Did I mention any of this to Parker? No. Of course not. Because keeping it all bottled up and not bothering anyone with your problems is a much better idea.

Two nights before the implantation, I was up panicking (this time because I hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks and that was for sure going to keep the embryos from implanting). Nothing calms you back down and puts you right back to sleep quite like panicking about not sleeping. But finally I couldn’t stand the gentle whir of the ceiling fan or the feel of the world’s softest sheets and heaviest but also coolest comforter on my body. So I got up and walked out of the glass door in my bedroom, tiptoeing across the deck, across the yard, and to the end of our dock, which was closer than Parker’s. I walked down to the end of the floating dock so I could submerge my feet in the cool water. I wasn’t even pregnant yet, and already my feet and ankles felt a little swollen. I briefly envisioned a shark breaking the perfect silence and stillness of the night, soaring up out of the water, and chomping my foot off.

Parker and I didn’t have a clause in the contract about whether I would still carry the babies if I’d had a recent dismemberment.

I heard a noise on the dock behind me and turned to look. Not a land-walking, oxygen-breathing shark. Just Parker.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I didn’t want to scare you.” He sat down beside me and squeezed my knee. “I know. I’m freaking out, too.”

I felt like I finally exhaled for the first time in about six months. “You are?”

“Are you kidding me? Lia, I’ve literally never held a baby. Not once.”

I laughed. “Well, you seem very confident and unflappable.”

“I have to. Can you imagine if I showed even an ounce of weakness to those vultures?” He pointed to the two big houses. “They would eat me alive. The I told you sos would be heard ’round the world.”

I laughed. “I’m worried about everything, Parker. But, if I’m being honest, my biggest worry is that this isn’t going to work, and it’s going to be all my fault, that I got your hopes up and then dashed them in the ultimate way.”

He squeezed my knee again, and I was suddenly aware that I was wearing striped flannel pajamas. Parker looked me straight in the eye and said, “Amelia, this is the first time my hopes have been up in more years than I’d like to say. If high hopes are all that comes out of this, that’s enough.”

I couldn’t help the tears rolling down my cheeks. I wanted to say something about how between his brother and Greer he had been through so much. But I couldn’t. All I could do was pray to God or the moon or the still, cool water or anyone who was listening that I got to give Parker Thaysden something to feel happy about.