To that I received, That’d be cool.

To which I sent, Is your sister coming with you?

And while Alyssa announced to Josie, “You’re done. Don’t move. I’ll sort you after I get started on Amelia,” I got a return text.

Don’t know. I’ll ask her. Gotta go to class.

Thus I replied, Okay, kiddo. Talk to you later, and got back, Yeah. Bye.

I set my phone aside as Alyssa grabbed my hand armed with a cotton ball and polish remover.

She started going at my polish and I shared, “That was Auden. He’s coming over for dinner and to watch TV.”

I got two beaming smiles from two beautiful blondes as well as Josie’s, “That’s fabulous, Amelia,” and Alyssa’s, “Right on, sister!”

They were correct.

It was fabulous.

It was just sad that my life with my family was shifting to fabulous while Mickey’s seemed to be careening down an unknown path that was dark and forbidding.

Josie stayed while we did girl talk and I got my mani-pedi. Then Josie and I left and she took me to The Shack on the wharf, which was just that. A dilapidated shack that I’d noticed when Mickey walked me down the wharf weeks ago. With Josie, I found during the day it served coffee, breakfast and lunch, and it was run by a friend of Josie and Jake’s, a man named Tom who was all Magdalene: warm and friendly.

He also brewed excellent coffee.

Josie went her way, I went mine, mine being to Dove House.

But before I went in, I took out my phone and rang Mickey.

“Hey, baby,” he answered.

“Hey, honey, do you have a quick sec?” I asked.

“Sure,” he told me.

“I mean, a quick sec for not great news,” I shared carefully.

“Fuck,” he muttered then louder, “Sure.”

I launched in because he was working and also because not great news was always best delivered quickly.

“I had a mani-pedi at Alyssa’s with Josie this morning and Alyssa had heard about Rhiannon,” I informed him.

“Babe, not a surprise,” he replied surprisingly calmly. “Told you a long time ago, small town. People talk. Word gets around and fast. Especially that kind of word. Everyone knows about Rhiannon. The only one who doesn’t is Rhiannon.”

“Oh, right,” I mumbled.

“Thanks for heads up, though.”

“I was just worried that maybe the kids would hear.”

“They will,” he confirmed. “Since that’s the case, sat down with both of them last night. Shared it. It didn’t go down too great, but at least some kid says somethin’ they heard their parents say, they won’t be blindsided.”

God, I could not imagine having to do that with my kids. It had been hard enough sitting, traumatized and brokenhearted, with Conrad, sharing with our children that their father was moving out and we were getting a divorce.