“I feel silly that I called you during the game. I should have just rolled with it.”

I’d forgotten about her call. “No worries. I wish I hadn’t gone too.”

“Why? Did you lose?”

“No,” I said, trying to be casual. “I just think everything would have been better if I’d been here with you.”

She studied me for a moment, the light catching the green in her eyes. She seemed to be searching my face, wondering if something deeper lay beneath my words.

I’m not sure what she saw, but it must have been enough, because she nodded and said as I turned away, “I wish I hadn’t gone to the store earlier.”

I stopped and looked back. “Why? Did something happen?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just being silly. I just wish . . . I should have been at home.”

She turned then and went up the stairs without looking back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Once I heard Amanda’s footsteps recede up the stairs and move into our bedroom, I went into the small office I kept at the back of the first floor. I pulled out both phones—mine and Jennifer’s—but before I looked at them, I did what I told Amanda I would do and opened my laptop to look at the neighborhood Facebook group.

A flood of notifications inundated me. It took me a moment to remember, but then I knew why. The photo I’d posted that morning of Amanda bathing Henry. I’d captured them together with the sun coming in through the window in the kitchen, and then posted the photo with a comment about how lucky I was.

Which felt even more true now.

And I also saw Jennifer’s friend request. I hadn’t accepted it. Obviously. But I hadn’t denied it either. Something about saying no to her when she was dead felt strangely disrespectful.

But as I sat there in my house, my mind changed. With everything else going on, I desperately wanted to seize control of something.

This was a small thing. And easy.

So I rejected the request.

One push of a button and I felt some relief spread through me.

Ordinarily I’d go through and respond to every comment on my photo, most of which were agreeing with me or saying how beautiful Amanda and Henry were. But I put that off for another time, even though it felt unnatural to ignore those comments.

The neighborhood Facebook group—called the Heights Watch Group, after the name of our area—had existed before we moved there. In the group, anyone who lived in the Heights could post questions about repair people, comments about the weather, or announcements about events and activities like yard sales, parades, lemonade stands, et cetera. The group also proved to be an effective way for my neighbors to share information and complaints about scams, break-ins, and suspicious people on our streets.