And then there was Blaire. How many hours had she spent in therapy talking about Blaire? Kate had come to realize that she bore some responsibility for Blaire’s progression into madness. She wasn’t taking the blame for Blaire’s actions, but she did have to admit that she’d never considered what taking Lily and Harrison from Blaire would do to her. Even if Lily hadn’t been her biological mother, she was more of a mother to Blaire than anyone in her life had ever been. Kate had known all about Shaina. Blaire had told her about the way she’d waited day after day to hear from her. How she would run to the mailbox after school every day, looking in vain for something, anything, to prove that her mother hadn’t forgotten about her. Blaire suffered in all those years before Kate ever met her, coming up with excuse after excuse for her mother never having come back for her. And then, just when Blaire had started to move forward, Enid had come into her life and taken the only stable person left—her father. Kate’s family had become Blaire’s family. But in the end, they’d all thrown her away—even Lily. It was no wonder Blaire went over the edge when she found out the truth.

So many wasted years. It made Kate so sad. The first few years after Blaire moved away, Kate was so busy with medical school and marriage that it was easy to put her old friend out of her mind. And when she mentioned the idea of calling her to Simon, he’d always discourage her and remind her how Blaire had tried to break them up. But she couldn’t lay all of this at Simon’s feet.