Leo’s smile was achingly sad. His mouth opened without words emerging, like trying on different things to say. Finally, he said, “You’re not the only one who saw ghosts, Jones, but I—”

Before he could say another sorry, she put a hand out. “I can’t do this. Talk about telling Lily, before I’ve even processed this myself.”

“Okay. Of course. I get it. I—”

“Do you, Leo? Do you get it? Dropping this on me before my wedding? I’ll talk to you when I talk to you. You’re on my timetable now. For once.”

Joey gathered her sandals and walked to her car. She looked back only once to see Leo standing in the same place she’d left him, just like the last time, watching her go.

Chapter Seventeen

Joey

Florida
2019

Joey maneuvered her Jeep past a park where mothers pushed children on swing sets—mothers who probably did not have lengthy secret affairs and children with falsified paternities. With a quick left after the park, there it was: Joey’s childhood home, one of the last remaining traditional Southern-style houses in Delray, with her mother inside it.

Joey parked beside the row of hedges and switched off her ignition. She could see Bea in the living room window by her easel, absorbed in her latest canvas, oblivious to Joey’s arrival. Writers needed a room of their own, wasn’t that the saying? Well, Bea had appropriated the whole main floor as her art studio.

For Joey’s entire life, she’d thought her mom a bit loud, a bit out there, but talented and gregarious and confident. Joey had been proud that Bea was her mother, and proud of her mother’s art, no matter how offbeat. Joey knew intimately the vulnerability it required to create something from the truest part of you and then splash it out into the world. For a long time, Joey had been too distraught and disconnected from herself to create anything real. But since leaving law, she’d bonded with Bea again about the passion they both shared. Only now the varnish had gone. Her mother had taken everything Joey held dear—Leo, her art, and her family intact.

Joey bit her lip, white-knuckling her steering wheel. She so desperately didn’t want to cry. But her chest refused to obey and gave a heaving convulsion.

The tears came fat and hot. When they’d finally petered out, Joey lifted her head from the steering wheel. She slowly rearranged her Cousin It hair. She wiped her face with a makeup towelette and surveyed herself in the visor mirror.

Well, the glowy effects of her pre-wedding facial had gone, that was for sure.