Every night I lay awake wondering if I was being too selfish, taking them from the only home they’d ever known, but then I’d think about having to run into Brett and Kimmy all over town, or drive by my dream house and see the For Sale sign out front, or endure the pity of people who’d pretended to be my friends yet ditched me entirely when I’d needed them most. I wanted to be around family, around people I could trust, in a place that felt like home. I needed a safe harbor.

And the kids did too.

Ever since Brett left, Whitney had been wearing more and more makeup. I wasn’t sure if she was just a normal thirteen-year-old girl experimenting or if it went deeper, but it worried me. When I tried to talk to her about it, she claimed she just really liked makeup. Brett hated it, of course, so maybe it was her way of defying him? Of saying fuck you for leaving with her loud red lips? Part of me admired her for that. Did I really need to take it away from her?

Keaton, for his part, seemed to be eating his feelings. He was hungry all the time, and even though I didn’t keep junk food in the house, he would manage to buy it somewhere. Recently he’d started hiding it—I’d found a bunch of candy bar wrappers shoved under his pillow last week. When I’d checked his desk drawers, I discovered even more. I’d asked him about it, and he’d blamed a friend. I hadn’t had the heart to call him out.

I prayed every night that Cloverleigh Farms would heal our aching hearts—or at least make me a better parent.

Tipping up the sixth mimosa, I turned around, setting the empty champagne flute on the bar. “I’ll have another, please.” What the hell, it was Saturday, right?

“Yes, Mrs. Baxter,” said the bartender.

Mrs. Baxter. What a joke.

“Sylvia! So nice to see you!” Tippy Hewitt Hamilton air-kissed my cheek and gestured to the drink the bartender handed me. “I’ll have one too.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hamilton.”

I took a sip of my drink, fortifying myself for a conversation with Tippy, the gossipy queen bee of the Ocean View Country Club set, women I’d considered friends until recently. But many of them had known Brett was cheating on me, and none of them had said a thing. Their excuse? They didn’t want to upset me.

It was bullshit.

There was politeness, and there was loyalty, and I knew the damn difference, even if they didn’t.

“So I hear you’re moving back to Michigan,” Tippy said with a toothy smile.

“Yes.”

“You poor thing. Hard enough to have to leave that big, beautiful home, but moving to Michigan at the start of winter? It’s practically inhumane!”