My jaw dropped and I shook my head once. “No . . . she was completely unresponsive. Her breathing was too shallow. I was with her for five minutes trying to wake her up, the EMTs couldn’t wake her up. And if she didn’t take the pills, then what did she do with them so that they were all gone and the bottle just happened to be there next to her?”

“Or what did you do with them,” Mrs. Reynolds said under her breath, and my head jerked back. “She said she was afraid of what would happen if you knew she needed them. I find it disturbing that we get her help, and she winds up in the hospital just days later.”

“This has got to be a joke,” I said, breathing hard.


Kamryn

June 16, 2015

“I THINK it needs to be Sunday every day of the week,” Kinlee blurted out.

Laughing, I dipped my spoon back into the pint of ice cream and ignored her laughing when I moaned through my next bite. “Shut up,” I grumbled.

“Oh, whatever. It’s cute!”

“Lee, it is not cute! You try moaning like this when you eat sweet stuff! Think about never being able to try something sweet when you’re out. Never being able to try flavors at the frozen yogurt shop, just having to hope you’ll like it. Think. About. It.”

Kinlee’s face morphed into a look of horror. “No fro-yo samples?!”

“Exactly.” I pointed the spoon at her.

Jace was working, so we’d spent all day at her house in our pajamas, doing nothing but eating and watching movies. I felt so sick. So fat. So lazy. And so ridiculously happy.

Putting the half-eaten pint on the coffee table, I rubbed my eyes under my glasses and sat back into the cushions on the couch. “You’re trying to kill me with sugar.”

“You found me out,” she said around one of my cookies. “Took you long enough. What’s this?” she asked, nodding her head at the TV.

“How am I supposed to know? You have the remote.”

“Well, I can’t find it. What was coming on after Harry Potter?”

I rolled my head to the side and raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? You’re really asking me this right now? There were two on in a row. How the hell am I supposed to know the answer to that?”

“Meh, whatever. It has Cameron Diaz. I like her.” Kinlee shrugged and sat back. “I don’t want to watch this,” she whispered a few moments later.

“What? Why?” I looked at her, alarmed by the tone of her voice.

“I just don’t. Can you help me look for the remote?”

I watched as she turned and shoved her hand in the side of the couch, and I glanced back at the inoffensive movie playing. “I don’t—what’s wrong with it?”

“I just don’t want to watch it, all right?!”

Jumping back from her now-shrill voice, I sat there stunned for a few seconds before nodding my head furiously. “Yeah, okay. Let’s find it.”

I helped her look for the remote while sneaking glances back at the TV. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” I said, reading the title out loud. Why would Kinlee be so against watching this?

Looking back at her, I watched her eyes flutter shut and a deep breath left her. Her shoulders hunched forward like she was curling in on herself, and my chest ached for my friend.

“Are—are you and Jace having a baby?” Wouldn’t that be a happy thing?

She sighed sadly and opened her eyes, but didn’t look at me. She just continued staring at the back of the couch. “No.”

Glancing quickly at the movie still playing, I moved to sit on the floor next to her and grabbed her forearm. “Did you have a miscarriage, Lee?” She shook her head, and my confusion grew. “I—what happened? I don’t know what’s wrong.”

For long minutes she just sat there staring until she finally cried out, “I swear to God, it’s like it all comes at once. It can’t just be the same amount all the time. I either don’t see babies, don’t see pregnant women, and don’t see commercials about them . . . or I see them everywhere!” Fat tears fell down her cheeks, and my mouth hung open as I sat there helplessly. “In the last week I have seen dozens of commercials about babies, about pregnancy tests. There has been at least one pregnant woman or one woman with an infant who comes into the store every day, and did you notice the group of women at Starbucks on Thursday?” she asked, finally turning to look at me.

I shook my head as I thought back to Thursday.

“Pregnant!” she spit out. “All four of them were fucking pregnant, and two had toddlers.” Hard sobs racked her small body, and she wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “It’s like it has to taunt me constantly for weeks until I finally break. It’s like the universe realizes that I’m okay with my life, and happy with Jace, and wants to remind me of what I can’t have and make me miserable all over again!”

“You—you can’t have kids, Kinlee?” I asked softly.

“Do you—” She cut off, trying to suck in air. “Do you realize how hard it is knowing you can’t? Knowing it’s not even an option?” she cried. “Do you know how badly Jace wanted a family? That’s all—” Her words stopped as the sobs took over her body, and she slumped into the couch.

Pulling her over to me, I wrapped my arms around her and let my hand run over her back as her body shook uncontrollably.

“That’s all he wanted. That’s all I wanted! And I can’t give us that,” she whimpered, her body sagging as the sobs calmed.

“Kinlee, I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” I said as I continued to hold her. “I’m sorry.”

We sat there on the floor, in front of her couch, for countless minutes as she cried and my heart broke for her. When her tears stopped and she sat back, I grabbed her hand and looked at her red-rimmed eyes.

“When did you find out?”

She sniffed and wiped at her face. “Right before we got married. We got in this huge fight because I was sure he wouldn’t want to get married anymore. It was our first fight, and it was so dumb, but I’d been terrified and heartbroken when I’d found out.”

“Have you ever thought about adoption?” I asked cautiously. I wasn’t sure if this was a sore topic for her.

“I mean, yeah. But it’s expensive, and people can go years waiting to adopt.”

“Would Jace want to?”

Kinlee laughed and shook her head. “He’s the one who’s pushing adoption. I mean, we could, I know we could afford it. But”—she glanced at me—“what if we never get the opportunity, and I get my hopes up? I don’t know if I can handle that,” she whispered.

“Kinlee,” I choked out.

“I just want to be a mom. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

My chin quivered as I watched more tears fill her eyes. “Then don’t be afraid to try. You don’t want to look back in twenty or thirty years and wonder what would have happened if you had just gone for it now. Right?”

Just like how I hadn’t wanted to lose myself in a life I hated with Charles, so I’d run away. Just like how I had done something I never would have seen myself do so I could be with the man I needed in order to breathe. In both cases, I hadn’t wanted to look back in twenty or thirty years and wonder what would have happened if I had done those things . . . I’d wanted to know what did happen.

12

Brody

June 17, 2015

“I JUST NEED to know if you think I should get an attorney, or what the best way to go about this would be.”

Chief sat there with a dumbfounded expression on his face, and after a few seconds blinked his eyes quickly and shook his head. “Honestly, I’m lost, Saco,” he said as he threw his hands up. “So, according to the reports, she didn’t take the pills. Then she refused to go home with you when she was released from the hospital. And now already the next day is demanding to come back to your home with you?”

“Do you see why I’m so close to breaking? I almost took your advice yesterday morning, Chief. I was this close to saying screw the whole thing and stepping back from trying to get her help. Then I found her on the floor of her bathroom unconscious, and now all this is happening. She. Needs. Help. And all her parents are doing is enabling her crazy fits. I don’t know if all three of them are in on this, or if I’m honestly just missing something.”

“Play the voice mail again.”

Leaning forward, I tapped my screen and hit the voice mail that Olivia’s dad had left me two hours before. He’d called thirty minutes after Olivia’s constant calling and sobbing voice mails had stopped to let me know that he was calling his attorney and they would be coming after me for spousal neglect because I couldn’t afford to pay for the hospital while she was in it, couldn’t afford her lifestyle, and refused to provide shelter seeing as I wouldn’t let her back in the house.

I hadn’t paid the ER fee at the hospital because Mr. Reynolds had told the administrator not to bother asking me for payment since I couldn’t afford bread, much less a hospital visit; then he more or less threw his credit card at the woman. I couldn’t afford Liv’s lifestyle because she wanted to be like the fucking Cunninghams and thought $100 shoes were for homeless people. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t letting her back in the house. She still had her key, and I sure as shit hadn’t changed the locks. I just hadn’t asked her to come back, and Liv, being the girl she was, wanted me to beg her to come back. Seeing as how I couldn’t stand the woman and was trying to get her help before I divorced her, I had no desire to beg her to come anywhere near me.

So if that was spousal neglect, then yeah, the attorney definitely had a reason to go after me. While I knew he didn’t, I knew Liv and her family, and I wouldn’t have put it past them to somehow find a way to have something on me.