I missed my alone time with Savannah, but I was grateful she had found a boy to love and hoped it would last. I started dating Gabe when we were sixteen. People think you don’t know what love is at that age, but I’m living proof that some people do. We were together for two years, then apart for the next four. He was more appealing in the letters he wrote me than any man I met while he was deployed, and I married him the moment he got back. We were twenty-two. Savannah was born that very same year.
I knew their relationship was barely three weeks old, but I could tell by how she looked at him that Savannah was head over heels. He made her happy down to her bones—a good antidote for being with me. I felt relieved when she texted to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner or until late, because then she wouldn’t have to see me crying, which I did almost daily. I also didn’t have to worry about infecting her with my pathetic self-pity. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be free.
I knew that she loved me, but with Evan paying for everything, she didn’t really need me anymore. I certainly wasn’t providing for her, quite the opposite. If anything, I had become a burden. Her future was bright. Mine was an abyss.
I hadn’t heard from Libby since our dinner party last week, and I knew why—I was a complete and total bore. We were probably close in age, but she had way more in common with Logan, who knew about politics and faraway places and what to say at dinner parties. Libby and I struggled to find anything to talk about beyond our favorite recipes and the weather. Any hope I had of us being friends was gone by dessert. I couldn’t relate to her stories about heading off to college and starting a career. And I had nothing to offer her but lies.
I counted out the Vicodin, then lined them up like little soldiers on the plate. There were eighteen, not seventeen. They must have given me one extra by mistake. I figured nine or ten would do the trick, but I’d take as many as I could get down.
I didn’t write a note, what was there to say? The only person on this earth I cared about would know why I was doing this. Between Logan and Evan, she would build a life not weighed down by me.
I took the pills one at a time.
Then went upstairs to my bed to wait for death.
EVAN
Three months ago
I didn’t know the first thing about buying a house.
I knew how it worked, of course. Find one that’s available, make an offer, put down a deposit, go into escrow, have an inspection. I knew how to do all of that. I just didn’t know how to choose a house, especially one that wasn’t for me.
I lived in a beachfront condo. When you grow up in New England surrounded by woods, the idea of seeing the ocean every day is irresistible. I had underground parking, a doorman, twenty-four-hour concierge service—it was more like a hotel than a home. But it worked for me, and was low maintenance. I didn’t have to worry about cutting the grass or who was going to get my mail when I had business out of town, the HOA took care of everything. I didn’t pick it to impress potential girlfriends, but on the rare occasion I brought one home it did the trick.
But I wasn’t shopping for a cool pad with curb appeal this time. I was shopping for a home. It had to be someplace a family would live—warm and inviting, a place to create memories and feel safe.
I thought about my childhood house. It was barely more than a mobile home, with its leaky aluminum windows and slick vinyl floors. But my mom did her best to make it feel cozy. She sewed curtains from retired bedspreads and disguised our cheap living room furniture with afghans she crocheted herself. But the thing that really made it feel like a home was the food. There was always something cooking on the stove. When I came home from school, I went straight to the kitchen. Most of our “How was your day?” conversations happened when I was burrowing in the refrigerator and Mom was standing over a pot of soup.
My condo was vastly superior to the creaky tract home of my childhood, but it always just felt like a place to live. It had a gourmet kitchen, but I rarely used it. My built-in Sub-Zero was stocked with beer and bottled water. I had a Thermador six-burner range, but I didn’t cook, and nobody had cooked for me since I was in high school. A home-cooked meal is an expression of love, and twenty years is a long time to go without one.
I started my house search on a real estate site to get a sense of what was available in the neighborhood Holly liked, and what it would cost. I had intended to just skim through the listings, but house hunting—even for someone else—was unexpectedly addicting. As I scrolled through pictures of lush yards, sparkling pools, and expansive master suites, I slipped into fantasies of living there myself. Of course it was absurd—it was just me, what did I need with a four-bedroom house? I barely used the extra bedroom in my condo. Occasionally I had friends in from out of town, but mostly I used the neatly made four-poster bed as a staging area for contracts when I was working on a complicated case.