“It’s okay,” I replied abruptly. “Really, there’s no need to apologize. It’s not your fault I haven’t read the will. I’m just…not really emotionally prepared for that yet.”

  “Of course. I understand completely,” Zelda said, her voice softening while still maintaining a note of urgency.

  “What is it you need from me?”

  She let out a loud sigh of relief. “I think your father finished the manuscript. It’s a story called Amber Sky. I think it’s—“

  “What did you say?”

  She was silent for a moment, caught off guard by the interruption. “About what?”

  “The name of the story,” I said. “What’s the name?”

  “Oh, I believe it’s called Amber Sky. I think it’s supposed to be about all the different colors of the sky and how amber is his favorite. Anyway, it was due to Dial last month, but we’d been avoiding the press and all requests for charity work, so this project just kind of slipped through the cracks. Unfortunately, your mother doesn’t know the password to his computer to search for the manuscript. And then I remembered your father’s instructions, leaving you in charge of the books. I thought maybe you could try looking for it. Do you know your dad’s password, honey?”

  A heavy silence lingered between us for a long while as I imagined what my father was thinking when he named the story Amber Sky, the same name as the poem he recited at my wedding. Did he forget about the poem? Or was the title purposeful?

  “Cassie? Are you okay, hun?”

  I cleared my throat and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I’ll look for the manuscript. Just give me a few days.”

  “Of course. Take your time,” Zelda replied. “And Cassie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your father adored you, you know. You’re all he ever talked about. Even in his final days. He’d be really proud to see you taking over this project for him.”

  I drew in a long, stuttered breath. “Thanks, Zelda. I’ll get back to you soon,” I said, hanging up the phone before she could reply.

  I rested my elbows on the desk and held my head in my hands as I allowed myself a moment to feel the overwhelming grief. It hit me at random times, like a tsunami most days.

  But today had been better. Buoyed by the knowledge I was carrying another baby girl, the grief only lapped at my ankles. Now, it drowned me as I imagined how alone and helpless my father felt in his final days. One of the most uplifting writers of our time, reduced to a blank stare.

  I opened the silver laptop on his desk and wasn’t surprised to find it was dead. I didn’t know where he kept the charger. Without drawers, the only other place it could be was on top of the desk, but it wasn’t there.

  Maybe it was in one of the many decorative baskets my mother placed on the bookshelves that lined the study. I rose from the chair and began searching the basket on the bottom shelf immediately to my right. Finding only decorative painted eggs, I moved on to the next shelf. This basket contained a collection of palm-sized booklets of poetry, which looked to be more than a hundred years old.

  As I moved onto the next shelf, the next woven basket, the smell of coffee that seemed to permeate the office grew stronger. As I pulled the basket off the shelf, I shook my head as I saw it filled to the brim with coffee beans.

  Part of me thought it comical to imagine my father pouring coffee beans in this basket. It seemed I was right that my father had hidden a stash in here. But another part of me found it tragic to think that he was losing his mind, and this was proof.

  I took a deep breath to withstand the impact of another wave of grief. But as I was about to put the basket of coffee beans back on the shelf, something caught my eye. A small piece of white sticking out of the sea of brown.

  I grabbed it and pulled a folded piece of white paper out of the coffee beans. Written on the outside was just two words: Bunny Rabbit.

  Follow Me

  Walker’s words echo in my mind. I wasn’t gentle when I shot him. The image of the shotguns in the shed flashes in my mind’s eye. He said the weapons were for hunting. Hunting what? Or whom?

  I stand up and pat the empty mattress to coax him back onto the bed. “Do you want me to stay?” I ask once he’s lying comfortably.

  He nods as he scoots over to make room for me next to him. I consider telling him I want to sleep alone, making an excuse that my shoulder is sore, or something. But I don’t want to be alone tonight, either.

  I lie my topless body down next to Walker’s. His skin is smooth and warm against mine, and I quickly find myself relaxing into him as he wraps his arms around me. I wonder if he learned to cuddle like this from his mother. Was she a good mother?

  Pondering this question seems unfair, considering I’ve never met the woman who raised him. Is the man Walker claims to have shot his father? If not, what happened to his father? I have so many questions, but I’m beginning to wonder if I even want to know the answers.

  Just as I begin to regret telling Mr. Beacham to turn the truck around, Walker places a tender, lingering kiss on the top of my head. And just like that, my worries about Walker and his mysterious past are allayed by his instinct to protect and comfort me.

  I lay my head on his bare shoulder, being as still as possible so I can feel his heartbeat on my fingertips. Pressing my nose against the crook of his neck, I inhale deeply, committing the sharp, spicy scent to memory. He is real.

  I wake with a small puddle of saliva collecting under the corner of my mouth, just above Walker’s clavicle. I peel my face away from his damp skin, and my cheek scrapes against his beard as I push myself up. His eyelids flutter, and he smacks his lips, but he doesn’t wake. Heavy sleeper.

  A pang of longing in the pit of my stomach takes me by surprise. My father was a heavy sleeper. He’d often take naps on the sofa in his study, and my siblings and I would sneak in while he slept to see what he was working on. Nine times out of ten, he’d keep snoring as we giggled fiendishly just a few feet away.

  I grab a T-shirt out of Walker’s closet and go downstairs to pull on the same pair of jeans I’ve repeatedly been using and hand-washing since the accident. As I’m buttoning the waistband, I hear footsteps in the downstairs hallway.

  “Good morning!” I call out to Walker, but he doesn’t answer.

  I slide my feet into my sneakers and head out into the hallway, making my way toward the kitchen to help make breakfast. But as I pass through the swinging door into the kitchen, my heart skids to a stop.

  Pushing the back door open and stepping out onto the back steps is my father.

  His back is to me, but I’d recognize that brown cardigan and the bald spot at the crown of his head anywhere.

  “Dad?” I call out softly, hardly able to push the wind out of my lungs.

  He doesn’t stop. The wooden screen door slams shut behind him as he continues down the steps. I race toward the door, and for a moment, I’m frozen as I watch him crossing the backyard toward the woods. Finally, I get my wits about me and call out to him again, much louder this time.

  “Dad! Wait!”

  As he reaches the tree line, he looks back at me over his shoulder and smiles. I push the screen door open and nearly tumble down the steps in my haste. Racing across the grass, the sore on my foot—which has gotten worse instead of better—burns from the friction of my sneaker. I ignore the pain and explode through the tree line into the woods at full speed, but my father is nowhere to be seen.

  “Dad! Wait for me!” I shout, turning in all possible directions and still not finding him.

  I set off in the direction of the meadow I found on my first exploration of the forest. I don’t want to believe my instinct, but I have a strong feeling I’ll find my father there. With each step I take, the burning in my heel grows more unbearable, until I finally take off my sneakers and leave them behind as I continue forward.

  It isn’t long before the woods open up onto that beautiful meadow I found not so long ago. The lavender blooms have been replaced with yellow flowers, which sway in the breeze that ripples through Walker’s oversized T-shirt. And there, in the middle of the meadow, is my father.

  He’s waving at me and smiling as he carries a small child in his arms. He whispers something to the girl, and she giggles. My heart aches as I recognize the sound I heard the first time I visited this meadow.

  My father waves one more time before he turns around and begins to walk away from me. I take a few steps forward, but the pain in my heel becomes unbearable.

  “Wait!” I call out to my father, but he doesn’t stop or turn around.

  I lift my foot to get a better look at the injury and see the dressing has fallen off, and the open wound is covered in spiny nettles. I try continuing on, walking on my one good foot and the tip-toe of my bad foot. But with each step I take, I fall farther behind.

  How can this be possible? My father is dead. I must really be losing my mind. I need to go back to the house and get back to the city as fast as I can, or I may very well die out here.

  I limp back through the woods, picking up my abandoned shoes on the way. As I emerge from the tree line into Walker’s backyard, I glance at the lean-to where Walker keeps his guns. The morning light glints off the small window in the side of the shed. I don’t remember the shed having a window.

  I limp across the yard and use my hand to wipe away some dust from the windowpane. As I peer inside, I see the same shotguns — about a dozen — lining the pegboard walls of the shed. But when I look at the workbench, something catches my eye.

  Right there, lying between a handsaw and a rubber mallet, is my cellphone.

  Teddy O.

  My heart drums inside my ears as I dash inside. As I make my way toward the stairs and up to Walker’s bedroom, my mind is spinning from the events that unfolded over the last few minutes. I watched my dead father walk out of—

  I stop at the threshold of Walker’s bedroom as I’m hit with a sense of dread that feels like an anvil around my neck. Turning around, my shoulders tense as I stare at the banister on the staircase. The thoughts racing through my mind as I approach the railing are pure insanity. If I find what I think I’m going to find, then everything I know about Walker and how I came to be here will be called into question.

  I take a deep breath as I descend the top three steps and crouch down to look at the bottom of the wooden handrail. My heart stops when I see the letters engraved in the wood: TEDDY O.

  I shake my head in disbelief as I rise to my feet and climb back up the steps to the second floor. Standing in Walker’s threshold again, I try to think of what I’m going to say, but my mind is a swirling kaleidoscope of memories. Everything from standing in front of my first-grade class reading an early-release copy of my father’s latest book, to watching my father recite a poem on my wedding day.

  I’m married.

  I’m married to Walker Marcus Ainsley.

  And this house… I grab the doorframe to make sure it’s solid and not just a figment of my imagination. This is my grandmother’s house.

  I look at Walker, and my mouth goes dry as I remember the day we applied for our marriage license. I laughed when I found out his real name. I’d only ever known him as Marc.

  I lick my lips to unstick them so I can open my mouth and speak. “Marc.”

  He doesn’t stir.

  I step into the bedroom and amble toward the bed. He’s lying on his back with his head facing the window. As I get closer, my foot happens upon a squeaky floorboard, and I freeze.

  His eyelids blink open, but he’s facing the opposite direction, so he doesn’t notice me.

  “Marc.”

  He swings his head toward me, his eyes wide with some kind of animal emotion I don’t recognize. “What did you call me?”

  I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should tell him I know who he is.

  This is what it must feel like when your sanity and your sense of reality begin to splinter. I’ve always wondered how a seemingly normal person can devolve so suddenly into madness.

  I’ve read about it in so many news articles. Stories of mothers who convince themselves the only way to preserve their children’s innocence is to kill them. Or men who think the government is involved in sweeping conspiracies, and the only way to make the general public see the truth is to commit mass murder or suicide.

  I’ve read about these types of incidents with horror. I’d watched my own father descend into the depths of mental instability. Who am I to think that I’m somehow immune to such a break with reality?

  “Cass, are you okay?”

  Walker’s voice pulls me out of my reverie, and my focus is square on his face.

  “I’m not going crazy,” I say, looking down at him and trying to remember what he looks like without the beard and the unkempt hair.

  “I didn’t say you were,” he says, sitting up, so his knees are just inches from mine as he looks up at me. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know why you’re talking like that. You don’t have an accent. You’ve never had an accent.”

  He looks confused. “I’ve always talked like this. I don’t know what you’re going on about, but I gotta hit the shower.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from standing up. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  He looks at my hand and tilts his head curiously. “I don’t know what’s going on here. I am very confused.”

  I remove my hand from his shoulder and step back to get a better look at him. “Why are you pretending we’re not married? Is this some kind of sick game, or what?”

  He cocks an eyebrow as he looks up at me. “Cass, you’re scaring me.”

  “See!” I shout. “You called me Cass. Just like you did yesterday in the backyard. Marc calls me Cass.”

  A shadow of anger passes over his features. “My name ain’t Marc. It’s Walker.”

  I shake my head. “Your name is Walker Marcus Ainsley. We applied for our marriage license eight years ago at the city hall building. And that day, you made me promise to never call you Walker again.” I pause to watch his unusually furious reaction. “And you never told me why.”

  He shakes his head as he looks at the floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know how you know my name, but I suspect you’ve probably been nosing around where you shouldn’t be.”

  Now anger washes over me as I remember what I saw in the lean-to shed. “Why have you been hiding my cell phone from me?”

  The fury in his features melts into confusion as he looks up at me. “What are you talking about? I don’t got no cell phone.”

  “I saw my cell phone in the shed. I went out this morning to—Well, it doesn’t matter what I was doing. I looked through the window—the one on the side of the shed—and I saw my cell phone right there next to your tools. Why have you been keeping it from me?”

  The expression on his face changes again, but this time I think I see pity in his eyes. “There ain’t no window on the shed.”

  “Yes, there is!” I shout, my frustration with him reaching a boiling point as I march toward the window to look out at the backyard, but I can’t see the shed from here. “Come with me. And bring the key to that padlock. You’re opening the shed for me.” I continue toward the door, but he doesn’t move. “Now.”

  He sighs as he stands up and trudges reluctantly behind me until we’re at the back door, where he places a hand on the doorknob to stop me from turning it. “I think you might just need some more rest.”

  “Open the door,” I say, ignoring his patronizing suggestion.

  He waits a moment before he turns the knob and heads outside with me. As we descend the back steps, I shield my eyes from the bright morning sun, thinking the glare must be playing tricks on my eyes. But as I draw nearer, my stomach plummets.

  The window I saw on the side of the shed is gone.

  You Knew All Along

  Two months earlier

  I stuffed my father’s note into the pocket of my jean jacket and headed back to the kitchen. My mother and Aunt Lillian were still in the exact same place they were a few minutes ago.

  “I have to go, Mom,” I said, placing a quick kiss on her cheek. “I have to go get dinner started. Marc has a colleague coming over tonight.”

  “A colleague? I thought he quit the firm.”

  “He did,” I replied, still heading toward the front door. “This is someone he’s thinking of going into business with.” It was a terrible lie, but it was the first one that came to mind. “Bye, Mom. Bye, Aunt Lil,” I called out as I rushed out the front door and into my SUV.

  The leather was searing hot from the mid-June heatwave. I unbuttoned my jean jacket and retrieved the note from the pocket. I considered reading it right there. But if the contents of the note upset me, it would be irresponsible for me to drive while emotional. Instead, I opened the glove compartment and tossed the note inside. I would read it when I got home.

  As I pressed the button to turn on the car, my finger trembled, and a warning signal sounded. Ding. Ding. Ding. Looking at the red symbol flashing on my dashboard screen, it took a moment to realize the car was reminding me to push the brake pedal while pressing the ignition button.

  I shook my head and took a few deep breaths to calm myself before I pulled away from my parent’s house. I had no reason to be this anxious about a tiny note, which I hadn’t even read.

  But as I pulled out onto the streets of Philadelphia, I knew this wasn’t true.

  My father had placed the note in that basket of coffee beans recently; otherwise, their housekeeper or his caregiver would have found it before I did. Of course, there was also the possibility that someone had seen it, but they realized it was addressed to me and decided to leave it alone.