He headed back up the path. She hugged herself against the evening chill and put one foot in front of the other, trying not to think. She hadn’t gone far before he came up next to her, T-shirt and shorts sticking to his body. They walked in silence for a while.

“The thing is …”

When he didn’t go on, she looked up at him. “What?”

He looked troubled. “Forget it.”

The woods rustled around them with evening sounds. “All right.”

He shifted his shoes from one hand to the other. “After it was over … I just … I didn’t let myself think about her.”

She understood, but it made her feel even lonelier.

He hesitated. She wasn’t used to that. He always seemed so certain. “What do you think she—” He cleared his throat. “What do you think Sarah would have been like?”

Her heart constricted. A fresh wave of pain swept over her, but it didn’t throb in the same way as her old pain. Instead, it stung like antiseptic on a cut.

Her lungs expanded, contracted, expanded again. She was startled to realize she could still breathe, that her legs could still move. She heard the crickets begin their evening jam. A squirrel scuffled in the leaves.

“Well …” She was trembling, and she wasn’t sure whether the sound that slipped from her was a choked laugh or a leftover sob. “Gorgeous, if she took after you.” Her chest ached, but instead of fighting the pain, she embraced it, absorbed it, let it become part of her. “Extremely smart, if she took after me.”

“And reckless. I think today pretty much proves that. Gorgeous, huh? Thanks for the compliment.”

“Like you don’t know.” Her heart felt a little lighter. She wiped at her runny nose with the back of her hand.

“So how come you think you’re so smart?”

“Summa cum laude. Northwestern. What about you?”

“I graduated.”

She smiled, but she wasn’t ready to stop talking about Sarah. “I’d never have sent her to summer camp.”

He nodded. “I’d never have made her go to church every day during the summer.”

“That’s a lot of church.”

“Nine years is a lot of summer camp.”

“She might have been clumsy and a slow learner.”

“Not Sarah.”

A little capsule of warmth encircled her heart.

He slowed. Looked up into the trees. Slipped one hand into his pocket. “I guess it just wasn’t her time to be born.”

Molly took a breath and whispered back, “I guess not.”

Chapter 11

11

“Company’s coming!” Celia the Hen clucked. “We’ll bake cakes and tarts and custard pies!”

—Daphne Makes a Mess