The baby kicks and squirms inside me. Maybe he can sense my unease, or maybe he’s reminding me to relax, which has never been my forte—pregnant or not.
With the system armed, I send my husband a good night text. It’s three hours later where he is, so I won’t disturb him with a phone call, though I’d love nothing more than to hear his soothing voice right now. But I can’t bother him with any of this. He’s currently in Newark, desperately trying to sell our local restaurant franchise to a national buyer who intends to turn it into a god-awful chain. It isn’t ideal, but we’ve spent the entirety of the last year sinking into the red like quicksand. We don’t have a choice. Not selling means we’ll lose everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve. It means layoffs. Bankruptcy. And laughingstock reputations. It means financial uncertainty. And unloading our dream house. It could also incite a change in our relationship dynamics—these things are stressors on a marriage. Put them all together, and it’s the perfect recipe for divorce.
Nothing—and I mean nothing—wrecks me more than failure.
Lying in bed, I roll to my side and stuff a pillow between my legs to alleviate the stubborn ache in my hips. Sleep comes at a premium at this stage in my pregnancy, but tonight I’ll be chasing it with a fervor.
Unfortunately my mind didn’t get the memo, forcing me to replay the entire exchange on a loop in my head. The audacity of that woman to march up to our door at eight o’clock at night. Unannounced. Claiming to be a dead woman. What did she expect? That she’d be welcomed with open arms? That we’d take her word as gold and invite her in for tea?
I sigh and migrate to the cool side of the bed—Luca’s side. Once there, I inhale the faint leather-and-vetiver scent of his shampoo that lingers on his pillowcase for a nightly dose of calm. He’s my best friend, my person, my soul mate. The father of my children. He would do anything for us—literally anything.
And likewise.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them safe—or to keep us together.
Shame on that woman for sticking her nose in someone else’s tragedy.
My busy mind fills with a chorus of confrontational words, all the things I wish I would’ve said to her in that brief, strange encounter we shared. I replay the moment I gently closed the door in her face, and how I was so careful sliding the dead bolt—as though I didn’t want to offend her. It’s not the level of satisfaction one might seek in this sort of situation, but it’ll do.
Restless, I fling the covers off my legs, head for the picture window with the ocean view, and watch the moon rock the waves to sleep. I spend a few minutes steadying my breath . . . four seconds in, four seconds held, and four seconds out—like my therapist taught me years ago, when we were still childless and my anxiety was at a head. But when I’m finished, my heart thuds harder in my chest as my mind is flooded with an alternate concern . . . What if that woman was telling the truth?
What if she’s not some deranged charlatan trying to cash in?
What if she is Lydia?
From what I know, they had a whirlwind love-at-first-sight relationship that kicked off with a quickie Vegas wedding and ended a few months later with Luca coming home after a grocery run to an empty apartment, no trace of his young bride anywhere. She’d left a note saying she was going out for a hike—something she’d done dozens of times before—only this time she never returned.
A few hours later, Bent Creek police officially declared Lydia a missing person. And as local authorities and volunteers combed nearby ponds, rivers, forests, and beaches, they only managed to locate her hiker’s backpack and cell phone—both of which had been tossed over a steep cliff a few miles from the Spearhead trail. Once leads dried up and the tip line stopped ringing, the case went from hot to lukewarm to ice cold in a matter of months. After extensive inquiry by state and federal units, a nationwide search, and a yearlong court hearing, the legal system was satisfied that all investigative avenues had been exhausted and declared her legally dead.
It wasn’t easy, but it was the closure Luca needed in order to move on from that strange, cruel tragedy.
Tiptoeing down the hall to my sleeping daughter’s room once again, I sweep her into my arms and carry her to our bed. She stirs for a moment, but falls back to sleep the second I lay her on Luca’s side and sweep a lock of her baby-fine hair off her forehead.
The earliest years of our marriage were stained with heartbreak, and countless rounds of IVF. When our friends and acquaintances were having baby showers, we were following up with our team of doctors, trying to figure out why the last embryo didn’t take. When our friends were posting pictures of wrinkled newborns on social media, we celebrated for them publicly . . . while we privately mourned our losses.
I tried everything—fertility yoga, a strict herbal regimen, whole-food diets, and veganism. I took up running and started seeing a therapist once a week. I downloaded a meditation app. I spent hours poring over infertility forums and obsessing over my cycle.
While those first anniversaries were the hardest, Luca never left my side. He never blamed me for being too stressed or for eating too much sugar. He held my hand through every disappointing ultrasound and every upsetting phone call. And not once did he lose hope or give any indication that he’d experienced enough hardship for one life.
It would’ve been easy for him to walk away, to find someone who wasn’t diving headfirst into her forties and consumed by her maturing biological clock, someone who could give him the family and the happily-ever-after he deserved after everything he’d already been through.
But he stuck by me.
Not that I doubted him for a second.
Luca Coletto is unapologetically loyal, to the core of his soul.
I nuzzle my nose into Elsie’s powder-and-lavender-scented neck and listen to her breathe. Cradling the underside of my belly, I make a decision to forget about the crazy woman and to focus on this beautiful life we’ve crafted out of literal blood, sweat, tears, and an ironclad commitment to one another.
No one—especially not some lunatic wandering off the road—can take it away.
CHAPTER TWO
LYDIA
The handwritten HELP WANTED sign attached to the door of The Blessed Alchemist is sun faded, drooping on one side where the tape has come loose. Either the owner of the shop is picky or no one wants to work here.
Either way, I’m here to save the day.
Hopefully.
The last place I tried turned me away, claiming the position had been filled. Never mind that they left the sign up for weeks. I’m aware that my appearance is off-putting, but all I need is a chance, someone willing to pay me under the table long enough so I can get on my feet until everything comes together.
Adjusting my backpack strap over one shoulder, I step inside. Consumed by an invisible veil of sandalwood, sage, and patchouli, I choke on the thick air, swallowing until the coughing fit subsides. Hollow crystal bells tinkle when the door glides shut. A woven rug beneath my feet says GOOD VIBES ONLY.
“Hello?” I call out when I find the cash register abandoned.
Pan flute music plays from a room in the back. To my left, a wall of vibrant crystals requests my attention. Buckets upon buckets of them. Some raw, some shiny. Each container labeled with feminine handwriting on silver cardstock. Lapis lazuli. Obsidian. Tiger’s eye. Sodalite. Amazonite. Rose quartz. Citrine. Pyrite. Moonstone. Malachite. There must be a hundred of them.