Maybe church was now just another ritual that helped me get through the days. But I’d always been a church person. It was the first place I felt real comfort and joy as a child, as a little angel in the Christmas program, singing a solo of “Silent Night.” I couldn’t understand why people were crying, but I felt in my heart it was a good thing. After that, I was hooked. These days I loved to be alone in my austere church by the sea early in the morning. I often woke around four thirty or five, and I needed something to occupy my thoughts, to distract me from the sadness and loss that were bound to creep in during those early, silent moments. I could walk in the dark down the beach and use the key I had been entrusted with after many years of service, to spend time in the holy silence of my most grounding place.

If they knew about the five dollars from the offering plate, would they have given me a key? If they knew that I was so shameless that I used the money to buy the Hello Kitty erasers I’d had my eye on, would they let me back here?

The door to the altar-guild room flew open, startling me out of my thoughts, and I couldn’t tell if my heart was racing because of the noise or because of the man walking through the doorway. Elliott Palmer. My Elliott. Only, he hadn’t been mine for almost a year for reasons that, as he stood in his jeans, cowboy boots, and slightly rumpled collared shirt, holding the silver ladle that was used for baptisms, I couldn’t quite remember for a moment.

I wasn’t sure if he was still angry at me for the way I ended things; he hadn’t reached out since he moved away, a few hours inland, to take over the antiques business his great-grandfather started generations before. But he grinned when he saw me like no time had passed, like nothing had changed, like I had never broken his heart.

After Walter died, I had sworn off men. Three dead husbands in the span of twelve years was three too many. I knew people said I’d killed them. And if it weren’t so ridiculous, it would have crushed me. So, not only could I not live through that sort of loss again, but I also had to imagine that men wouldn’t be lining up to lend me their arms. Plus, I was beginning to wonder if I was cursed.