“You’re not a very good businesswoman,” Jillian told Lindy.

“It’s more fun this way.” Then, “You guys are going to visit me, promise?”

Mark and Jillian groaned. “We already told you.” Jillian wanted to. She liked the sound of the words “sea isle.” She imagined sand and palm trees and misty, salty air. She pictured the three of them making sandcastles and biking to the market for ice cream once Lindy was well enough. She’d saved Lindy’s life, and that gave them a bond that might last their whole lives.

Uncle Terrance forgave Lindy when she apologized after she got out of the hospital, and probably would have even if she hadn’t given him homemade chocolate chip cookies. They were perfect: big and chewy and packed with chocolate chips. “You totally did not make these,” Jillian said, and Lindy admitted that she hadn’t. “My dad did,” she said, which was probably a lie, too, but who cared? They tasted better than Lucy’s.

Lindy was going to see a psychiatrist in South Carolina. Her dad had worked this out to keep her out of juvie for lying to the police. “It’s not like I need it, but maybe my mom does. Maybe if I go, my mom’ll go,” she said, again drawing on that newfound wisdom. She and her father were going to paint her new room in the new house together. Not one of his workers, she pointed out, but her actual father. She kept showing Jillian the deep blue paint swatch, like it was a diamond ring.

Adam leaped onto the bed like a baby bird falling from the sky, landing between Jillian and Mark with a bounce.

“Hey,” Mark said.

Jillian tickled Adam, who shook with laughter.

“What do you want, Adam?” Lindy said. “You can have anything you want for one dollar.”

“This bed!” he said. “Can I, Grammy?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea! But Mommy makes the decisions,” she said. She was so nice. She was living with Adam and his mom now. They were staying on at the Coxes’, their furniture—which had filled their old house—looking a little lost in just a few of the Coxes’ enormous rooms.

“He can have it,” Lindy said. “But he has to jump on it first, to see if it’s springy enough.”

Adam started jumping, bouncing Mark and Jillian onto the grass.

“Special sale!” Lindy yelled. “Anything purple is free for the next ten minutes.” A band of little girls came running over.

“I wish I were moving too,” Mark said as he and Jillian headed toward another furniture grouping.

They sat down on an L-shaped leather couch and put their feet up on the glass coffee table.

“But it’s never going to happen. I will never move out west and I will never have a horse. Nothing will ever change.”