Now, trying to muster the same light-hearted tone, he instructs her, “Don’t see anything with a car chase, anything ratedR for violence, anything with subtitles, or anything with a roman numeral after the title.”

  “I’ve never met anyone with taste as eclectic as yours,” Rachel said admiringly, having discovered bookmarked copies of both Albert Camus’The Strangerand Howard Stern’s Private Partson his bedside table.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t see any of those movies,” Kylah promises him now.

  Isaac attempts to switch off the vivid scene replaying in his head, but it persists, like an old movie that pops up on every channel.

  “In fact,” Kylah chatters on, as Rachel flashes a brilliant smile in his mental screening room, “I’m not even tempted to see anything like that. Especially the ones with roman numerals; you know I hate sequels.”

  “I know.”

  The old movie plays on in his head…

  Rachel (looking up from the newspaper): “Hey, let’s go seeFree Willy 2tonight.”

  Isaac (incredulous): “Free Willy 2? You’re kidding, right?”

  Rachel (laughing): “Wrong. You know how much I love whales.”

  Isaac (not aloud): You don’t know how much I love you.

  “Listen, you don’t have to worry—I’ll choose a nice chick flick to see without you. Okay?” Kylah, intruding again.

  Doesn’t she realize his thoughts are a million miles and a dozen years away? Doesn’t she realize he’s thinking about someone else?

  No. She won’t know unless you tell her.

  And he won’t make that mistake twice.

  “Okay,” he mutters, and lifts his foot off the gas pedal to travel another six inches of pavement before stopping again.

  Dammit. This couple-hundred-mile trip could take all day…and for what?

  So don’t go.

  It’s not too late to back out.

  Turn around, go back home, and…

  What? Forget about Rachel?

  “I need you, Isaac,” she said that day. “I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. Please…Can you come up here tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” he said promptly, no additional questions asked, still reeling from what she’d just revealed and forgetting all the reasons why he couldn’t—or, at least, shouldn’t—drop everything and race to her side the next day.

  After all, it was her birthday. And she was in trouble, facing something so unexpectedly huge that he couldn’t even bring himself to ask the question whose answer would change everything.

  Not over the phone, anyway.

  He would wait until he saw her.

  And regardless of the answer, he would do anything for her.

  Anything…

  So he can’t turn around and go home now, and he can’t forget about Rachel.

  No way.

  “I should go,” he says abruptly into the cell phone.

  “Me, too.” Kylah sounds reluctant, though. “Do you want me to wait up for you, or are you going to be homereally late?”

  His jaw clenches so hard the tension radiates painfully into his neck. “Don’t wait up.”

  On Thursday evening, Cassie finds herself driving along Interstate 95 to her bridal shower,alone —which is absolutely fine with her.

  Her brother Marcus’s wife, Reenie, is taking the train up from the city with Cassie’s aunt Kitty. Regina will pick them up at the station in New Haven, armed with concise directions to Tammy’s house.

  “Are you sure you won’t just ride along with us?” her mother asked earlier, as she jangled her car keys impatiently and kept looking at the clock.

  “No, I’ve got a big day at the hospital tomorrow. If I leave a little later it will give me a chance to go over some research materials my attending gave me yesterday.”

  And it will give her a much-needed reprieve from her mother.

  Spending almost twelve straight waking hours in the company of Regina Ashford has been enough to make Cassie wish she hadn’t opted to take off today after all.

  They went from breakfast to shopping to lunch to an early movie—an art-house screening of a foreign documentary Cassie wouldn’t have been interested in seeing even if it was in English. Which it wasn’t.

  Or even if it had subtitles…

  Which it didn’t.

  “What’s the problem? You took several years of French in school, Cassandra,” her mother reminded her.

  That’s true. Shetook it. She just didn’t necessarilyretain it.

  She tried to doze through the movie, but her thoughts kept wandering to the shower tonight.

  And to the wedding next month.

  And to the rest of her life.

  Herlife?

  Hah.

  She turns up the volume on the radio—Bono wailing about something profound, not love—and looks at the greenEXIT sign ahead. Is it this one? Or the next?

  She hopes it’s the next.

  It isn’t.

  So, here goes. She can do this. She has to do this. What else is there?

  Just take it one day at a time,she tells herself, and ignores the burgeoning seedling of an idea that was somehow planted in her mind weeks ago.

  She flicks on her turn signal to get over to the right lane, glances in the rearview mirror, and starts to merge.

  A deafening blast from a mighty horn startles her.

  She just nearly cut off a double semi.

  Swerving back into the middle lane, Cassie is shaken as the semi barrels past on the right, the trucker in the cab shaking his head.

  She could have been killed.

  Her hands tremble on the wheel.

  Her life pretty much flashed before her eyes in that instant.

  Not merely the life she’s already lived, but the life she’s got left to live.

  In one terrifying moment, she saw it all.

  Terrifying.

  Because of the truck.

  Yes, of course.

  Thank God she’s all right. Shaken, but all right.

  There’s anotherEXIT sign; only a half mile now.

  She has to get over to the right.

  This time, Cassie cautiously turns her head to see if there’s room.

  There isn’t.

  Rush hour. A steady line of cars blocks the right lane.

  The exit is coming up.

  In the rearview mirror she sees an SUV driver right on her bumper, flashing his lights impatiently. Oh. She’s going only 55. Much too slowly for this busy stretch of the northeast corridor, where the wealthy and important—and sometimes merely self-important—drive fast, fancy cars in blatant disregard for the posted speed limit.

  Cassie picks up her speed a little, signal still on, but she can’t seem to merge right.

  Dammit. She’s going to miss the exit.

  And then what?

  Then you’ll turn around at the next one and go back. That’s what.

  Or…

  Or what?she asks herself impatiently. You’ll turn around and go back at the next exit. What else is there to do?

  A sedan to her right flashes its lights. Oh, for Pete’s sake. Now she’s going too slow for people driving alongside her?

  The driver waves at her.

  Oh…He’s letting her into the lane ahead of him.

  You’re not going to miss the exit after all.

  Go.

  GO!

  And she does.

  But not to the right lane, and the exit.

  The seedling has taken hold, its burgeoning tendrils winding their way into her soul.

  Her foot pressing down on the gas pedal as if of its own accord, Cassandra Ashford speeds on ahead in the middle lane.

  Heading toward Boston.

  CHAPTER 9

  As she steers the BMW sharply around the corner onto Tamarack Lane, Fiona is harried.

  So what else is new?

  Her mind is on the half dozen phone calls she needs to return before she runs home to change before leaving to meet James Bingham in Boston.

  First, of course, she has to stop at the Saddlers’ to drop off Ashley, who’s sitting beside her in the passenger’s seat.

  Ashley protested when Fiona told her to climb into the front; the backseat was crowded with client files and her laptop.

  “Daddy said I’m not allowed in front until I’m twelve. He said it’s against the law.” Ashley’s dark eyes, so like her father’s, flashed with accusation.

  “Yeah, well, Daddy also claims you’re still supposed to be riding around in a booster seat,” Fiona muttered.

  “I am. Till I’m bigger and taller.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re not a baby. You don’t need a booster seat.”

  “Daddy makes me use one.”

  Daddy’s an ass,Fiona wanted to retort.

  She’s been saying precisely that—if only to herself—all day, flying from meeting to conference call to meeting in her usual mad whirlwind. Damn Patrick for refusing to take their daughter tonight.

  She hates the fact that she has to rely on Brynn. Of course Brynn doesn’t mind, and Ashley squealed with delight when Fiona told her she was spending the night there. She loves to play with Brynn’s boys.

  Still…

  Fee has done her best to avoid Brynn these last few weeks. Ever since the lunch they shared with Cassie and Tildy.

  She has no interest in living in the past…And Brynn, she’s starting to realize, is a part of the past.

  Fiona is moving on.

  Moving on, and up. She wants to forget where she’s come from—all of it.

  James Bingham can help her accomplish that.

  Brynn cannot.

  But Brynn can help me with Ashley tonight. Right now, that’s what I need.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What is it, Ashley?” she asks, slowing before the Saddlers’ driveway.

  “I forgot my toothbrush.”

  “How could you forget? I reminded you right before we left.”

  “I know, but I just forgot.”

  “You’re not going to get far in this world if you don’t learn to be more organized, Ashley.” Fiona sighs. “I’ll have to tell Brynn to take you out to the drugstore or something and get you one.”

  “Can’t we just go back for mine?”

  Fiona shakes her head. “No time.”

  “But I don’t want to make Brynn go out.”

  “She won’t mind.”

  “What if she does?”

  “She doesn’t.”What else has she got to do?

  “But—”

  “Trust me, Ashley. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Ashley tells her mother. But she doesn’t.

  Trust her, that is.

  Sometimes, she thinks Mom just makes stuff up to make things easier for herself. Daddy says it’s what she does.

  Actually, Daddy mostly thinks Mom makes stuff up just to make things harder for him. Which might be true, because Mom hates Daddy.

  “Here we are,” she says briskly as she pulls into the Saddlers’ driveway. She tilts the rearview mirror slightly, toward her face, and checks her teeth for lipstick as she says, “Have fun tonight, Ash.”

  “Aren’t you coming inside?”

  “No time, sweetie. I’ll watch you from here and make sure you get in okay. Oh, look, Brynn is already there waiting for you, see?”

  Ashley turns her head. Yes, there’s Brynn, waving from the doorway, with Jeremy on her hip. She’s smiling and saying something to him and pointing at the car.

  Mom leans across the seat and gives Ashley a quick, tight hug. “Have a good time, okay? And don’t forget to pick up after yourself, and help around the house. And make sure Brynn drops you at school on time in the morning. Tell her she can bring your overnight bag by the office afterward so you don’t have to carry it around. I won’t have time to come back here and pick it up.”

  Ashley says nothing to that. She’d rather carry her stuff to school than make Brynn go out of her way to drop it at Mom’s office.

  She opens the car door and disentangles her legs from the straps of her backpack and her green floral Vera Bradley duffel, both on the floor.

  Mom taught her long ago that whenever she’s going someplace with a bag, she should keep it on the mat below her feet, with the straps looped around her ankle. That way, she’ll never forget it.

  “If you just toss it in the backseat, Ashley, you’ll leave it behind. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Ashley swings her legs around and climbs out of the car, lugging her bags. “Bye, Mom.”

  “Bye, honey.” She shifts gears and calls out the window, “Thanks again, Brynn.” She’s already inREVERSE , backing away.

  Ashley hoists the heavy duffel onto her shoulder. Aunt Deirdre gave it to her last Christmas. She had it sent from some store. She never comes back to Cedar Crest for Christmas—or ever, for that matter.

  Mom visited Aunt Deirdre on St. John last fall while Ashley was up at the cabin with Daddy. She herself hasn’t seen Aunt Deirdre since she and her mother met her in Miami for a weekend almost two years ago. That was a business trip for Mom; Ashley spent most of her time at the pool getting to know her aunt.

  Mom and Aunt Deirdre aren’t identical, but rather, “mirror image” twins. As far as Ashley can tell, that pretty much just means Mom is left-handed and Aunt Deirdre is right, yet really, they’re opposites in every way.

  By the time that South Beach weekend drew to a close, she fervently wished Aunt Deirdre lived closer—and that her mother was more like her twin.

  Now, walking up the sidewalk toward Brynn’s welcoming smile, she thinks the same thing about her: why can’t Mom be more like Brynn, who always has time? Time for her own kids, and time for Ashley.

  Brynn remembers little details, too—things like Ashley’s fondness for strawberries, and her newest best friend’s name: Meg.

  Mom forgets sometimes and thinks her name is Michelle.

  Daddy keeps her friends straight, though, and he always makes sure he has strawberries in the fridge for her weekends with him. Sometimes Ashley wishes she could go live with him full time—which she once overheard her mom telling him would only happen “over my dead body,” in a tone that gave Ashley chills.