Times change, my friend.

Myron takes a deep breath. I see the tears form in his eyes. I put my hand on his shoulder to give us both strength. He reaches over and acknowledges the gesture. We wait for Myron’s father to bring Terese to the dais.

Much of the ceremony passes in a haze for me.

When Esperanza gives me the signal, I hand Myron the ring.

We are best friends and I love him.

But, sorry, sometimes the prettiest lie is better than the truth.

So I will never tell Myron. Though I wonder whether he suspects it.

The morning after Rhys’s body was found, he called me on the phone. “Where’s the gun?” he asked.

“What?”

“Patrick’s gun.”

“Oh,” I lied. “The police confiscated it.”

There was a hesitation—maybe a second too long—before he said, “Okay.”

You may think I kept the gun. I didn’t.

If you remember, Brooke was the one who took the gun from Patrick.

The call I got when we arrived back at the Dakota? That was from Brooke. I went back and helped her clean up. The police were able to find enough remains to identify, even ten years later, my cousin Rhys.

That will never happen with Nancy Moore.

No one will ever find the slightest trace.

Oh, there will be sightings. An anonymous call will claim they saw her on a beach in Fiji. Someone else will say she’s living in a monastery in the hills of Tuscany. Or perhaps someone will spot her in London, where Zorra is currently paying a visit to a certain rotund pedophile.

Nancy Moore will forever be in hiding, a mystery.

The ceremony ends. I watch Myron lift Terese’s veil. He pauses because—I know him, you see—he wants to drink in this moment. He gets how rare this moment is and he wants to stop and appreciate it.

He just wants this moment to last.

Myron is good about that.

I don’t know if I agree with what Brooke did or if I would have done the same in her place. But it is not my place to question her judgment. Nancy Moore robbed her not only of her only son but also of closure. She did immeasurable damage to Chick and Clark. She knew the truth for ten years and let her suffer. She took Brooke’s life away from her. She took Brooke’s child, her baby, and tossed him like so much trash down a ravine.

You tell me what the price should be.

I also confess that perhaps I’m being sexist. If Nancy Moore had been a man—if Hunter Moore had found the body that day and thrown a six-year-old away like so much refuse, ruining lives, destroying my cousin, her husband, her young child, would I think twice about making him pay?

One wonders.

Brooke and I are alike. We share a bond. Perhaps that bond is not always a good thing. Did Brooke act in a moment of understandable maternal fury? Would Brooke do it again if she had time to reconsider?