She would never be just a memory, and I could never play second fiddle to a dead woman. If I ever let myself move forward, I wanted to be first in a man’s heart. I hadn’t gotten that with Thad.

Now, in my bedroom, folding the final few items to put into my suitcase, Parker looked at me expectantly, like maybe he was going to say something, like maybe there was something else to say. But even I knew there wasn’t. I was defeated, humiliated, and ready to go find my real life, whatever and wherever that was. I couldn’t believe that just a few hours ago I had been prancing around here declaring how pregnant I knew I was. Really, it had just been gas from too much produce. What kind of woman couldn’t tell the difference between gas and a baby?

The weight of it all hit me so hard that I sat down on the bed. I made the critical mistake of saying, “I’m so sorry, Parker,” which was all it took for the tears to start flowing down my cheeks.

He sat beside me, put his arm around me, and consoled me, like I knew he would. He pulled me close and said, “There is nothing to be sorry for, Liabelle. We took a chance; we rolled the dice. So we didn’t win this time. It’s okay. It isn’t your fault.”

He pulled away and looked at me expectantly, trying to discern whether he had mended my broken heart. He had not. Nothing could. But, on the bright side, I had an interview at Sea & Sky the next week that I would nail and get the job and all this would be a blinking light in my rearview mirror.

I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. I remembered those eyes when he was a child, how wild they had been, how blinking and shining and full. His face still looked young, like someone who could just as easily have been doing keg stands with his fraternity brothers as mourning the loss of his would-be children. But his eyes? His were eyes that had seen things, that had known things that eyes that age should not know.

It was those sad eyes that had made me want to do this in the first place. And now, instead of making those sad eyes bright again, I had only contributed to the very real longing that stood, plain as day, behind their oceanic blue.

A part of me—a very small part—wondered if I should offer to do it again. But the real me, who wasn’t as brave as she thought she was, knew that wasn’t a possibility. I couldn’t take those eyes.

I squeezed Parker’s hand, smiled at him bravely, and said, “Goodbye, Parker.”

He didn’t say a word. What did that mean? I turned to walk away, feeling sad and empty.

When I got to Dogwood, my mother was on the living room sofa with Aunt Tilley, who was wearing normal clothes for the first time this entire trip. I knew it meant she was having a good spell, but, even still, I missed her silly Victorian dresses. Mrs. Thaysden was across the room. They were all sipping out of tiny teacups.