Page 2

Reese never once mentioned the fact that over all those years I’d gotten absorbed in my own life. She was just there for me when I’d needed her. A shoulder to cry on—a rock when I was still tumbling around in a river of grief.

But I couldn’t use my big sister as my emotional crutch forever. She had her own life to live. It wasn’t like she’d moved to Jewel Lakes just for us—she’d wanted a fresh start after her break-up from Simon.

I also knew she had dreams of her own that she’d been shoving down for years, and I wouldn’t be a part of keeping her stuck by playing assistant to her tragic little sister.

“Feel free to get going anytime,” I said. I felt bad she had to be here today, especially, because she’d had to drive down to get us.

While Reese was renting an apartment here in Millerville, the girls and I lived further south, halfway to Barkley Falls, the other, smaller, town in Jewel Lakes. We were renting a little cottage on a farm on Amethyst Lake. The countryside where we lived was gorgeous, with its rolling hills and winding country roads, but we were car dependent and mine was acting up again.

The last time I took it in, the mechanic had told me it needed a new battery, starter, fan belt, wipers, and tires. I’d gotten the wipers, figuring it was a start.

“I can wait here,” she said. “You know I don’t have to work til tonight.”

“Reese,” I said, a warning note in my voice. I’d insisted she didn’t have to wait around in the park with us, given we’d come early so the girls could play.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll run some errands in a few. But I could go tell Emma to put her mitts back on.”

I followed her gaze. Emma had her hands fully immersed in the icy October water. Even from here I could see they were bright pink with cold when she pulled them out.

Guilt shot through me—I hadn’t noticed. Worse, I hadn’t noticed because I’d been staring at my damn phone, anxious to see how the APPLE PIE post was doing.

Reese must have seen it on my face, because she said, “I only noticed because of those hot dads next to her.”

A few feet from Emma there were a couple of guys watching a toddler by the smaller climbing structure. One of them had their back to me, but the one facing forward was good-looking: tall, well-built, dark hair, dark scruff—exactly Reese’s type.

But my eyes fell on the one with his back to me. I couldn’t see his face but he was just as nicely built, with broad shoulders, salt and pepper hair, and a well-tailored wool coat over dark slacks. He bent over just at that moment to right the toddler, who’d fallen over.

Reese patted me on the arm. “I got this.”

“I’m going too!” Macy jumped off the swing, following her aunt.

“Good, a wing-woman!” Reese said.

Once more, I’d been distracted—only this time by a random hot dad. Some mom I was being today.

2

Michelle

If there was one thing I could say about Reese, besides it being a nice break having my girls glom onto her whenever she was around, was that she had guts. She’d have no problem striking up a conversation with a random hot dad at a park.

Me, on the other hand, I had zero game. It was a factor of marrying young, then when widowed, spending several years in a cloud of grief. I did have one relationship after Joe—the realtor who helped me sell our house in Queens. Steve and I had stuck together for two bland years—even managing to get engaged before I came to my senses. I only stuck with it because Joe had made me promise I’d try to find someone to help raise our girls when he was gone.

I would have felt guilty about not ending it sooner, but after I said yes, Steve had wanted all kinds of photos of me flashing the ring for his promotional material. I suddenly knew—coupled with the fact that he only wanted the girls around for promotional opportunities too—that he preferred the idea oflookinglike a family man for his realtor business than actually being one.

Besides, I knew then I could never replicate what I had with Joe. I tried, it sucked, and I was much happier focusing on the girls. And the blog.

Reese turned as she approached Emma—and the men behind her—and gave me a surreptitious thumbs up.

I laughed, and waved at an eagerly hand-flapping Macy, but as soon as they turned back again, my eyes strayed to that salt and pepper guy.

Then it hit me like a rush of air—that guy reminded me of the last time I was at this park, when I’d met another man who looked just like him.

We’d been here for our first appointment with the neurologist we were seeing today, to get test results for Emma. She’d been having headaches and I’d been in a panic, sure it was a sign she’d inherited Frayne’s Syndrome—the fatal illness that Joe had been diagnosed with and would have passed from if he hadn’t died on the job.

Our family doctor had explained it was unlikely Emma had the condition, as she wasn’t also experiencing seizures. But tests were required to be sure, and to ensure that the fatal component of the syndrome, a deterioration of the lining of the brain, wasn’t present.

Reese was still in New York then, and I’d asked an old friend who lived in the area—Hank Archer, Joe’s best friend, who’d been with him when he died—to meet me at the park at the last minute instead. I framed it as a catch-up—we hadn’t seen each other in a while. Though really, I was looking for moral support. But Hank hadn’t come alone. He’d brought his older brother, Will.