She would hand me vegetables and instruct me to dice or chop or whatever, and she’d get going on the fish or chicken. Sometimes she’d send me out to the grill. Amelia was a great cook, but that wasn’t what I loved about those nights. It was the talking, the sharing of secrets and laughter, the way we’d dance around the kitchen when a favorite song came on.

Living in fifteen hundred square feet with someone bonds you fairly quickly. I loved the smell of her shampoo wafting through the house after she showered, the taste of the decaf coffee she’d added a pinch of cinnamon to, which we’d share on the porch at sunrise, the sound of her humming while she wrote, lost in one of several freelance pieces she had landed. The feelings I was developing toward her should have set off alarm bells. But they didn’t. They felt simple. They felt right.

We read books together and discussed them, a hobby I had never shared with anyone else. Greer loved to read, but we had different tastes. Amelia tore articles out of The New York Times and left them for me and turned down corners of stories in The New Yorker she thought I’d like.

One night, I said, “It seems like you’re really into the New York–based publications these days. Any reason?” I was teasing, but the thought of her in New York made my heart race uneasily.

She smiled noncommittally. “I guess I’m just thinking that I love Palm Beach, but I don’t have my own home and I don’t have a job, and while I’ll miss my friends, they’ve all moved on, too, you know? After being a managing editor at Clematis, I feel like I can certainly get a writing position at a New York publication. I used to be a little scared of New York.” She laughed ironically. “But certain events of the past year have made me braver.”

My mind was racing with ways to keep her in Palm Beach, with me, even as I said, “Lia, I told you already that you can have any job you want at McCann Media.” I paused. “You’re having my baby, for God’s sake. You’re carrying the heir to the McCann Media empire. I’d say it’s the least I can do.”

I knew what she would say before she even said it: “I appreciate that, and I will certainly come to you if I need help, but I feel like I have to do this on my own.”

On my own… on my own… The words rolled around in my head as I paced nervously around the tiny doctor’s office. We were waiting for the results of Amelia’s blood test, and she was lying back on the table, doing some sort of intense deep-breathing exercise. I assumed she was visualizing, but it seemed a little late for that. Finally, I sat down on the swivel stool beside her and took her hand. She looked at me with one eye. “I’m breathing here,” she said.