“Anyone else?” Halcyon asked.

He frowned. “The LeDoux probably do, but I don’t figure you’d go talking to them, given the situation.”

Marina felt a blush creep up her neck. She knew there was little to no chance that news of her misfortune hadn’t reached every resident of Last Chance, and probably plenty of people who didn’t even live there. But having to face those people every day, knowing that they were all aware of the worst thing that had ever happened to her, was going to be hard.

“Thank you for your help,” Marina said and practically ran out of the building. Even though the other pawnshop was across the street, she jumped into her car and clenched the steering wheel, trying to slow her racing heart. Halcyon climbed inside and gave her a worried look.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I can’t do this,” Marina said. “The looks of pity. The talking around me. That guy is scary as hell and he was trying not to hurt my feelings. Everyone knows what happened. I’m either going to get pity or blame wherever I go, depending on whose side people have taken. And they’ve all taken sides.”

Halcyon reached over to squeeze her arm. “I know they have, honey. People always do. They just don’t necessarily let you in on which way they went.”

“But I’ll know. I’ll know every time I talk to someone. Every time someone looks at me. How long does this last? You’ve been cheated on. How long did the pity party go on? Or the gleeful celebration behind your back?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? You were married to three cheaters and the one who died had that whole baby-mama-at-the-funeral thing. You’re telling me you never noticed all the side glances and sympathetic looks?”

Halcyon shrugged. “With a mother like Constance Dumont, I’ve gotten those looks my entire life. I decided long ago to simply stop noticing. The kindest thing you can do for yourself is stop caring what other people think.”

Marina stared at her sister, her final sentence sinking in.

“If only it was that easy,” she said quietly.

“I never said it was easy to get there, but once you’ve arrived, it’s forever. If anything, I care even less as time passes. Whenever you see someone giving you a look, tell yourself their opinion doesn’t matter. That they don’t matter. Unless you have a lot of respect for someone, why bother to care what they think?”

“It sounds so logical.”

“It is logical. And when you can stop thinking with your heart and start thinking with your head, everything will be smoother.”

Marina nodded but she wondered, would it really be smoother? Was closing off her heart how Halcyon had dealt with all the disappointments life had thrown at her? And if you closed yourself off to pain, didn’t that mean you were also closing yourself off to joy? Was it really possible to turn your emotions on or off based on who was standing in front of you? And how did that work when she was handling people like her mother, whom she loved but didn’t really like much?