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“Mom,” I said. “She wanted to come.”

Pietro lived in London and had just informed Mom he wouldn’t be making it home for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. She still hadn’t forgiven him. Reese not coming home for the weekend wasn’t exactly the same thing. Still, Reese had moved to Jewel Lakes because of me, which meant it was reallymyfault Mom and Dad were on their own.

“Reese’s work hasn’t been great about letting her have days off,” I said guiltily guiding the conversation elsewhere. It was true though. Reese had told me that Gastronomique’s original owners, who’d hired her, had recently retired. The new owners were New York City transplants, but unlike most people who moved to the area, they hadn’t relaxed into the new, slower, pace of life in Jewel Lakes. They weren’t the most pleasant people either, Reese said, in less than pleasant terms.

“She should work somewhere else!” Mom said. “Time off is important, I should know.”

I lowered my phone from where I was taking photos of Nona’s famous tomato sauce bubbling on the stove.

Mom had managed a huge staff of people at her office. When Joe died, she’d tried to switch to part-time hours to look after me. When they wouldn’t let her, she’d quit, even though she’d loved her job and was too young for retirement. I couldn’t exactly push her away after that. She’d ended up being my rock through those early, raw years of grief. I still felt guilty about her retiring, even though Mom assured me she’d adjusted just fine.

“You’re right,” I said. But I also knew she didn’t necessarily want to keep working as a server. She was good at it, but she had other dreams. Ones I wasn’t quite sure Mom would understand.

Then Mom said, “Does she still sing?”

I hesitated. I was surprised by the question. I shook my head. “I don’t think so”

“Damn that man.”

That was even more surprising—that Mom knew it had something to do with Simon. “I didn’t know you knew.”

Mom raised an eyebrow as she sniffed at the sauce. Of course she knew.

Reese had once wanted to be a singer. Back when we were kids, she’d sing everything she heard. She’d make me laugh by holding up a wooden spoon in the kitchen when we were home alone, belting out the words to songs that required a range very few people had. Even as an adult, she used to sing all the time. And even though performing on stage was the one thing she was shy about, she used to go to open mic nights in New York.

But something had happened with her ex Simon—something she hadn’t even told me about. After they broke up, she didn’t sing. And she’d never told me why.

“Did she tell you what happened?” I asked.

Now it was Mom’s turn to shake her head. “I was hoping she’d told you.”

I cleared my throat, pulling my phone up again to take pictures. Reese would be pissed if she knew we were talking about this. I may not know what had happened, but I knew she’d never forgive me for getting Mom involved—even in speculation.

“What do you think about this?” I asked Mom now, to change the subject.

I also did actually need to focus on these photos.

I’d spread an assortment of herbs and a perfectly crumpled tea towel on the old enamel worktable in the corner of the kitchen. The table was my grandmother’s, and we’d rolled out cookies on it when Reese and I were girls, just like my girls would do with my mom.

“Let me see,” Mom said, coming up behind me. She was totally mystified about what made a good food picture, but she put her arms around my shoulders, kissing me on the temple like she had when I’d been a teenager. “It looks beautiful, sweetie.”

A memory hit me in the gut, so hard and sudden I almost made a sound. Mom, here at this table, with her hands on my shoulders, just like now.

Joe, me, and Emma, then only a year and a half old. It was Thanksgiving, and Joe’s parents were here too. We’d sat all our parents down ahead of the rest of the family to tell them we were expecting Macy. All the grandparents had gushed. Mom had gotten up and stood behind me, kissing me on the head. Her reaction felt subdued, but I’d been distracted. It should have been the most joyful day. A new baby, sister, granddaughter. But as I looked over at Joe, he’d given me the most tragic smile. Only a week before we’d discovered we were expecting, we’d gotten Joe’s diagnosis.

Frayne’s Syndrome.Terminal. He had under a year to live.

We didn’t tell them that day. We couldn’t mar the happy news, the joy in all their faces. Joe had just pressed his foot against mine under the table and we’d both pretended the tears on our face were ones of joy.

When I told my parents later that we’d known, Mom had broken down.I knew,she’d said.I knew something was wrong.She had sensed it, I knew then.

Dad, meanwhile, had been angry.You shouldn’t have carried that burden, Bella. Not on your own.

But it was Joe who’d had the burden, not me. After his diagnosis, he’d slipped into a deep depression. He said it was the headaches that kept him on a temporary leave from work, lying in bed all day with the curtains closed, but I knew it was much worse than that. He’d fallen into darkness. Not even his baby girl coming into the room and kissing him on the cheek before I had to usher her out again helped.

It was the blog, of all things that pulled him out of it. I told him I was going to tell them everything. I had no other outlet then. Joe was my only outlet, and I was going to lose him. It wasn’t a threat, just a desperate need to help him, and to help me. We had months left together and I couldn’t stand for this to be the way they went. I started small, telling him I wrote about how we’d met. He’d been attending a false alarm at the restaurant I worked in, and he’d knocked my container of freshly chopped onions I’d been prepping onto the floor. Cutting onions was my least favorite kitchen task—I was particularly sensitive to them and my eyes had burned for an hour doing the work. They were still red when the fire alarm went off. I’d yelled at him, this gregarious firefighter who’d given me a killer smile when he tromped into the kitchen in all his gear. The next day he’d come back to the restaurant in plainclothes, with a gift. A pair of work goggles.

“Do you remember that, Joe?” I’d asked him as I sat on the edge of his bed. He’d looked up at me, tears in his eyes.