Hope had eventually decided to leave the armoire as her gift to the Becketts’ apartment, but the rest of the move went forward as planned. According to Hope, everything was going well. The cottage was comfortable and homey. Evan dumped a lot on her plate, but she was enthusiastic about doing something new and thought she could leverage the knowledge she was gaining for bigger opportunities down the line. She had even become a semiregular at one of the local restaurants, where her favorite meal was something she called a “bottomless sandwich.”

Lindsay tried to remind herself that Hope could have chosen worse locations than East Hampton. It was a little farther from New York City than Hopewell, but at least she was still relatively close. Lindsay had even thought about taking a rental—maybe they could find a way to share it. But Hope had asked for space as she got adjusted to her new surroundings. At first, she was at least texting regularly. But for the last two weeks, it had been Lindsay doing most of the reaching out, and Hope’s responses had gotten slower and shorter.

She erased her latest draft message. It was nearly eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. No matter what she typed, Hope would know that Lindsay was worried about her ability to navigate through life anywhere outside of Hopewell. And she’d resent her for it.

Her phone was still in her hands when a new text message arrived. It was from Scott. How was girl day? Wish you were here.

Here would be about a mile away from Lindsay’s Greenwich Village one-bedroom, where Scott owned an apartment overlooking Gramercy Park—the apartment that in theory could be hers by now, too.

Was only girl brunch. Many bloody marys were involved. Surfed Netflix the rest of the day.

She saw three dots appear on the screen, indicating that Scott was typing. She expected a lengthy message based on the delay but received only one word in response. Alone?

Yup.

Oof. Those three letters looked snippier on the screen than she had meant them in her head. And maybe his one-word question wasn’t as clingy as she first read it. She tapped a quick addition. How’d the weekend go?

One little rough spot when I declined an invitation to go to American Girl, but otherwise, it was great.

Rock Center on a weekend? You’re a wise man.

This was Scott’s weekend with his seven-year-old daughter, Nora. He had raised the possibility of Lindsay meeting her with increasing frequency over the past two months, and Lindsay kept finding reasons to defer until another time.

I told her we’d save that trip for you. JK.