“The baby was a girl,” Ellen said. “Arrived at daybreak. If I’d been naming her, I would have called her Dawn.”

Get to the point, I thought. But somehow, in my head, the words came out muddy. Slow. I felt suddenly like I was seeing double. I tried to say Sadie-Grace’s name. I might have succeeded, but I wasn’t sure.

I was sure that, across the table, Sadie-Grace was now slumped over.

I tried to stand, grabbing at the table in an attempt to find purchase. But all I ended up doing was knocking over the lemonade.

The lemonade.

I could see Ellen in the kitchen, her back to us. I could hear her putting what I’d thought was ice into the drinks.

“What . . .” I couldn’t keep standing. I was going to fall. Things were already fuzzy around the edges, and those fuzzy edges were going black. “Why would you . . .”

“Because,” another voice said from the hallway, “I asked her to.” Heels clicked against the linoleum as their owner strode toward me.

I went down. Ellen caught me under the armpits. I couldn’t even feel her grasp as she lowered me to the floor.

I could barely see the person standing over me. I blinked, forcing things to come briefly into focus.

“You brought this on yourself, young lady,” Aunt Olivia told me. Then she turned to Ellen. “Thank you for your assistance, Mama.”

CHARLOTTE, LIV, JULIA, AND THE BOYS
SUMMER BEFORE SENIOR YEAR
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EARLIER

Liv made it back from delivering Trina to wherever it was she’d come from and greeted Charlotte with a smile—and an order. “Help me unload the car, Char.”

It soon became apparent that what Charlotte was supposed to unload was camping equipment—several thousand dollars’ worth, at least.

“I tried to talk her out of it,” J.D. said as he hauled the tents and sleeping bags down from the car. He’d gone along with Liv to drop Trina off.

Charlotte wondered what else Liv might have come back with if he hadn’t.

“You drove?” Charlotte asked him quietly as she helped him unload the supplies.

“Of course I did,” J.D. replied. “The last thing she needs is a DUI. Liv’s not herself right now, Charlotte.”

Charlotte wanted to agree, but she thought back to the way Liv had gone hurtling off the edge of the cliff, the way she’d lorded her power over Trina, then turned on a dime and decided they could be friends.

That was classic Liv Taft.

J.D. was just too smitten to see it.

Charlotte woke in the middle of the night to find that Sterling wasn’t beside her. He had been, when they’d fallen asleep.

He’d kissed her.