As tired as she was, Sadie-Grace still managed a smile as she nodded. “You too?” she asked. “This is going to be so much fun!”

Sadie-Grace was delighted. Lily was not. Not delighted, I thought. But not hurt. Not anymore. I wasn’t sure what exactly to read into that.

“I want you to promise you’ll go to initiation tonight,” Lily told Sadie-Grace, before shifting her gaze to me. “Both of you.”

If you’re leaving, why do you care? I bit back the question, and after Sadie-Grace promised, I offered Lily the barest nod.

“You should try the lemonade,” Lily told Sadie-Grace, falling back on idle chitchat. “It’s not too sweet.” There was a beat of silence, and then Lily turned back to me. “See you around, Sawyer.”

I watched her go. It took me until she made it to the bottom of the drive to remember where I was—and why I’d come here.

“What did Lily want?” I asked Ellen.

“A little family history.” Ellen let her arms dangle loose at her side. “What do you want?”

That wasn’t my great-aunt making conversation. That was a challenge.

“We have some questions.”

“We?” Ellen looked from me to Sadie-Grace, then back again. “I do something on your last trip to make you think I’m the type of person who likes questions?”

Sadie-Grace—even a tired Sadie-Grace—didn’t know when not to be optimistic.

“You gave us Audie,” she pointed out cheerfully. “We named the baby Audubon. Daddy is almost as fond of bird-watching as he is of bugs, and Greer told him no bug names. Would you like to see a pic—”

“No.” Ellen cut her off. “That’s not how this works, girl. You’re not meant to come back here.”

“We’re not here about the baby,” I said. I let that sink in. “Or at least, we’re not here about that baby.”

CHAPTER 53

It became quickly apparent that little Makayla was damn near expert at knowing when to make herself scarce. I had the distinct sense that Ellen wanted nothing more than to send us trotting after Lily, but instead, she disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Are you coming, or ain’t ya?”

I came. In other circumstances, I might have wondered at the fact that her accent had thickened halfway through that sentence, but right now, I had to focus.

“Almost twenty years ago, a girl named Ana Gutierrez got pregnant.” I cut straight to it.

Ellen displayed no reaction whatsoever to Ana’s name. “Sit,” she ordered.

Sadie-Grace, cowed by Ellen’s tone, went to plop down where she was standing, but I grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the kitchen table. It was made of a light-colored wood, and stained with years of use, rings burned and etched into its surface.

To me, it almost felt like home.