Right then Clare acknowledged another seismic shift in her life—the girls now deferred to Jack. Clare had always been the boss, and before her accident it wouldn’t have occurred to any of them to ask Jack’s permission if she was in the room. She’d been absent just long enough for that dynamic to change.

Maggie came back. “Dad wants me to stay here tonight because Grandma and Grandpa are going back to Connecticut tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, honey. I can come pick you up tomorrow afternoon.”

Maggie kissed her mother and grandmother good-bye.

Clare and Anna said their good-byes and walked to the door with Jack and Andi. It was all so civilized, she thought, so goddamned civilized. What would they say, she wondered, if she let loose with the rage she felt boiling in her gut? What would they do if she grabbed Jack by the arm and dragged him out of there?

“It was a great party,” Clare said, resisting the urge to take back what had once been hers. “Thank you again.”

“Thanks for coming,” Andi said.

“Drive carefully tomorrow,” Anna said to Jack.

He hugged them both. “I will.”

Clare kept quiet on the ride home, trying to absorb it all.

“Nice party,” Anna finally said.

“Very,” Clare agreed. “You were right, Mom. Thank you for making me go.”

“Mothers are always right. Don’t you know that by now?”

“You’re gloating!” Clare said with a grin. “I have to admit, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

“That’s probably because Andi’s so nice.”

“She really is. If he had to be with someone else, I’m glad it’s someone the girls like.”

“If they didn’t like her, he wouldn’t be with her.”

“No. No, he wouldn’t.”

Kate woke up at four in the morning, her heart hammering with anticipation. And dread. Her eighteenth birthday—the day she’d been waiting and planning for, but she hadn’t expected to be so sad about leaving her family.

She got up to shower. When she was dressed, she tiptoed down the hallway to the nursery next to the room her dad shared with Andi. The babies slept peacefully in the predawn, and Kate was careful not to wake them. She leaned first over Robby’s crib and then Johnny’s to watch the soft whisper of their breathing. Her eyes filled with tears. They would grow up while she was gone, and she would be a stranger to them on her infrequent trips home.

“Hey,” Andi whispered when she came into the room. “You all ready?”

“I hope I didn’t disturb you,” Kate said with a nod to the baby monitor.

“No. Your dad’s up, so I got up, too. Are you all right, Kate?”

Kate turned back to Johnny’s crib. “They won’t know me,” she said as a rush of tears flooded her eyes.