Dad and Rhonda’s son, Stevie, named after Rhonda’s father, shared a birthday with Olivia, but after I’d survived the new moon on which I’d half expected to die, I made every effort to stop placing significance on days of the month. Because of our enormous age gap, I mostly got to know my half brother over video chat after I left Tampa for college. I often wondered what Dad and Rhonda had told him about me and Jennie, or if they’d mentioned Jennie at all, but I figured Jennie was keeping an eye on him no matter what.

Henry and I remained in Madison after we’d both graduated. The bullet that Violet had shot at Henry had left fragments in his shoulder, effectively ending whatever might have become of his tennis career. On rainy days, he wound his left arm around in circles, bent at the elbow, as if he thought he could ease the stiffness in the shoulder joint if he could just reposition his arm the right way. I wasn’t a believer in silver linings, but his injury made him focus more intensely on his interest in political science. By the time we were newlyweds, he had earned his law degree and landed a job with a firm specializing in civil and social justice. Henry, always the peacekeeper, had dedicated himself professionally to defending people who had been victims of crimes.

Mischa and I kept in close contact after high school, although once she and Matt married and she had their daughter, Lindsay, our phone calls became less frequent. Eventually, Henry took over the role as the listener for Mischa in my monthly routine, since her parenting schedule was so erratic. Not long after she’d had Lindsay, she had confessed to me over coffee that ever since the evil spirits had kicked her soul out of her body and we’d transferred it back in, she’d never felt completely “back.” That strange feeling of disconnectedness had ended her gymnastics career, and she never had a chance to become Willow’s first Olympian. Amanda, her older sister, had miraculously regained the use of her arms through advanced stem cell treatments, and ended up winning a silver medal for rowing in the Paralympics three years after the tornado touched down in Willow.

Mischa was fond of nagging me about when Henry and I would start a family. I didn’t dare tell her that we’d been working on that for a while, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t seem to be in the stars for us. Violet knew better than to nag. After she earned a master’s degree, she moved to Europe. Whenever she called to tell me that she’d broken up with yet another boyfriend and was afraid that she’d never meet anyone special and have a family of her own, I reminded her of what I’d predicted for her on the mountainside in Michigan: a long life, a healthy family.

Henry and I kept visits with his parents to a minimum, often insisting that they come to our home in Madison instead of having us over to theirs in Willow because returning to our hometown took an emotional toll on both of us. When we had no choice but to go there, we drove miles out of our way to enter town from the south to avoid driving past Martha Road.