Kate stood. “Mom, Tara, and Molly are going to be downstairs any minute and I’ve got ten million things to do before tonight, so hug me, then go home pick out an outfit, okay?”

They talked for a few minutes about times and logistics for the eve ning. Even as Kate promised that her parents didn’t need to do anything but show up, Nicole won out with her insistence that she would bring an appetizer and her husband’s favorite whiskey in case Rowan was out.

“Dad can live without his whiskey for one night.”

“Maybe one night,” Nicole said, “but not tonight.” She hugged her daughter. A dark smudge of lipstick was smeared across Nicole’s front tooth, and Kate made a brushing motion with her finger across her own teeth.

Nicole reached up and wiped the lipstick off her teeth without a word: mother-daughter silent language.

They hugged good-bye and Kate stood in front of the closed elevator for a moment, thankful that her mother—no matter what excuse she’d used—had come by. No one in Kate’s tight-knit family ever really knew what to do or say on this day. Each family member—Mom, Dad, and Kate’s sisters, Tara and Molly—had all tried different ways to deal with it. They ignored the day. They sent cards. They made phone calls. They made visits. A lot of visits. Kate’s little sister, Molly, had once brought over a tiara and set it on the kitchen counter like a monument where it had stayed for almost a year until Rowan had asked what the sparkling crown was for, and Kate had hidden it in the box with all her other memories.

Kate was the oldest of three sisters and the one who baffled her parents the most. She didn’t conform to the Vaughn Family prototype: studious and bent on traditionalism. Fifteen years ago, when she still went by the name Katie, her family had begged her not to leave for south-of-nowhere Arizona, which was—in their humble opinion—far too close to the Mexican border. They told her not to leave South Carolina and all she knew. Jack had warned her that if she went, their relationship might not make it through the absence. But Katie left. At twenty years old, she hadn’t imagined ever losing anything of value: love, confidence, or, least of all, Jack Adams. Doing something so terrifying and wonderful as living in the wilderness and helping young girls could only hold the best of things. Young Katie hadn’t—couldn’t—conceive of all she would lose inside a single choice that had felt so right.