The next afternoon Colleen spent hours on the second floor of the small bookshop downtown, catching up with the owner, Mimi, and wondering how the elderly woman still managed to run a bookshop. But then she’d understood when she’d met her new assistant, Piper, a spitfire of a girl who was both funny and knowledgeable. Colleen had bought a pile of memoirs and started skimming them. She would take them home and look for the threads that bound the good ones together.

Piper had told her, “Well, to me, the good ones are the ones that tell the truth without ever blaming anyone else—just saying it like it is.” Then she’d leaned forward conspiratorially, her small nose ring winking in the sunshine that fell through the tall windows. “I’ve read them all. I know it means I’m a nerd, but ask anything you want.”

Colleen had thanked her, and thought that she could hang out in this store for just as long and happily as when she’d been a child. Because now, yes, now Colleen had a memoir to write—one about mothers and daughters and where you really came from. It did involve the ten tips, but so much more—it was about the journey of learning who she was.

She was also hiding. Hallie had made the quick and decisive decision to move to the Donohue home and today was the day. Shane had hired a crew and while Walter was out of town they were packing boxes and bringing them to May River. Walter knew they were leaving, but Hallie jumped on the chance to take what she needed without him over her shoulder begging her to stay or, alternately, cursing her for taking whatever it was she took. Colleen didn’t want or need to be in the middle of that. Shane had hired enough men to get the job done. But this didn’t stop her from thinking about it, from probing softly into the places that opened up with all the changes and realizations that had come into their separate lives.

If Colleen had married Walter, if she hadn’t walked into that church alcove and seen what she’d seen, their demise would have happened anyway. In some other place. In some other time. With someone else as the woman who came between them. Eventually he would have cheated on her. She understood that now.