“You were perfect, sweetheart.” Lillian gave a faint shake of her head. “And Lord knows my Liv was never that. Her daddy spoiled her. I did, too, truth be told.” My grandmother managed a very small smile. “For years, I told myself that Liv had changed—that whatever she’d done to get over her daddy’s death had changed her. I told myself that she’d grown up. But last year, when I brought Sawyer back here, and I watched you treat her like she was your own… This summer, when I heard you and J.D. arguing and realized you were aware of her parentage . . .” Lillian closed her eyes. “That was when I finally let myself ask the questions I should have been asking all along. That was when I knew.”

“No,” Aunt Olivia said again. “You didn’t. You would have said something. You would have done something.”

“After twenty-five years?” Lillian asked. “To what end? You’re Lily’s mama and John David’s.”

I realized that Lillian still didn’t know that Aunt Olivia had faked her pregnancy with Lily, but right now, that hardly seemed to matter.

“You were my daughter for twenty-five years,” Lillian continued, staring at Olivia. “You tried so hard, and when I finally got past seeing what I wanted to see, I was able to catch a glimpse of something else. You were hungry, Olivia—not physically, but down in the depths of your soul hungry, wanting things in a way that people who grow up with everything never will. Weeks ago, I recognized that, and then I recognized you.”

“You didn’t know about me.”

“It had been years since I had seen you,” Lillian countered. “The resemblance was less uncanny then, between you and my Liv. You could have passed for sisters, but not twins. Genetics are funny that way. Ellen and I got less identical as we got older, and you and Liv . . .”

“You knew?” Aunt Olivia—I couldn’t bring myself to call her Kaci, the way Lillian had just once—seemed unable to get over that. “You knew about me, back when Liv was still alive? You could have come for me. You could have brought her. You could have . . .”

“Ellen wouldn’t let me visit. She certainly wouldn’t take my money, but I did what I could to make sure you kids didn’t go hungry. I kept eyes on you, for a time.”

I did what I could. That was the same thing Lillian had told me at the Gutierrezes’ party. At the time, I’d felt like she couldn’t have possibly done enough for her sister’s family. But now, listening to my grandmother tell Aunt Olivia that she’d known quite well she wasn’t her daughter and allowed the charade to continue . . .

“What about the real Liv?” I asked my grandmother. “Don’t you care?”

“Of course I care,” Lillian said quietly.