The Days Between

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Then

Kathryn

Kathryn was sandwiched between her parents at their polished cherrywood table, pushing green beans and cold mashed potatoes around with her fork, her mind spinning with her fight with Nick. And that word: pregnant .

She had raced down the highway in three hours, thirty minutes less than it usually took, when she wasn’t driving like a crazy person, tears blurring the double yellow lines as they flew past her car.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Sherry asked for the fifth time—Kathryn had counted.

Kathryn forced herself to swallow a bite of meat loaf. “I’m fine, Mom, really. Just tired.”

After greeting her parents that afternoon, Kathryn had gone upstairs to her childhood bedroom. Fading photos were tacked to a board above her bed, smiling faces of her high school friends. At one time, the moments frozen in those photos had felt invaluable, and she realized how much her world had changed since she’d first left home. Fresh shame washed over her. What if she ran into one of those friends in town or, worse, one of their judgy parents? Kathryn dropped onto her twin bed, knocking a stuffed giraffe to the floor, tears streaming onto her pillow.

On her way downstairs to dinner, she’d taken the phone off the hook in her parents’ bedroom, knowing Andrew would call. She’d blocked his number from her cell. She wouldn’t be able to ignore his calls and messages when they started rolling in. Now she glanced at the red, blocky numbers on the stove clock. It had been twenty minutes since Andrew was due home, and her stomach lurched at the thought of him finding her key abandoned on the table.

After dinner, Sherry sliced and plated two pieces of vanilla cake. The muffled sound of the TV spilled from the living room, where her father, Henry, sat on the couch. Thunder rumbled through the open screen door. Kathryn used her finger to bring a smear of buttercream frosting to her lips, sickeningly sweet on her tongue. She stared at the rainbow sprinkles scattered across her plate.

“Are you ready to tell me what this is all about?” Sherry asked. “Did you and Andrew have a fight?”

“No,” Kathryn told her solemnly.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She hadn’t expected her secret to be revealed so quickly, but hearing Sherry say the words made Kathryn draw in a breath, and the tiny blue plus sign strobed in her mind’s eye. Tears burst from her before she had a mind to stop them.

“Jesus, Kathryn,” Sherry scolded. “I expected you to be more responsible.”

Kathryn dropped her face into her hands. “I’m going to call the doctor tomorrow and set up an appointment to confirm, but ...”

“But what? You haven’t told Andrew yet?”

Kathryn’s shoulders trembled. “No.”

“Why not?”

Kathryn didn’t answer. “I thought you’d be supportive.” She sniffled like a small child sent to the principal’s office.

“Supportive? The timing is terrible. You’ve been applying to law school.” Sherry’s words stung almost as much as the disappointment in her face, and Kathryn cried harder at the reminder of the rejections she’d received; coupled with the raw demise of her relationship with Andrew, the plan she’d had evaporated like a mirage. “None of them will let me in, Mom.”

Sherry huffed a resigned breath. “So what’s the problem? It’s early, sure, but you and Andrew can make it work. Maybe law school isn’t in the cards.”

“That’s not it,” Kathryn snapped.

Lightning flashed outside, then a clap of thunder, closer. Sherry lifted a brow. “It is Andrew’s, isn’t it?”

In her lap, Kathryn’s hands trembled, and she whispered, “I don’t know.”

Sherry’s jaw dropped. “Jesus, Kathryn.”

The stress, the hormones—now that she knew that was what it must be—had left Kathryn teetering on the edge of a breakdown, and it was Sherry’s judgment that nudged her off the ledge. Mortification rose in her belly, like a pot boiling over. Again, the sky lit up beyond the back door, and thunder boomed overhead. Kathryn shoved back from the table and dashed up the stairs. She zipped her suitcase and hauled it down the stairs, then out onto the porch and down the front steps.

Swollen raindrops spattered the driveway as she maneuvered her bag into the back seat. Her mother’s voice sailed from the porch. “Kathryn. There’s no need for theatrics. Come inside, let’s talk about this.”

Kathryn bit back tears, then slammed her car door and started the ignition. As her car idled, the rain came down in earnest, Sherry now reduced to a smudge of movement on the front porch. The weather matched her mood. Kathryn dialed Harper’s number. “Come over,” Harper said without hesitation.

Following Harper’s direction, Kathryn wound down Ocean Avenue to the house number she’d been given: 228. Her tires rolled to a stop on the slick, deserted road after approaching the house on the east side of Ocean Avenue.

The addresses on the west side of Ocean were owned by the well-off residents of Delray Beach, who worked within the community. The owners of the houses on the east side, on the oceanfront, were rarely seen—second homes for the country’s elite, those who held their privacy in the highest regard. Harper lived here?

Kathryn rode through the dark gate. The house was concealed in a shroud of rain, and only the glowing windows of the first floor sat before her. She climbed from her car. The back door cracked open, and Harper poked her head outside, ushering Kathryn into the warm, dry house, out of the storm.

“So you’re not going to tell him?” Harper brought her mug to her lips.

“I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.” Kathryn blew out an exhausted sigh and crumpled the remains of the tissue Harper had given her in her palm. For an hour, the details of everything that had happened had tumbled from her lips, from Andrew’s birthday to fleeing her mother’s judgment. She’d thought Harper’s eyes might narrow in disapproval, that she might throw sharp words. But instead, Harper sat across the table, occasionally tugging her cream sweater over her shoulders, and listened. Now Kathryn was drained by the catharsis of her confession. Her eyes grew heavy, and her limbs felt like they were made of wet sand. She swallowed the last of her cold tea and set the mug on the table. “Enough about me. Can we talk about this house?” Kathryn gestured around the cavernous kitchen. “You said near the beach, Harper, not beachfront . Holy shit, this place is unbelievable.”

Harper’s face lit up, and her eyes sparkled when she smiled. “It’s pretty great, right?” From the kitchen, five windows faced out onto the driveway. The rain washed against the panes, but the recessed lighting cast a warm ambiance into the room.

“And this thing.” Kathryn reached for Harper’s hand to examine the sparkling, emerald-cut diamond. “Was Luke’s dad an oil baron or something?”

A secretive smile crept across Harper’s lips from the other side of her teacup.

“Has any of this”—Kathryn again motioned toward the house—“warmed your mom’s icy heart even a little bit?”

Harper shook her head. “She’s livid about the elopement.”

“She’ll come around.” Kathryn didn’t believe the words when she said them.

“I doubt it. She said she doesn’t recognize me anymore.” Harper set her cup on the table, and the halo of happiness surrounding her flickered, as if Nora’s cold grip had reached into the room.

Harper stood and set their mugs in the dishwasher, squinting out the windows to the black night. The lock clicked, and Lucas ducked into the room and slammed the door. Harper met him, dripping on the mat, and Lucas brushed his hood from his hair.

“Sweetheart, Kathryn’s visiting for a few days.” Harper draped his jacket on the hook next to the door.

Lucas’s face widened into a grin. “Kathryn, it’s so great to see you.” He slipped off his shoes and came to kiss Kathryn on the cheek. Lucas’s smile was like the warmth and safety of the house during the storm. The kitchen lights caught the cluster of gold in his left eye, glittering like stars.

Kathryn took in the first floor as Harper led her through the dining room. The house was decorated in warm wood, and the guest bedroom was tucked away off the dining room, with an inviting plush four-poster bed.

“There are clean towels in the bathroom.” Harper switched on one of the lights beside the bed. “Get some rest. I’m worried about you and the b-a-b-y.”

In the shower, hot water washed the day away. By the time she slipped between the sheets, an exhaustion she’d never known before tugged Kathryn toward sleep. And this new character forming inside her, barely more than an idea, was the last thing to flutter into her thoughts.

Kathryn awoke to the morning light slipping into the room between the palm branches, and before she’d moved from her pillow, an answer appeared with abrupt clarity, the way a word on the tip of her tongue would pop into her head: she was keeping the baby. It didn’t matter if it were Nick’s or Andrew’s; it was hers . This baby was bigger than its circumstances.

Kathryn placed her hand over her flat abdomen. A spike of adrenaline brought her reality into sharp focus. She needed to see a doctor. She had to get a job and find a place to live. She needed to buy a bassinet, furniture, tiny onesies. One thing at a time .

Kathryn felt awkward approaching Lucas and Harper in the kitchen, but Harper’s face lit up.

Lucas was standing in front of the stove, a spatula in hand. “Morning, sunshine.”

Kathryn seated herself across from Harper, and Lucas opened a cabinet full of souvenir coffee mugs from the couple’s travels: Paris, London, Oahu.

“What are we thinking today? Rainbows?” He set the mug on the table, a pastel rainbow with a smiling sun splashed on the front, then tipped the carafe, letting the heavenly brown liquid rise to the top of the mug.

“I filled Luke in.” Harper slid a ceramic cow filled with cream across the table. Kathryn’s cheeks burned, but Harper reached out and touched her hand. “There’s no judgment here, Kat.” Being with Lucas has changed Harper, Kathryn realized with a swell of gratitude.

Lucas set three plates of pancakes in front of them, and Harper caught Kathryn up on the details of their honeymoon as they ate. Kathryn welcomed their chatter as a pleasant distraction from the whirlwind of the previous day. The privacy of the property, and its larger-than-life opulence, not to mention the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, were a cocoon of safety from the events of the previous day. There was no way Andrew or Nick could find her here.

And Harper seemed lighter than ever. More focused. Lucas was good for her, Kathryn realized, and her heart throbbed when she thought of Andrew.

After breakfast Kathryn followed Harper up the wooden staircase to the third floor, home to Lucas and Harper’s sprawling suite. The bed faced the windows to the east, and french doors opened to the balcony. The two women stepped outside; the water, layered in shades of blue, glittered below.

“I’m keeping the baby,” Kathryn blurted.

“Wow, Kathryn.” Harper’s eyes widened with a sparkle of excitement. “That’s amazing.”

Kathryn sighed. “I hope so.” The fresh idea of a baby still didn’t seem real.

“I talked to Luke this morning, and we want to offer you the guesthouse.” Harper’s hair whipped in the breeze. “If you want it.”

“I just need a few days to go look for an apartment.”

“Stay awhile, if you’d like. Save some money. I’ll have it cleaned later today.”

The previous morning, when her life had been turned upside down in Andrew’s bathroom, Kathryn couldn’t have imagined herself living on Lucas and Harper’s beachfront property. A safe palace for her and her baby. It was more than she could wrap her head around, far more than she deserved. “Harper, I can’t thank you enough.”

Harper beamed. “It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to.”

That afternoon, Harper led Kathryn across the driveway to the guest cottage, letting a long beam of sunlight fall into the space. A plush couch faced the living room windows, and french doors opened to a small bedroom tucked in the back. In the kitchen, Kathryn brushed the curtain aside, the ocean visible between the low-hanging palm branches. Underneath her big toe, the terra-cotta tile closest to the sink had been memorialized with a dog’s footprint. Harper leaned against the doorframe, smiling as she watched Kathryn take it all in. “So do you think it’ll do?”

Two weeks later Kathryn sat across from her mother at a bustling pancake house, where she looked down at the Formica table and repeated, “I’m keeping the baby.”

Sherry shook a sugar packet into her iced coffee, pensive, but Kathryn saw a smile creep across her face, along with the same excitement she’d seen in Harper’s eyes. The judgment was gone. “You can come home. Dad and I would love to have you.”

“Mom, don’t take this the wrong way, but you and Dad have given me everything my whole life, and I’m kind of a spoiled brat. I can’t come home and have you take care of my baby. I’m going to stay with Harper and Lucas for now.”

“Staying with your wealthy friends is your idea of being less spoiled?” Sherry smirked.

“I’m just saying, I need to do this on my own.”

Sherry nodded before her tone softened. “I’m not sure what happened between you and Andrew—and I don’t need to know—but please talk to him. He’s been calling the house every day, and I can’t hold him off forever. He deserves an explanation, or closure, whatever you kids call it.”

Kathryn set her face in her hands. “I will, Mom. I just have things to work out first. Please don’t tell him where I am or ... anything.”

“This is not my news to tell, Kathryn.”

Keeping Andrew in the dark forever wasn’t part of the plan, but, inwardly, Kathryn knew what she was waiting for: she wanted to see her baby.

The first few weeks of pregnancy, Kathryn felt energetic and couldn’t believe an enormous change was taking place inside her body. Eventually, she succumbed to morning sickness, keeping her in bed for days. The weather was gloomy and overcast during this period, which fit her mood.

With each passing day, she wondered what Andrew was doing, how he’d reacted when he’d come home to find her key on the table. Scenarios whirled in her mind as she lay in bed in the cottage. Had he been devastated? Or worse—relieved? Had Nick told him about the pregnancy? Did Andrew think she’d run away to have an abortion; was he furious with her?

Or had Nick kept her secret? Had Andrew moved on already, found someone else?

Kathryn snagged a job as a paralegal at a local firm and paid Harper and Lucas the small sum of rent they’d agreed on. She often picked up groceries or bottles of wine and left them in the kitchen of the beach house, anything she could offer as a token of appreciation for her friends’ generosity. Harper often invited Kathryn over for breakfast, and on alternating Saturday nights they all had dinner together on the large sunporch facing the water, where their laughter carried over the waves. On these nights Kathryn looked out on the moonlight over the water and set a hand on her growing belly, and the ache for Andrew dulled to a throb.

The moment the doctor confirmed she was having a boy, battling images clashed in her mind: a dark-haired child with Nick’s eyes, or her olive skin paired with Andrew’s blond hair. She contemplated submitting a DNA test once he was born, but how would she pull it off? Did it even matter? She might never see Andrew or Nick again, and she’d love her son just the same. Sleepless, her hand on her belly, where her baby kicked and turned, partners in insomnia, Kathryn tried to picture his face. This tiny person was centimeters from her fingers, and the love that swelled within her at the thought of him felt as if it would break her. Kathryn longed to know who the other half of this person was, while she also wanted to keep him inside her forever, where she could wrap her arms around the globe of her belly, where there was nothing to hurt him.

Max made his pink-faced, screaming entrance on a late-September night. When Kathryn thought back, the memory evoked a haunting cocktail of elation and—was it regret? Certainly not regret for Max, the most perfect human she’d ever seen, her tears rolling onto his tiny head when she’d cradled him for the first time. It was as if no other version of this boy had ever existed; he just was , with a silky tuft of blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. A DNA test seemed laughable, if she had it in her to laugh.

The hospital buzzed with activity; nurses and doctors came and went, and the hallway outside her door was a parade of voices, balloons, crying babies, carts with squeaky wheels. On Max’s first morning, Kathryn’s parents came to meet him, followed that afternoon by Harper and Lucas. But when night fell, Kathryn found herself alone with Max for the first time. Somehow she felt truly alone, though she realized her life would never orbit around herself again.

Max was swaddled in his bassinet, asleep, a tiny oval in the pale light. When the night nurse came to help Kathryn hold Max to her breast, Kathryn clutched him, fresh tears spilling onto his tender head. Mine. Nothing would take him away from her.

The following weeks drained Kathryn in a way she’d never imagined possible. Her body, her sanity, her sleep; this tiny person needed it all. For a few bleak nights, bleary eyed and exhausted, she wanted to grab the phone and punch in Andrew’s number, to wake him, to confess everything, then demand he make the drive south. She saw it: the harsh whispers, hurt eyes. And she saw Andrew holding Max in the dim light of the cottage while she drifted to sleep, relieved of the weight of it all. And maybe, when she woke, the sun spilling in on a new day, there would be softer words. Forgiveness.

Instead, she gathered Max in her arms and paced the driveway in the light of the moon until he settled.

During those first months, Lucas and Harper brought over foil-covered plates of food each evening. They sent their housekeeper to tidy the cottage once a week, making Kathryn feel spoiled and guilty, but her heart swelled with appreciation.

Days passed. Months. Max grew heavy. He was safe there with her. And every day Kathryn found something new to love about her new home, from the morning light filtering in between the palm branches to the sweet song of the ocean floating into the house. Kathryn returned to her paralegal work, and each morning she dropped Max off with Sherry. With a full-time job and a baby, Kathryn’s schedule kept her busy and out of Lucas’s and Harper’s way. Exiting the gate each day felt like she was entering the real world . All day at work she longed to collect Max and let the branches of the weeping willow that hunched protectively over the front gate brush her car, the gate that opened to Ocean Avenue sliding shut behind her.

Max ticked off milestones with dizzying frequency; it seemed every day she collected him from Sherry he’d learned something new. Kathryn ached to freeze time; to savor Max’s babble in the car seat behind her while she drove, chubby fingers at his wet gums, cheeks as rosy and pink as ripe peaches.

On a sunny March afternoon, Kathryn arrived at her parents’ house and rushed inside. Max was seated in his pack-and-play, and his face split into a grin when he saw Kathryn. “Ma!” he burst. The one syllable shattered Kathryn, hard and unforgiving, like a slap: she realized she and Andrew could have had the future they’d planned together, with this little boy to bask in their love. But she’d ruined it. She slid to the floor as sobs exploded from her.

“Honey.” Sherry entered, clutching a sunflower-print dish towel. “What’s wrong?”

Kathryn shook her head violently. Sherry fetched her a glass of ice water, and after a few minutes, Kathryn composed herself and lifted Max, placing kisses on his head.

What have I done? She repeated the words as she drove home . I have to call him. Andrew would be angry—livid. Heartbroken. But she had to do it.

So she did. After Max settled that night, Kathryn unblocked Andrew’s number with trembling fingers and dialed. The phone trilled over the sound of her hammering heartbeat.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice.

Kathryn gasped.

“Hello?” the woman demanded. “Kathryn?”

Kathryn clocked the voice, the syrupy southern drawl. Lily, Andrew’s mother.

“Mrs. Williams.” Kathryn sniffed. “Is Andrew—I’m looking for Andrew.”

“Andrew isn’t available.” There was a curl of venom in Lily’s voice.

“Is he okay?”

“No, he’s not.” A frigid pause. “Andrew nearly threw away his future for you. I knew you were bad news from the start, knew you’d distract him from everything he worked for. That’s what girls like you do.”

Kathryn reeled.

“So you leave my son alone. He’s getting his life back on track, and if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t tangle with another hussy like you.” Lily hung up. Kathryn cried until the dawn light crept in.

The first time a man, another intern from her firm, expressed interest in her, Kathryn rebuffed his suggestion they get a drink. It was uncalled for. She belonged to Andrew. Then it struck her: she didn’t belong to anyone. She was single. It was then she realized her love for Andrew wasn’t a choice. It marked her permanently, a scar. Would it fade? Or was it permanent? And in that moment she longed to turn back time, ached for Andrew’s tender touch, the way he found her beneath the blankets and folded his arms around her. She’d been given a winning lottery ticket to the life she dreamed of, and she’d destroyed it.

But she belonged to Max. He was hers alone to guide through the world.

From that day on, Kathryn sealed her life off from anyone aside from Lucas, Harper, and her parents. She kept a polite, professional distance between herself and her coworkers. She didn’t make friends, didn’t date. Kathryn found she was content to hide from the consequences of her decisions behind the heavy gate of 228 Ocean Avenue.

They celebrated Max’s first birthday on the sunporch, and Kathryn snapped a photo of her son poking a finger into a blue frosted cake. That afternoon, in front of Kathryn and her parents, Max took his first steps. Lucas gently held Max’s hand in his palm until Max pulled away, marching forward on his own. Kathryn’s vision swam with tears.

But Lily’s icy words jangled in Kathryn’s mind. And the thought she clung to when she looked at Max: mine.

One evening Kathryn coaxed Max to sleep, then wandered down the path toward the beach, baby monitor clutched in hand. She closed her eyes and listened to the rhythm of the waves. Everything was calm. On her way back to her cottage, the warm light of the kitchen window spilled onto the driveway. Kathryn approached the back door, knocking gently.

Lucas pulled the door.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were Harper,” Kathryn said.

“She went to bed early,” Lucas said. Seconds ticked by. “Want to come in? I’m making some tea.”

She didn’t want to return to the cottage alone, so Kathryn climbed the steps. Lucas moved around the kitchen, gathered two mugs. Beneath the kettle, the burner glowed. Kathryn set the baby monitor on the table. “I have something to say.”

Lucas lifted his brows.

“You’re good for Harper,” Kathryn said. “She’s happy. She’s ... lighter than before.”

Luke’s smile bloomed. “She’s good for me, too.”

“Have you had many interactions with Nora?” Kathryn remembered Harper’s childhood home like something from a fairy tale; the property seemed to never end. All white marble and pillars, a pool, a grotto. And they had staff; someone to cook, someone else to clean. Harper had a nanny and a tutor. But Harper walked the house, stiff, like she didn’t belong. She didn’t smile. Nora didn’t allow messes; there were no pizza rolls to be microwaved in the kitchen, no globby nail polish for giving each other pedicures. So they spent time at Kathryn’s house, where Sherry brought juice and snacks up to Kathryn’s bedroom while they watched Total Request Live .

“Not really.” The kettle whistled, and Lucas snatched it, filled two mugs with boiling water before he set them on the table. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he lowered himself into a chair. “But that WASPy old bitch doesn’t scare me.”

Kathryn choked back a giggle. “And how about your family?” She’d lived in this man’s guesthouse for almost two years, but she didn’t know him well, she realized.

Lucas wrapped his fingers around his mug. “I grew up in Miami. But both my parents died within a few years of each other. I had to get away.”

“God, Luke. I’m so sorry.”

Lucas offered a resigned smile. “It’s okay.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“None I’ve ever met. It’s just me. But my dad left me money. I needed a job for the summer while I waited for the estate to be settled, so I moved up to Delray. That brought me to the country club, which led me to you, who led me to Harper.” A tiny smile lifted his lips when he spoke his wife’s name. “And her mother, with her iced tea and her salad. Dressing on the side.”

Kathryn smiled, then blew on her tea. “What happened to your parents?” She realized how rude her question sounded as soon as she said it. “Never mind—that’s not my business. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” Lucas cleared his throat. “My mom came here from Brazil when she was a teenager. She grew up really poor. She met my dad; he was a businessman in Miami. But as it turns out, he had a family. Wife, kids, the whole thing. I was four when she found out, and she was devastated. But she never told them, and she never left him. She was in love with him.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“He took us out a few times. He’d come by and pick me up and we’d drive around. Seemed like a cool enough guy. But we lived in this shitty apartment, and my mom worked three jobs, and I was home alone more often than not.”

Kathryn bobbed her tea bag in the steaming water.

“Anyway, my dad died when I was fifteen. Colon cancer. He left my mom all of his money. His wife and kids took my mom to court and tried to fight it, but it was there in his will, it was clear.” Kathryn stared at Lucas’s face in the dim kitchen light as he spoke. “Then my mom died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Lucas shrugged, his eyes sad. “I wish I could have my mom back. All I can do is move forward, start my own family. And I don’t want it to be anything like my childhood.”

Kathryn gave him a soft smile.

Lucas twisted the string of his tea bag around his finger. “Have you thought about reaching out to Max’s father?”

“Constantly,” Kathryn admitted. “I just don’t know how I could at this point.”

“My mom raised me alone. I don’t want that for you, Kathryn. Or for Max.”

“Andrew’s a catch. He’s probably found someone who is more suited for him by now.” She heard the bitterness in her words. Lucas frowned. “Think about it. For Max’s sake.”

Kathryn considered Luke’s words as she stared into her tea.

Kathryn and Harper took long sunset strolls, the foamy surf rolling around their ankles, the salty sea air tangling their hair. But when Kathryn couldn’t sleep, and the light in the kitchen window flicked on, she rapped on the back door of the beach house, and Lucas let her in, and they sat at the kitchen table, talking late into the night. Maybe it was the anonymity of the night pressing against the kitchen windows, but she knew anything she said over her steaming teacup would never leave the room.

And maybe echoes of Harper’s judgment reverberated somewhere in the recesses of Kathryn’s mind, but she never mentioned these evenings with Lucas to Harper.

Shortly after Max’s first birthday, Kathryn went to Sherry’s house to collect him after work. “A letter came for you, honey,” Sherry said.

Kathryn regarded the envelope. Eckman Law School. It was one of the few schools she’d applied to after Max was born. She slit the flap. An acceptance.

A spark in the darkness. She might be able to give Max a shred of the life she’d promised before she’d conceived him. A pool. A safe home that was theirs .

Three months into her classes, in the kitchen one night, Lucas set their two mugs on the table and announced that Harper was pregnant.

“Wow, congratulations,” Kathryn gushed, but a barb of hurt jabbed her. Why hadn’t Harper told her the news herself? Her friend had been more tired than usual, less talkative.

“I don’t want my kid to be alone all the time like I was growing up.” Luke leaned his back against the wall. “I’m Brazilian; I want them to be surrounded by food and music and the ocean—the more people in the house, the better. Maybe we’ll adopt, too, in the future?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Kathryn laughed, letting the magic of Luke’s picture for his life settle over them. “Let me know how you feel about this one when you haven’t slept in days.”

Lucas’s eyes were alive with possibilities.

“I guess I need to finally get out of your way.” Kathryn was unprepared for the swell of unease that wrapped around her when she thought of moving. She’d be on her own—truly. Without the warmth of her friends or the safety of life on Ocean Avenue.

“You can stay, you know. You just started school. Most people our age live with roommates; what’s the difference?”

“The difference?” Kathryn sputtered and motioned around them. “Most people our age don’t have babies. And your kind of money, and houses like this one.”

Lucas shrugged. “We’re not like most people our age, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure the neighbors talk.”

Lucas’s smile pulled at the corners of his eyes. “Fuck ’em. Let them think what they want. Let them think I have multiple wives and multiple kids. Let them think I sacrifice goats in the attic. I don’t care.” They both covered their faces to stifle their laughter, but Kathryn was awash with relief. I don’t have to go. Not yet.

“Luke told you about the pregnancy?” Harper asked three days later as they walked the beach. Harper walked slowly, like her energy had been drained.

Kathryn couldn’t lie. She nodded.

Harper didn’t elaborate. She retreated into the upper levels of the house for days on end. Kathryn gave her space. She was too familiar with the harsh words Harper was capable of slinging when she was in a dark place, and too vulnerable to be Harper’s target.

“Is she okay, Luke?” Kathryn asked one evening.

Lucas frowned, as if he didn’t want to betray his wife. “She went off her meds. Her doctor said they were safe, but Harper ... she doesn’t want to risk it.”

Some days Harper seemed like herself, and sometimes she was a recluse. One Saturday, Kathryn knocked on Harper’s door, a Publix bag of candy and salty snacks in tow. She and Harper nestled in bed and watched TV, munched Twizzlers. They didn’t need to speak much, just shared one more chapter of their lives together.

With law school and a full-time job and a toddler, the days melted into months in a dizzying haze. Kathryn rode Harper’s ups and downs with her, but she couldn’t help but feel a bolt of relief alongside her excitement when Harper went into labor and Emmy burst into their lives the fourteenth day of June.

Kathryn gave the couple space. She brought groceries, left them in the kitchen, took Max to the beach.

One afternoon, when Emmy was one month old, Kathryn knocked on the door, and Lucas yanked it open, cradling his daughter. His eyes were red rimmed and bleary. “Luke? Where’s Harper?”

“She went away for a few days to rest.” In his granite expression, Kathryn understood. “She needed time to adjust to her medication. Having a baby, it’s been hard on her.”

“But she’s back on her meds?”

Lucas nodded, and relief swept Kathryn. “The doctor gave her something new.”

Kathryn reached for Emmy, offered the one thing she’d fantasized about when Max was a newborn. “I’ll take her for a few hours; you sleep.”

Lucas nodded gratefully.

Lucas and Kathryn developed an unspoken cadence to sharing childcare and prepping meals, even after Harper returned home. Harper’s moods seemed to stabilize, but she slept often. The medication, Kathryn guessed.

Kathryn still woke every morning with Andrew on her mind, but he existed at a safe distance, like an old memory. After Emmy’s first birthday, Harper seemed to find her footing. Her moods no longer came and went like the tides. Harper bloomed; she chatted with Kathryn, their feet in the warm sand, the sun on their faces. Harper carried Emmy on her hip, kissed her small fingers. The kids spun around them, splashing in the surf on the blinding-bright afternoons of their childhood. This was the life she’d always thought she’d share with Harper, Kathryn thought with a bubble of gratitude.

Kathryn enrolled Max in kindergarten the summer before his fifth year, and as she filled out the address on his school forms, she realized with a lurch how much time had passed. Max needed his own space, his own bedroom. She needed to make a home that was her own, not a borrowed escape from reality. Leaning against the reception desk at Max’s future elementary school, she realized her life would never be as dreamy as it was behind the stone wall of Lucas and Harper’s home, but there was no way she could know just how quickly—and permanently—their collective time together was about to spiral to an end.