Sadie smiled that knowing, smart-ass smile. There is this radar she has—this bullshit radar—and I know better than to try to sneak underneath it. “And exactly, Ellie, who is the ‘they’ that needs to know more?”

I cringe.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go to the Summer House, Ellie. Stay with my mother. Her heart will burst, she’ll be so happy to have you. I bet she’ll be able to tell you some stories. And …” She winked. “You know the legend—that everything changes at the Summer House. That truth is always revealed.”

“Legend or fairy tale?”

“You’ll never know unless you go.”

“I can’t just … leave.”

“Yes, you can. Go to my mom’s. You’ve only been a few times, what with your mother’s bizarre allergic reaction to Alabama.”

“You’ll come with me?” I was hopeful yet understood the futility of that hope.

“You know I can’t. Kenz and Connor both have full schedules with horseback competitions and baseball tournaments.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. Sadie’s two teens were involved in more activities than any children I’d ever known. And if I didn’t adore Sadie, I’d hate her for making it all look effortless and smooth and normal.

“I can drive down there with you and get you settled,” she said. “And then you can stay as long as you like.”

“I can’t. I can’t leave Dad. What if Lil wants to come home and I’m not here? I have that fund-raiser for the church, and then there’s that party for Tinsley’s fiftieth birthday.”

“There’s my best friend with the list. Always the list.”

I do have a thing about lists. I make them for almost everything: what I need to do; where I need to go. It helps me keep things in order, which is what Rusty needs: order.

“There’s just no way,” I said.

“The guesthouse is always open for you.”

“I’ll think about it. I promise.”

But instead of thinking about going to Alabama, I found myself brooding (others might call it obsessing) about Hutch O’Brien, as if all the times I had forced myself not to think about him added up and came rushing at me like a wave with a wicked undertow. I remembered breathing the same breath, our limbs intertwined under the sodden air falling across our skin under an open window. I felt the longing and particular knowing of loving someone so much that there were no words, only movement. Nothing was enough. And everything was enough.