I snickered. “At least you have a husband.”

Somehow we were giggling, laughing, holding on to our sides and each other until Meg was wheezing and I was out of breath.

“Poor old Aunt Phee,” Meg said.

“She’s a bitch,” I said.

“She’s lonely,” Meg said.

“I know.” I squatted to hold out my hand, coaxing the cat from under the swing. “That’ll be me in forty years. I don’t have anybody, either.”

“You have us,” Meg said.

The cat sniffed my fingers. I rubbed his head. “And Weasley. Maybe I’ll be a cat lady like Bethie.”

“Or you could get a little dog,” Meg said.

“Ha. Not in a million years.”

“You’re right. Dogs are too much work. Besides, you like being on your own,” Meg said.

“True.” We sat on the swing, side by side. I felt so close to her in the quiet dark. Like when we were little, whispering secrets across the space between our beds. “Sometimes I’m jealous of you,” I confessed.

“Of me?”

“Of you and John,” I clarified. “You have somebody you can count on. Someone who’s there.”

Meg’s face looked funny in the blue glow of the Christmas lights. “If all you wanted was somebody there all the time, you could have married Trey.”

Huh.

“Did you tell him you’re back?” my sister asked.

I shook my head. “I didn’t come home to repeat my mistakes.”

“Are you so sure it would be a mistake? Trey loves you. He’s always loved you.”

“Trey loves his idea of me—the girl next door, his buddy, his pal. As long as he can imagine he’s in love with me, he doesn’t have to grow up. But I don’t fit into his life. And he definitely doesn’t fit into mine.”

“You mean, your life in New York.”

“I mean, we don’t want the same things. We’re not like you and John.”

“Sometimes I don’t know what John wants anymore.”

I felt a little flare of alarm, like a moth flying into a bug zapper. “Meg?”

She looked down at her lap in the blue light, where her engagement ring shone like a star. “Did I ever tell you about our first date?”

“You went to a football game, you said. He took you out afterward for ice cream.”

“Not only for ice cream.”

“You mean . . .”

Her lips curved. “He drove me to Carolina Beach. We checked into a hotel.”

“Shut up. You did not.”

Her smile turned smug. “We didn’t get home until Sunday.”

“You told Mom and Dad you met at the bank. You dated for a year before you moved in together.”

“Because I wanted them to like him. I didn’t want them to think we were rushing into things.”

“You were awfully young when you got married,” I observed.

“I was not.”

“Beth’s age.”

She gave a surprised laugh. “I guess you’re right.” A few late tree frogs peeped from beyond the porch. “I always thought John and I would have more time before we started a family,” she confessed. “Nobody tells you how hard it’s going to be.”