Hallie’s eyes didn’t move, not seeming to be looking at anything. She spoke softly. “I guess there’s no use pretending anymore, Lena. You hate me. Dad is disappearing. And my husband is a philanderer.” She exhaled and her gaze didn’t shift. “No more pretending.”

Colleen sat as still as she knew how, unable to find the words or actions that might soothe this awful moment.

“Neither of you can say anything right now to make it better, so to relieve you of that burden, I’m leaving.”

“Don’t.” Shane reached out his hand, touched her shoulder. “Stay.”

Hallie looked at Colleen and then grabbed her bag and left, the door clicking shut behind her.

Chapter Twenty-four

A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.

Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

The pub buzzed with activity—a bridesmaids’ party had descended, the women ordering shots of tequila and wearing pink T-shirts with the hashtag #gettinghitched. As if getting married meant this poor girl would be pulling a wagon for the rest of her life.

Colleen felt that old ache again, the one of betrayal, but this time it was for Hallie, and it was a feeling she didn’t want to have, one she didn’t want to indulge. Placing another brick in that wall of protection around her heart, she added some spackling and walked through the screeching girls, each laughing at the other in such high-pitched squeals that Colleen almost put her hands over her ears. Her dad sat at the far end of the bar, his head bent almost forehead to forehead with old Mr. Levin. Colleen knew his story, too: a widower who had lost his wife to lymphoma, who had sat on the same stool for the past twenty-five years, who drank only beer before his wife passed, and then afterward enough whiskey to kill him and need a ride home every night, and now only one shot a night. He twirled his whiskey glass. He nursed it. He sniffed it. He made it last as long as he could, and then he went home.

A doctor, an elegant woman with dark hair—Colleen didn’t know her name—a woman who was new to town and had opened an emergency clinic, sat with the bookshop owner, Mimi, in the middle of the room, laughing and drinking a beer. Colleen waved at Mimi and both women waved in return. Tales of the town filled this pub as surely as tables, chairs and taps.

“Dad.” Colleen said this gently. She didn’t want to startle him. It scared her, the way she felt about Gavin’s vulnerability. If her dad was easily frightened, if he couldn’t find his way, how could she?

“Hello, little lark.” Gavin smiled and kissed her cheek. “When did you get here?”