Glory turns around to look at me. “It was me, Avril.” She’s staring at me, but I still don’t get what she means. “Your mom and I were together that summer. I was the one she met. I was the one she fell in love with.”

“I don’t—” I shake my head. I thought I had things figured out. But now nothing makes sense.

“It was me.”

“Oh.” It’s the only word I can think of.

“That summer was perfect,” Glory tells me. “We were both figuring so many things out together. It was all brand-new. For both of us. But I knew right from the beginning what I wanted. I wanted Nicki to stay here. With me. I thought if she stayed on at the theatre, it would be so great for all of us, you know? For the two of us, sure, but for Willa and Brody, too.”

“So she was staying with you,” I say. “At Whisper Cove.” But Glory shakes her head.

“I wanted her to. But she wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“She was— There was something she needed to do. Someone she wanted to be. So Willa and Brody were going to set her up in the city. Help her get started. Then she was gone, and I just—” Glory stops. “A lot of times, in movies and stuff, when someone dies, you see people fall apart. The ones who are left behind. They’re on their knees weeping and banging their fists on the ground. But it’s not always like that in real life. It wasn’t like that for me. There should have been all this sadness and pain, you know. But there wasn’t any. At least not at first. There was just this huge, empty hole. All this—nothing. I would get up and shower and eat and answer emails and go to work and do whatever. But inside, I’d totally stopped existing. It was . . .”

“Like you were dead?” I say, and Glory nods.

“And so, later, when that grief did finally come, it almost felt . . . good . . . somehow. The pain was so much better than that awful nothingness.”

I’m not sure what she’s getting at. So we just look at each other for a few seconds.

“I’m going to go make a salad,” Glory tells me. “And then we can talk more. Okay? There’s so much I want you to know about your mom.”

“Yeah,” I say, “I’d like that.” But I feel so weird. Just when I thought I had things figured out, everything gets turned upside down. None of it fits. It doesn’t make sense.

If my mother wasn’t having an affair with Brody Culver, then what does that B. C. mean in her notebook?

And if there was no affair, there was no reason for him to kill her.

Or me.