I didn’t know what to say. I squeezed her hand instead.

“He didn’t tell me he was coaching at the high school,” she said. “I found out from Trey.”

A little silence, filled with the wind in the pines.

“Makes me wonder what else he isn’t telling me,” she said in a small voice.

Oh hell. “You think he’s cheating on you?”

“No. No. John’s not a cheater. But he’s not . . . happy. I love our babies. I love our house. I love our life, most of the time. What if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

“Ask him.”

“Maybe I don’t want to know.”

“Meg.” I bumped her shoulder. “Just talk to him.”

“The way you’re talking to Eric?”

“That’s different. John loves you.”

“And Eric doesn’t love you.” Her voice made it half a question.

I swallowed. “I thought he did.” I’d thought he could. The trees whispered in the darkness. “I have such a taste for you, Jo.” “When I was with him, I felt . . . accepted, I guess. Like he really saw me, liked me, warts and all. But he didn’t want me. That blog . . . It was his cooking, but that’s my writing. That’s me. He rejected me.”

We sat awhile longer. Clouds scudded across the moon, blurring its face. Meg handed me a tissue from her pocket, like a good mom.

“I’m not going to cry. I hate crying,” I said, and burst into tears. She sat beside me, petting my hair, the way our mother used to. “I’m sorry.”

“Have another tissue,” Meg said.

I loved her so much. I sniffled. “How about more wine?”

“Definitely wine. And cake,” Meg said, holding up Aunt Phee’s cake saver.

“Definitely cake.” I stood. “Let’s go eat our feelings.”

Meg smiled. “Spoken like a true March.”

We went inside. Maybe I wasn’t sure where I belonged anymore. But home was a good place to figure it out.

CHAPTER 18

Meg

There were roses, red ones, on the kitchen island when I got home. At least a dozen of them, still wrapped in cellophane from the grocery store. Not for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, my birthday, or our anniversary. Thanks, an apology, a romantic gesture . . . The reason didn’t matter. John was trying. The effort was everything.

My eyes welled.

John must have heard the back door open, because he came in from the living room. I blinked, taking in details, the cuffs turned back on his wilted cotton shirt, his blond hair sticking up in front like DJ’s or Daisy’s after she’d cut her bangs.

“You’re home,” John said. Finally, he did not say.

I nodded, my fingers itching to smooth that errant cowlick. To touch him.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Took them out again, looking as awkward, as unsure, as I felt.

I shifted DJ in my arms. “How . . . How was the tournament?”

“Good.” After a pause, he offered, “We won.”