“So you came here . . . why? Because you thought the cops wouldn’t show up at a wedding? I don’t understand. You should have called me back. You should have come home. Your parents are worried. I’m worried. I’m scared too.”

“Why are you scared?” she asked.

“Because of what the police found,” I said. “In Jennifer’s Facebook account.”

The corners of her mouth turned down. Her shoulders slumped. She looked away, off into the distance, and I saw her in profile. Young looking. Beautiful.

Scared.

“What happened, Amanda?” I asked. “Is what the cops are saying true? You didn’t go to the store on Thursday. Where were you?”

Her eyes looked deadly serious as she nodded her head.

“It’s true,” she said. “But I want you to understand why I did what I did.”

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

Amanda turned to face me when she started explaining.

The ground felt unsteady beneath my feet. My knees shook, reminding me of the kind of fear I had felt as a child when I was expected to go off the high diving board or deliver a speech in class.

Except the stakes here were much, much higher. As I stared at Amanda’s face, I saw Henry there. Our son. Sitting with his grandparents, unable to comprehend what we were doing.

Would he ever comprehend it? Would he ever know his mother?

“You know some of it,” she said. “When I saw those messages from Jennifer on your computer, I felt like crap. Jealous, of course. You know the kind of condition I was in then. I was going to stop working. I was getting bigger and bigger.” She pointed to her now-flat stomach. “I felt tired, hormonal. You worked all the time, and I felt like the world had left me behind. I was wondering if I’d ever get back to work again. Would I ever be anything but a mom, sitting at home, changing diapers and cleaning up snot?”

“You know that would never be true.”

“But I felt it. The feelings were as real as anything to me. And I thought you might not find me as appealing anymore. So I wanted to know what was going on with this woman. I wanted to know if you were talking to her all the time. And what kinds of things you might be saying to her. Or doing with her.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”