Marah immediately whined, “I’m old enough to stay up. Besides, there’s no school tomorrow. It’s a teacher contract day.”

“Bedtime, little one,” Kate said, bending down to offer Tully a drink.

Marah looked at Tully as if to say, See? I told you she thinks I’m a baby. Tully couldn’t help laughing. “Your mom and I were once in a hurry to grow up, too. We used to sneak out of the house and steal my mother’s—”

“Tully,” Kate said sharply. “The old stories won’t interest her.”

“My mom sneaked out of the house? What did Grandma do?”

“She put her on restriction for life. And made her wear clothes from the sale rack at Fred Meyer,” Tully answered.

Marah shuddered at the thought.

“Polyester,” Kate added. “For an entire summer I was afraid to be near open flames.”

“You two are lying to me,” Marah said, crossing her arms.

“Us? Lie? Never,” Tully said, taking a sip of her drink.

Marah got out of her chair, gave them a long-suffering sigh, and headed back into the house. As soon as the door banged shut, Tully and Kate laughed.

“Tell me we weren’t like that,” Tully said.

“My mom swears I was. You were little Miss Perfect around her. Until you got us arrested, that is.”

“The first chink in the armor.”

Laughing, Kate sat down in the Adirondack chair beside her, wrapping herself in one of her mom’s afghans.

Tully hadn’t realized how tense she’d been, how tight her neck and shoulders had become, until that moment, when she began to relax. As always, Kate was her safety net, her security blanket. With her best friend beside her, she could finally trust herself. She leaned back in her chair and stared up at the night sky. She’d never been one of those people who felt insignificant beneath the heavens, but suddenly she understood why some people did; it was a matter of perspective. She’d spent so much of her life in a rush for the finish line that she’d been left out of breath. If she’d paid a little more attention to the scenery and a little less to the goal line, she might not be here now, a forty-two-year-old single woman searching for the tattered remnant of a family.

“So, are you going to make me ask?” Kate finally said.

There was no point in hiding the truth, although she had an almost instinctive need to do just that. The music changed to ABBA, “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” “I saw Chad,” she said quietly.

“A few months ago, right? In Central Park?”

“Yeah.”

“And seeing him then made you jump on a plane and fly out to see me now. I completely understand.”