The ring was his grandmother’s. He wants to go to city hall. He wants to be married before the baby comes.

He holds me. My heart could shatter like river ice all over the kitchen floor.

— Chapter 59 —

I leave almost everything. I take my guitar, a few skirts, and the shirts that still cover my belly all the way. I leave my Ginger dress and Robert’s grandmother’s ring. I leave a note for Ethan. I tell him everything. I think it’s better that way. That Robert doesn’t have to read it. That it’s coming from a friend. I know it isn’t fair to Ethan, but what I’ve done is already unfair. Nothing will make it less wrong in the end. At least they’ll have answers and Ethan won’t feel like he has to stay here for me.

I leave the note on Ethan’s sun porch. I leave him my buck knife. Prop the knife and the note up next to his canvas, the brown painting with the squiggles and curves. He’s been working on it for so long now, so many layers of color and light. I see it all of a sudden. It’s me. It’s my hair falling over the body of my guitar. It’s brown and gold and soft and beautiful. It’s me and it’s what Ethan thinks of me and it’s almost enough to make it impossible to leave. It’s almost enough to keep lying, but I can’t. I love them too much. I can’t make them responsible for this part of me they had nothing to do with.

— Part Three —

— Chapter 60 —

November 1997

Bradenton Beach, FL

It’s twelve hundred and sixty miles from Anna Maria Island to Little River. I know, because I measured out the map key with a strand of my hair. My car has developed a wheeze, I’m two islands away from the mainland, and it’s a fucking Sunday afternoon—so I’m stuck in bumper to bumper traffic with all the tourists clearing the island to get back to their real lives, where they don’t wear Hawaiian shirts that smell like mothballs and ask the poor pregnant house singer at Ollie’s to play Margaritaville every single goddamn night.

I’d rather stay on the island, but if I have to go, I’d like to speed. I’m eight months now. Max spends all his time doing tap routines on my bladder, like maybe he learned from Ethan and me and all the Fred Astaire movies when he was just starting to be. I’m going to have to stop so many times that it will take me eons to get there.