“Then quit.” Hallie looked up. “Be Lena. Please. You told me I was obsessed with planning the party so I didn’t have to think about my marriage. And maybe you’re right. But you’re obsessed with your job so you don’t have to think about us—your family here without you.”

“That’s not why. I love what I do and where I get to go and . . .” Colleen was defending something that was both true and not altogether true. Yes, she loved her job. But yes, she’d used it to avoid her family and the pain and the loss.

“All these years, I’ve known the truth about Walter. Deep down I’ve known.” Hallie sat on the soft grass, her legs crossed.

Colleen sat across from her on bent knees, her hands denting the moist grass, mud wet against her shins. “You’ve known?”

“Guessed at best. But, Lena, he’s a good dad. A great man in so many other ways. We have a community and a life and the girls, the precious girls. I needed to believe he was faithful. I needed to believe that having him was worth the price of betraying you.” She looked to Colleen, her eyes now clear and her voice clearer.

“We fool ourselves,” Colleen said. “We fool ourselves to make circumstances tolerable. We fool ourselves to avoid the pain. We fool ourselves to make sure that life can chug along at its slow, grinding, safe pace. I understand. But you deserve everything good and true. So do I. We both do, and Walter Littleton wasn’t and isn’t either of those things.”

“I’ve been at war with myself,” Hallie said, her breath slowing as she calmed down. “One part of me convincing me to stay and that all was well, and the other part begging me to look and be aware.” She shifted on the grass and gazed over Colleen’s shoulder. “Do you have any idea what it is to be battling yourself? It drains you of so much . . . energy.” She looked back at Colleen. “He’s awful, isn’t he?”

“He doesn’t have to be all bad, Hallie. I know the good parts, too, but you have to decide what you can and cannot live with.”

“I know.” Hallie took her sister’s hands. “I love you. You know that, right? I didn’t stop just because you did.”

Colleen felt the thick sadness in her throat and tried to swallow. “I do love you, Hallie, but it’s the trust that I haven’t been able to find.”

“I know.” Hallie’s gaze became unfocused. “My God, my girls will be devastated if I leave him. They think he’s the bee’s knees. Daddy this and Daddy that and Daddy here and Daddy there.”