“And
now?”
I smiled.
“Now I think a life is bigger than the worst thing that happens inside it.”
Rebecca leaned her head against my shoulder.
Behind us, music started.
Daniel called from the lawn.
“Mom! Aunt Rebecca! Come dance!”
Rebecca shouted back, “We’re old!”
Lily screamed, “NO YOU’RE NOT!”
We looked at each other.
Then stood.
At the edge of the lawn was a framed photograph of my father.
Someone had placed a small glass of bourbon beside it.
His favorite.
I stopped in front of the picture.
For a moment, I could almost hear him.
That man will disappoint you one day, Carol.
He had been right.
But he had never told me the rest.
That disappointment doesn’t have to be the end.
That sometimes the betrayal you think will bury you is the thing that digs up everything hidden beneath your life.
Three years earlier, I followed my
