The Love of Her Lives: A BRAND NEW unforgettable and utterly emotional summer romance (Must-read Rom

June, this year

I may have made a mistake with this latest reset.

I’ve just been chased out of the Lake Bluff house by a burly guy with tattoos and a bushy beard, who had been making toast in the kitchen as I crept upstairs. I sprinted out of the front door in record time, despite being in impractical shoes. I practically vaulted over the gate in the driveway, not even waiting for the gate to release, before running at least three blocks to ensure he didn’t catch me. Fortunately, the guy wasn’t in great shape and had given up halfway down the first street.

Panting heavily, I squat on the grass verge several blocks away, wondering what kind of world I’ve landed myself in this time.

The life with Stephen had been a disappointment, undeniably. And, after he got so furious with me for being on the pill, I couldn’t face him. I never even went back to our apartment. I just finished my coffee and scone, got into my car in the apartment building’s garage, and drove all the way to Lake Bluff to reset.

I had written other Millie a quick note to let her know what had happened, but I couldn’t do any more than that. Let Stephen’s Millie deal with the fallout of her contraceptive-taking deception — I was outta there.

Now, it’s been a full half-hour of recovering my breath and waiting it out, before I dare creep back towards the house to try to find the car matching the keys in my pocket, with a brand logo I don’t recognize. I aim it at every car in the street, and around the corner, and several other streets, but there is no telltale unlocking beep. These keys do not belong to any of these cars.

Research on my strange, small cellphone gives me a clue as to why. I don’t live in the Chicago area, in this new life. I don’t even live in the States.

I live in Paris.

Apparently with some guy named Grégoire, who is impossibly handsome and appears to be a highly successful photographer. There’s a link on his Instagram page to a gallery website, which is full of black-and-white photos, three times larger-than-life nude studies. An arched back, a pert nipple in profile, a bent leg with the curve of a thigh, a lower back with seated buttocks and matching dimples like a cello.

All of me.

Jesus.

How did Paris Me even get to Lake Bluff, or know to do so? I have to assume that — like San Francisco Millie — she got on a plane in her fugue state, flew all the way from Paris to Chicago, then got an Uber to Lake Bluff, since there’s no car matching this set of keys.

What to do?

Okay, regroup, think.

That bagel place in Lake Forest where Bonnie’s store should be, where the lady was kind to me when I was homeless, is a good place to hang out until I figure out this life. Unless Bonnie’s store is there, in this life. Presumably not, given I’m a Millie who lives in Paris and there’s no evidence of me and Bonnie being friends.

I walk the few miles to Lake Forest’s commercial center, my feet blistering painfully in the expensive-looking, pointed-toe ankle boots I’m wearing. It’s hot, as usual — is it going to be hot every day for the rest of my lives? — and I slip off my inappropriate navy designer blazer and fling it over my shoulder. I’m also in tailored pants and a white collared shirt, and carrying a Chanel purse.

The compact cellphone inside it is pinging constantly, but I ignore it until I can sit down. I reach the bagel place, which is again the bagel place. The sweet lady behind the counter doesn’t recognize me, and I order a smoked salmon bagel and a Diet Coke, leaving her a massive tip to thank her for her help in another universe. I have no idea when this body last ate, but I know it’s dinnertime in this world, and this time I’m hungry.

I sit at the same table as when I was homeless, now dressed so very differently, and pull out the phone. There is a stream of texts from Grégoire, all in French, going backwards until forever, but with dozens in the past twenty-four hours alone. Presumably because his Millie-muse went into a fugue state and has gone missing.

Ma chérie, où es-tu? Tu me manques, et je m’inquiète tellement pour toi. Texte-moi, s’il te pla?t!

Shame I don’t speak a word of French.

I let my eyes wander through the words, hoping Paris Millie’s French-reading ability will somehow kick in, like a muscle memory... but nothing. Except the last phrase is “text me, please,” I think?

I do my usual search of social profiles. Okay, I’m a moody Paris model, Bonnie works at City Hall, Ben is a stage manager again, and I’m definitely not friends with them at all. We’ve obviously never met. I didn’t even go to Northwestern — I moved to Paris right after high school.

That was brave of me.

It doesn’t even look like I made the trip where I met Bonnie in Santa Monica — we’ve never even met. Nor have I ever met Ben, or Stephen. My life is wildly different — in many ways even more different than sci-fi San Francisco world. At least there, I still knew Bonnie.

And that’s something new about this reality. I mean, in every other life I’ve encountered so far, I’ve known Bonnie and Ben, even if I’m no longer close with them. But this Millie doesn’t know them at all, never met them, and presumably has never had any reason to go to the Masons’ Lake Bluff before. Yet evidently, she still was somehow compelled to get herself here, all the way from Paris, in order for me to be able to jump into this body and try on her life.

Evan, and the women at the shelter, told me about the trance state I left in, which must be when the compulsion to get to Lake Bluff comes over me. But of course, I’ll never really know how that happens. Christ, I’ll never understand how any of this is happening.

So, what to do now? I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, of course, and it seems I have the money to do so. I could fly to Paris, just like I did to San Francisco, and try on a life with sexy Grégoire for a while.

But then again, I’m clearly expected to be fluent in French, and things could go very badly wrong for me when I can’t speak to him or any of my people there.

Notappealing.

I guess I’d better bail on this one right out of the gate. Paris Me doesn’t seem to need my help, with her blown-up naked body being celebrated in the Parisian art scene — which I presume she’s okay with, given that I wouldn’t mind — and with her hot French boyfriend. No, Millie-in-Paris — you’re on your own.

I’ll give it a while, so the coast is clear with the scary tattooed guy at the house, and go back and reset once more.

Au revoir, Grégoire.

* * *

The house is quiet this time around. Lived-in, kinda messy in fact, but empty. Whoever lives here is not home right now. I can take my time as I let myself out of the front, and the driveway is empty of cars. Halfway down the block, a beat-up black Ford responds to the keys I found in a canvas tote bag I’m carrying, which is full of junk. The interior of the car is equally disorganized, with mud in the footwell and candy wrappers between the seats.

I’ve got an old-model iPhone in the bag, which doesn’t seem to have any home address pre-programmed into it. But the calendar app has Friday night blocked off for the Va-Va-Voom Diner, seven to eleven pm, for some reason. It’s now nearly six-thirty, so whoever I’m supposed to be meeting, I’ll be late for, since it’s an hour’s drive from here.

At least I know where the Va-Va-Voom Diner is. Bonnie, Ben, and I used to go there all the time — it was right by Frank Mason’s office building, where I worked before Magnolia. The same diner where the Masons were supposed to pick us up, the night of their accident. I haven’t been back since, as I’ll always associate it with that terrible night.

But now, I’m expected there. And I guess I may as well figure out something about this life, and see if it’s a good one. Given that there’s no evidence that I’ll ever get back to my original life.

And who knows who might be waiting for me at that diner?

An image springs to mind of Ben, flirting with Greta behind the counter, his smile wide, his laugh generous.

What are he and Bonnie doing in this life? A quick search, as I sit in the Ford’s driver seat, shows me that he’s doing well in theater, and Bonnie has her usual store in Lake Forest. Social media reveals that we’re friends again, seemingly as much as we ever were. Maybe this is a really great life for me here.

Part of me is tempted to drive right to Bonnie’s store and spend the evening with her. But her store will be closed by now, and I don’t know where she lives, considering the Lake Bluff house is clearly now occupied by someone who isn’t Bonnie.

Plus I’m late to meet someone at Va-Va-Voom, and I don’t think I can resist the temptation to see who it is. If they’re still waiting for me.

I drive the hour into the city, in the opposite direction to the heaving rush of evening traffic escaping downtown for the long weekend, and park up near the diner. I’m wearing scruffy jeans and a washed-out old T-shirt, which doesn’t seem suitable for a date, but I don’t have much choice. I check my reflection in the sun-visor mirror, add a slick of slightly garish lipstick from the tote bag, and rake my fingers through my hair. That will have to be good enough. It’s not like we’re meeting at a fancy restaurant.

I lock up the car, cross the street, and step through the diner’s door, which tinkles its little bell. The sound brings back another Ben moment — him on a winter night, pulling a beanie off his head, stamping snow off his boots. That same night.

I scan the room for who I might be meeting, trying to ignore the fact that it’s Ben’s dark-blond head I’m searching for. But he’s not here, and nor is anyone else I recognize. Greta, the owner, comes out of the kitchen to the area behind the counter.

“Millie! For God’s sake, there you are.” She reaches behind her, grabs a striped apron off a hook, and throws it at me. Hard. I catch it, clutching it against me in surprise. “You’re a half-hour late again, and we’ve been slammed since seven.” She holds up a hand before I can say anything. “Just get started. And I’m sorry, but I’m docking your pay this time. Table five needs clearing.”

I’m not meeting someone here. I work here.

Shit.

I mean, the diner is great. But why do I work here? And what happened to my marketing career?

No time to think about that now. Greta is mad as hell, and I don’t want to mess this up for Diner Millie, so I’d better work this shift and figure it out later.

Thankfully, I know the diner well, and I’ve worked casual café jobs in the past, during summer breaks, so I’m a confident server, and know how to work this kind of cash register.

“Sorry, Greta,” I tell her with a sheepish grimace. I tie on the apron and get to clearing table five. Greta and I work together in surprising harmony and, although I stumble a few times with not knowing how the kitchen staff like their order tickets or where the new ketchup is stored, it’s a busy shift and she doesn’t seem to notice my failings.

As she’s closing out the cash register, I apologize to her again for my lateness.

“It’s okay, Millie,” she replies, softer this time. “I know things have been hard for you since you lost your mom. But try not to let it happen again, okay?”

Lost my mom?

I nod, my tongue suddenly thick in my mouth. I don’t even trust my voice to thank Greta as she hands me a week’s paycheck, with a tear-off attachment bearing my name and what must be my home address. My fingers trembling, I remove my apron and put it in the laundry bin, and slip out without another word.

In the beat-up Ford, which now makes more sense given the pitiful paycheck I was just given, I pause and take a few deep breaths before I can think about driving.

Lost my mom.

This is a world where I work in a diner, and not only are the Masons still presumably dead, given the state of their house, but my own mother is gone, too. And I’ve no idea how.

I don’t think I’m going to like this new reality very much.

Then again, maybe there will never be a reality that I like very much. I know that life is never going to be perfect, and I’m not looking for perfection. I swear, I’m not. But finding one that I like as much as my original life is surely possible.

Exhausted, I drive to the address on my paycheck, which is a slightly shabby bungalow in Galewood, a half-hour west of downtown. I unlock the front door, expecting to find the place empty, but two young women around my age are in the living room, watching TV.

I have absolutely zero idea who they are.

“Hey, Mill. There’s still some gelato in the freezer, if you want some,” the platinum blonde one says.

“Uh, thanks, I’m good,” I reply.

Oh God.

Roommates.

Not only do I have a low-paying job and an apparently deceased mother, but also roommates in a crappy house.

What the hell happened to me? And what happened to Mom?

I turn a corner into a cramped corridor with four doors. One of these will presumably be my bedroom, but which? It’d be really weird if I walked into one of my roommates’ bedrooms — plus who knows who else might be here?

I open one door to find a shabby bathroom that doesn’t look like it’s been cleaned in months. Terrific.

Saving me from a potential bedroom faux-pas, the two girls in the living room turn off the TV, and walk past me into two separate rooms.

“Night, Mill,” says the redhead, pausing at her bedroom door. “Gimme a shout when you’re out of the bathroom.”

“Oh. You can have it now — go ahead,” I reply, stepping away from the bathroom door. At least I know now which my room is. I’ll crash here for a night, then head back up to Lake Bluff in the morning. I’m way too exhausted from my diner shift to make the long drive tonight.

Not to mention, way too tired from all the universe jumping.

I step inside the fourth door, closing it with some trepidation behind me. It’s a messier room than I’d normally have, but I soon spot some recognizable stuff among the junk — clothes I’ve had for a long time, and some shoes, plus the crystal pendant Mom gave me when I turned eighteen is hanging over the mirror. Yes, it’s definitely my room. There’s a laptop on the desk, which unlocks with my usual password, and reveals a manuscript for a novel that I appear to be writing.

What a cliché I am — working in a diner while I try to write a book.

The manuscript is unfinished, in chunks of disconnected pieces, with no coherent plot outline. It seems semi-autobiographical, about a young woman in Chicago whose mother has just died of skin cancer. The young woman, Mandy, is beating herself up about whether she could have helped her survive if she’d been around early enough to encourage her mom to seek treatment.

Maybe I can help Diner Millie with a few ideas for her story while I’m here. After all, I know a thing or two about what-if scenarios.

I spend the next hour writing out plot ideas for different life paths for Mandy, which Diner Millie will be surprised to find when she’s back in her body, and crawl into the unmade bed. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up early and drive straight back to Lake Bluff to reset, so that Millie can be back in time for her afternoon shift at the diner.

Thank you, next.

* * *

This is a freaky one. Like, way too meta.

Only last night, I was helping Diner Millie out with ideas for alternate scenarios for her novel’s character to save her dying mother. And today, I’ve just stepped into a world where I appear to be saving my dying mother.

My phone’s home GPS is set to Indianapolis, where Mom lives in my usual life. From what I can figure out, through researching a backlog of emails on this phone, I recently quit my job, which was my regular one at Magnolia, to go live with and care for Mom as she goes through treatment for skin cancer, which seemed to be what she died of in the previous life I found myself in.

Okay, good. At least in this world Mom found the cancer in time to treat it, and I’m helping her through it. Great. I’m sure it’s a bonding experience for us, and hopefully it all works out and she’ll be okay this time.

Doesn’t sound like a ton of fun, though, and I’m not sure there’s anything I can help out with in this world, that Cancer-Care Millie isn’t already doing. Probably best to get that version of Millie back to her sick mother, asap.

The Lake Bluff house is unoccupied again, so I can go right back in and reset without even interacting in this world.

Thank you, next.

* * *

This one appears more promising, at least to start with. I’m apparently living in New York, having left Chicago after Northwestern for an advertising job. I even remember applying for that New York job in my real life, right after graduating, while I was on vacation with the Masons in Oregon — but in my world I didn’t get the job.

I’ve always loved New York, so I take the opportunity to try on this seemingly glamorous version of my life, and hop on the first flight from O’Hare to JFK. My social media reveals that I’m still in touch with Bonnie, but barely see her, now that we live in different cities. Instead, I’m living with a slightly older guy, who seems around forty but is really cute — a video game designer called Peter. As soon as I get to his — our — cool Brooklyn apartment, I feel like a ridiculous imposter and wonder what the hell I’m doing there. Who am I trying to kid? This isn’t my life.

What’s more, over dinner, he keeps mentioning another woman, some ex-girlfriend of his called Josie. He’s clearly still totally hung up on her, and not really into me at all.

I sleep in his bed with him that night, but we don’t have sex, even though he’s really attractive and funny. I write a note on Brooklyn Millie’s phone saying “Leave Peter — he’s still in love with his ex Josie” and slip out of the apartment when Peter is out getting Saturday morning coffee and pastries. I get an expensive Uber to JFK and wait for the next flight to Chicago.

What the hell am I doing with all these lives?

Next, I guess.

* * *

This time, my research tells me I’m living in Dublin, having never even gone to Northwestern, and for some unfathomable reason having agreed to go live with my father in Ireland right after high school. My job appears to be in a Dublin employee management firm doing office admin and a bit of PR, and I have a ruddy-faced boyfriend called Liam. I’ve never met Bonnie, or Ben.

I really do not have the energy to go to Dublin myself, and figure out if that is a worthwhile life. It’s too damn far, and it doesn’t look that exciting.

I’m exhausted.

There’s no car for me outside the Lake Bluff house gates, and I don’t even make it halfway down the street before turning around to go back and reset.

Next.

* * *

In this one, things seem really good at first. It could be the one.

Frank and Ange Mason are alive and well in the kitchen as I tread upstairs from the basement, surprising them with my unexpected arrival. Bonnie comes over for dinner, and it turns out we share a house in Lake Forest, which Bonnie has decorated gorgeously. We also work together, as co-founders of a wildly successful TikTok and Twitch lifestyle and home decor brand that has over a million followers. Ben is doing well in the theater, but is married to somebody called Camila, who I see on Instagram is chestnut-haired, gorgeous, tall, possibly Brazilian, and I instantly hate her.

And what’s weird is, the Masons and Bonnie are being especially kind to me tonight, constantly asking me how I’m doing and if I’m feeling okay.

It turns out I’m being stalked by an obsessive fan of our Twitch stream, on which I have presented many episodes of our home decor show, and we’ve had to call the cops several times and get a restraining order. Further probing reveals that he now knows where Bonnie and I live, and he was trying to get into my bedroom window last night, and we had to call 911 again.

Nope.

This is theoretically a pretty good version of my life, with the Masons and Bonnie so close to me, and a fun job to do, but it’s a hard pass on being Stalker-Victim Millie. Plus I’ve no idea what I could do to help her.

And the Camila thing is really bugging me.

“Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling,” the Masons’ poster in the basement still reads. But this world doesn’t feel right.

Next.

* * *

I stand on the deck of the abandoned Lake Bluff house in the next universe, researching my life.

It seems now I’m a novelist, a successful one this time — apparently living in Rome, of all places. Another city I’ve always wanted to visit, and another place I’m just too exhausted to attempt right now. I speak zero Italian, and I have no idea where in the city I live. My emails would probably tell me, if only I could read Italian. From social media, I seem to live alone and have no partner, and I’m not friends with Bonnie or Ben anymore, although I used to be. A hunt around in my emails digs up the last message Bonnie ever sent me, a few years ago, telling me she can never forgive me for using her parent’s deadly car accident as inspiration for my bestselling family saga.

Novelist Millie in Rome sounds in some ways like an appealing version of the multiverse, but I can live without it, and I can’t live without Bonnie.

I don’t even make it out of the driveway this time.

* * *

This one, something bad is happening, and I have no idea what the hell is going on.

The house is occupied by somebody, but not the Masons or Bonnie, and it’s empty right now. I pause in the foyer to check myself in the mirror. I have a massive, tender black eye, and a split bottom lip. My hair is shoulder length and uncombed.

I walk out of the house and exit the gate, nervous of what I’m going to find. There’s no phone in any of my ripped jeans pockets, just some keys.

And, in my back pocket, a switchblade knife. Like, a real switchblade with the super-quick blade-release mechanism.

What the hell would I need that for?

I’m trying cars up and down the street with my keys, when a dark-haired guy with a mustache comes into view at the far end of the avenue.

“You fuckin’ bitch!” he screams at me, and comes thundering down the pavement.

Holy shit.

I’ve got a decent head start on him, and take off running, back to the house. I fling myself over the gate, drop down onto the gravel drive, and I’m halfway down the side lawn by the time the guy is able to haul himself over the gate.

I waste no time, pulling the basement door to me with a hard whoosh.

In an instant, I’m gone from that world too, leaving the scary guy fifteen feet and a universe behind me.

I really hope Switchblade Millie is super tough and can handle that asshole.

Fuck.

* * *

It was bound to happen, at some point in my lives.

I’m a mother.

To a gorgeous, dimple-cheeked nugget of a baby girl, who looks from Instagram to be no more than five or six months.

Angie.

That’s the baby’s name, apparently. Same as Bonnie and Ben’s late mom.

No sign of the father, whoever he is, being in the picture.

No sign of me still being friends with Bonnie or Ben in this life — no pictures of us together, or messages from either of them. Only my daughter’s name is a clue that I once knew the Masons.

No sign of Frank and Angela being alive this time, or the house being occupied.

According to my email research, as I lean against the kitchen counter in the empty house, this world’s Millie is on an extended maternity leave, for six months, from an admin job at a logistics company. Unpaid after the first six weeks, the company-issued emails tell me. But it looks like my dad is helping with funds for a while, and I’ve emailed him photos of the baby. A strange lack of correspondence with Mom, given I’ve just produced a granddaughter, so maybe something bad has happened there. Maybe she’s dead, again.

I seriously contemplate resetting immediately, but a deep tug in my core compels me to go and meet the baby. At least spend some time with her.

I mean, how could I not?

This is my daughter.

In an aging white Ford Focus, I find my way “home” from Lake Bluff to a small first-floor apartment in a four-story building in Oak Park, a semi-urban western Chicago neighborhood. My phone, in a battered red case, is buzzing constantly as I drive, but I ignore it. Parking outside the apartment block, I use the largest key to get into the building, and see unit 1A immediately to my left. I push my way through a heavy front door with the smaller key, and step into a small, open-concept apartment.

A dark-haired, middle-aged woman is in the messy living space, holding and jiggling the baby, who is screaming with remarkable fury over the woman’s shoulder.

The woman thrusts Angie at me, clearly furious herself, and I’m forced to drop my purse and grab the child.

“You said you wouldn’t be long.” Her voice is icy. “I fed her an hour ago, but she probably needs changing again, and she has terrible gas. Shit, you’ve been over three hours, Millie. What was so urgent that you couldn’t call me back? I had to get Andre to cook for his brothers.”

The woman yanks open the front door, and turns back to face me as I stand before her, in a foolish stupor, holding the baby awkwardly away from my body. She spits out, “That’s the last time I watch her for you, Millie, I swear. And you still owe me for when I sat for her last week. You can put the cash under my door. And you better pay me the same rate for today, as well.”

She slams the door behind her, and I can make out her footsteps stomping across the hallway’s linoleum floor, and into the apartment opposite. Another door slam.

I pull the wailing baby close to me and jog her on my shoulder, like I’ve seen people do. She makes an unpleasant gurgling sound and promptly vomits a surprising amount of milky liquid onto the T-shirt I’m wearing. A Taylor Swift tour shirt, of all things.

The baby is still whimpering, a little less fiercely now, and I hold her up to look at her face. A fat tear has stuck on a cheek below the enormous, wet-lashed blue eyes that are staring at me.

She’s beautiful. Even when crying, and with a dribble of milk on her chin.

“Angie,” I whisper to her, softly. “Don’t worry. It’s me. Your mommy.”

It’s me.

And it’s not me.

Can she tell?

We stare at each other for several minutes. Then Angie emits a long, low, wet fart.

“Ugh, baby!” The smell is hitting me. “Okay. That’s fine. Totally fine. I’ve watched people change diapers. How hard can it be? Huh, Angie?”

It’s hard.

Not so much the diapers, which come with instructions, but more the wiping. Then I think I’m supposed to do something with diaper cream, or powder or something, so I sprinkle a bit of powder on her skin and hope for the best.

At least now she’s not crying.

I settle down on the slightly stained couch with her, cradling her head in the crook of my elbow. She’s getting tired now. I pick up a baby book, and read a story about a giraffe to her, slowly and quietly. Her wide eyes flicker from time to time, then droop, and she’s gone.

I stay up all night with baby Angie, holding her in my arms. Feeding her a couple more times, when she wakes and cries, with pre-prepared bottles from a half-empty fridge. Changing her three more times.

Not sleeping once myself. Just holding, feeding, rocking, staring, feeding, changing, rocking, staring. To be honest, I’m terrified something bad will happen to her on my watch. After all, I’m not used to taking care of a baby. I might do something wrong. If I fall asleep, I won’t be able to see if something is wrong, or be able to save her.

After her fourth time waking and falling back asleep, I put her into the crib in the apartment’s only bedroom, and lie in the twin bed beside her. But still I don’t sleep.

I’m nearly dropping off, at around seven in the morning, when she wakes me with her whimpers again.

She’s the sweetest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I think I might die if I had to live like this.

In the small hours of the night, I had researched emergency daycares that were open on the weekend. There’s one in Lincolnwood, right by highway 94 that leads back to Lake Bluff. It’s expensive, but I need somewhere safe to leave the baby in the morning, and I clearly can’t ask the neighbor.

Because I can’t do it.

I can’t live this life.

The baby is gorgeous, but she’s not really mine, and it already seems incredibly hard to be a single mother with very little support. I’d need Bonnie, and Ben, and the Masons, and even my own mom, and all sorts of other people to help me. Not just some pissed-off neighbor.

At eight am, I get up, put on some clean clothes, feed the baby again, she throws up on me again, I change into new clean clothes, I change the baby’s diaper and clothes, and we make it out of the house. It takes me another twenty minutes to figure out how to secure the infant car seat in the back of the car, but I get there. I drive to the daycare in Lincolnwood, and tell the person behind the desk — a woman younger than me with a name badge reading “Shelley” — that I’ll be back by the end of the day. I add that she shouldn’t get freaked out if I don’t remember much, as I have memory issues. Shelley seems indifferent to this — as an emergency, indiscriminate daycare center, I’m sure she’s seen much worse.

Before handing Angie over in her carrying cot, I kiss her on the top of her finely haired head, and she looks up at me with those huge eyes.

“Bye, baby girl,” I tell her, surprising myself as my voice catches in my throat. “Mommy will be back to pick you up. I love you.”

Driving away from her, heading back up to Lake Bluff, is the hardest it’s been. Even harder than leaving Stephen. A lot harder. This time, the entire way, my vision is thick with tears and exhaustion.

I park outside the house, leave a long note on Mommy Millie’s phone and a shorter paper one on her dash, and jump the gate into the empty driveway, the house shining bright in the midday sun.

I head for the lower side door, and tug it open.

The basement is dark, cold, and lonely.