She nodded, smiling as she thought of her late husband. “Over time, I came to realize that was how he was wired. Nothing bothered him, and everyone liked him. He asked me out a hundred times before I finally said yes.”

Sydney looked up in time to see a flash of naked pain cross Luke’s face. “What’re you thinking?”

“That when you said yes to him you were saying good-bye to me, and I didn’t even know it.”

The pain she heard in his voice made her sad. “Maybe,” she said, dropping soft kisses on his chest, “I was saying ‘good-bye for now’ to you.”

“You really believe that?”

“I’m beginning to.”

“Tell me about the kids.”

She knew they needed to have this conversation if they had any chance of moving forward together, but that didn’t make it any easier. “Max was brilliant. All mothers say that about their kids, but in his case, it was true. He taught himself to read before kindergarten, and we were talking about having him skip third grade because he was so far ahead of his age group. He loved the Red Sox and video games, even though we didn’t let him have them at home. Seth took him to Fenway Park every summer, and they watched the games every night. There was nothing he didn’t know about that team.”

Luke ran his fingers through her hair, offering comfort as he listened.

“Malena was all girl—ballet and nail polish and frills and bows. She drove her brother insane wanting him to play with her dolls and trying to dress him up for tea parties. She was in kindergarten, often in trouble for talking in class. We suspected she’d be a handful as a teenager. But she was sweet and kind and generous. Always fighting for the underdog and befriending the kids no one else liked.”

“I’d love to see pictures of them sometime.”

Sydney tilted her head back so she could see him. “I’d love to show you.”

“Thank you for telling me about them. I know it’s not easy for you, but now I feel like I know them a little bit.”

Another thought occurred to her, making her hurt the way she did every time she thought of it.

“What, Syd? What is it?”

“I never saw them after. By the time I came to, they’d all been buried. My parents and Seth’s took care of everything.”

“That might’ve been for the best, don’t you think?”

“The shrink assured me I didn’t want those images in my head. He said I was better off remembering them the way they’d been in life.”

“But?”

She appreciated he understood there was more to it. “I feel guilty I wasn’t there for them. That’s weird, right?”