the kids went upstairs to change, I said, “I don’t know if this helps, but I don’t think we were ever in any real danger. Jeremy is obviously mentally unwell, but I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

Julie shook her head. “How about you don’t defend the husband who has caused you almost twenty years of misery? That’d be great.”

“How did that feel, Alice?” Grace asked. “I mean, to think this man that you loved was dead for all these years and then…”

I let out a small laugh. “He said he wanted to get back together! Like this was some great act of love that was going to bond us. We were going to flee the country together and make a new life with his stolen money. What a joke.”

“I strongly suggest that you do not get back together with him,” Julie said.

Charlotte nodded. “Having had my fair share of experience with trying to make a jailhouse relationship work, I concur wholeheartedly.”

“What is so weird is that I have spent eighteen years pining for him, remembering him as this great love that no one else could ever measure up to. And now I realize that I dodged a bullet.” I shook my head. “I’m not spending another minute looking back. Not on any of it. Only forward now.”

Julie, frank as always, said, “Well, Grace, what will you do? I mean, if I go live with Mom and Charlotte goes home and Alice moves in with Elliott…”