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Taylor’s gaze was flat and too adult. “I’m a kid. It doesn’t matter what I want.”

Recognition jolted through Matt.
I don’t get what I want
, he’d said to Allison.

That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

“It matters,” he said. “To me, to Grandma Tess and Grandpa Tom, maybe even to a judge. But you have to tell us what it is.”

“I want to stay,” she whispered.

Matt nodded once, short and decisive. “Then you’ll stay.”

Her eyes met his, glistening with hope and a desperate longing to believe. “They won’t listen to me.”

He swallowed the lump in his own throat. “We’ll make them listen. We’ll get our own lawyer. We’ll do whatever it takes.”

Taylor’s lower lip quivered. The hope welled and spilled over as tears. Turning in her chair, she buried her face against Matt’s arm and let out one quick sob.

The breath Matt had been holding whistled out. He put his arm carefully, gently around her and held her as she cried.

And she did not turn away.

M
ATT FORCED HIS
constricted throat muscles to swallow. “You look good,” he told his mother.

Tess smiled at him affectionately from her bed in the intensive care step-down unit. “Liar.”

She looked gray and thin and frail, her color leached by the fluorescent lights and the god-awful blue and white hospital gown. A clear, narrow tube still provided her with oxygen.

Tom reached through the metal rails of the bed to hold his wife’s hand, the one that wasn’t hooked up to monitors. “Last time he saw you, you were breathing through a machine and covered in plaster. You look great, babe.”

Matt came to her bedside, leaning in awkwardly to kiss her cheek. She smelled different, an astringent, hospital smell.

But her eyes were the same, warm, searching. “How are you, Matt?”

Miserable.
There was a sick hollow inside him that no amount of work could fill, a restlessness the ocean could not calm, an emptiness that would not go away.

“I’m fine,” he said. “You’re the one we’re all worried about. How are you doing?”

Tess’s brow puckered. “I’m bored with me. Is it the kids? Are they all right?”

“Everybody’s fine.” He made himself smile, forced himself to focus on the stuff that mattered, the things he could do something about. “Josh drove your new car up here.”

Tess’s smile bloomed. “Josh came with you?”

“Josh and Taylor. They’re in the waiting room. The nurse okayed her to come on back, but I wanted to see you myself first.”

“I don’t want to scare her,” Tess said.

“She’ll be more worried if she doesn’t get to see you,” Matt said.

“Is she still having nightmares?”

“Mom, I told you, the kids are fine. Both of them.”

“Is Allison with them?”

Matt tensed.
Hell.
His mother liked Allison, liked the thought of him paired up and moving on with his life. He did not want to upset his mother.
Visits should be brief, quiet, and pleasant
, the guidelines for visitors said.

“No.” He cleared his throat, prepared to lie. “She couldn’t get away. Her parents paid her a surprise visit this weekend.”

“That must be nice,” Tess said, still watching his face. Whatever else had broken in the crash, her mother’s instincts had clearly survived without a scratch. “You be sure to thank her for the books. And the lovely card.”

Allison had sent his mom books?

Of course she did. She was thoughtful that way, generous in body and heart.

“I’ll tell her,” he said.

It’s over
, he’d said. That didn’t mean he’d never see her again. That she wouldn’t speak to him. Did it?

“Did you get a chance to meet them?” Tess asked.

“Who?”

“Her parents.”

They were checking out tomorrow. He could hardly wait.

“Babe,” Tom said. “The kids are waiting.”

“Oh.” Tess blinked, looking momentarily lost. Confused.

Old, Matt thought, his heart lurching.

“I’ll get them,” he said.

“No.” Tess’s voice strengthened. “I don’t want to be in bed when they see me.”

“Mom, it’s okay. They know you’re…”

“Recovering,” Tess said firmly. “Which will be a lot easier for them to accept if I’m sitting in a chair like a normal person.”

Tom scowled. “The doctor told you not to overdo it.”

“The doctor also said I am making wonderful progress, and that the more I move around the less chance I have of developing blood clots. So.” She pinned him with the
Don’t-mess-with-me-mister
look that had kept them all in line for as long as Matt could remember. “You better call a nurse and get me to a chair.”

Matt watched, helpless, as his father and the nurse maneuvered, braced, and supported Tess in stages from lying to sitting to standing.

She froze, rigid with pain and effort.

Tom held out his arms and smiled into her eyes. “You and me, babe,” his father said. “Like dancing.”

Matt’s eyes stung.

He remembered once—he must have been seven or eight—watching his parents get ready to leave for some function on the base, his dad, tall and formal in his dress blues, his mom, unfamiliar in a dress that glittered and clung. The look of pride on his father’s face, the secret shining in his mother’s eyes. The same look they wore now, as if they were the only two people in the room, in the world. Matt had felt, well, weird seeing them that way for the first
time, two grown-ups, two strangers, two characters in a story, as if he and his sister and brother were only spectators, minor participants in their parents’ fairy tale.

It still felt weird. Weird and good.

“Thatta girl,” his father said. “I’ve got you.”

And his mother stepped forward.

Matt’s muscles clenched in sympathy as she battled her way across the linoleum, one step, two.

“Easy,” said the nurse.

Three steps. Four.

By the time Tess lowered, panting, onto her chair, a trickle of sweat ran down the small of Matt’s back. She closed her eyes.

“Good job,” Tom said.

“Oh, please,” Tess said. But she was smiling.

“N
ICE CAR
,” T
OM
said as he and Matt stood in the parking lot. The kids were in the lobby, grabbing snacks from the vending machines for the long ride home. “You done good, son.”

Matt moved his shoulders, unaccustomed to his father’s praise. “No problem. I changed the oil and the fluids, checked the belts and tires. She’s good to go.”

“Polished her up some, too,” Tom said. “You must have been up all night.”

Another shrug. The truth was, Matt had slept less in the past three nights than when he’d been dividing his time between two beds. He’d jerk awake at two in the morning, craving the curve of her neck, the small of her back, the smell of her hair. Or lie, stiff and lonely, in the dark, waiting for his alarm to go off.

Better to stay up with the car, to do something physical, tangible, right.

“How’s Allison?” Tom asked.

Matt set his jaw. “She’s fine.”

They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the white and glass façade of the hospital.

“Appreciate you bringing the car,” Tom said.

“Maybe now you’ve got your own transportation, you’ll actually grab some sleep at the motel.”

Tom grunted. “I don’t like to leave her alone. You think I’d be used to it, all those years overseas. But I don’t sleep so well without your mother.”

Right there with you, Dad.

“How much longer is she in for?”

“Barring complications, the doctor says maybe a couple of weeks. They’ve got a rehab program here to teach her how to get on.”

“Weeks,” Matt repeated. They stretched ahead of him, echoing and empty. “That’s a long time to be away from home.”

Tom grunted. “I am home.”

Matt glanced at him sideways.

Tom’s eyes twinkled. “It’s okay, son. I’m not losing it. You know she grew up in Chicago. Your mother. All the Saltonis, all in one neighborhood, the same church, the same schools, the same friends. Then she marries me, and we’re moving all over, living on bases in enlisted housing, never a place to call her own.”

“I remember,” Matt said.

“I know you do. Your sister, Meg, she loved it, a new school, a fresh start every year. Luke, he doesn’t remember much about it. He was eight when we bought Pirates’ Rest. But you and your mother, you liked to put down roots. The moving was harder for you. I said to her once early on I was sorry I couldn’t give her a home like she had growing up.

“And your mother, she says to me…” Tom blinked. Cleared his throat. “Your mother says, ‘Wherever you are is home, Tom. Anything else is just a house to put it in.’”

Matt squinted at the hospital building because, Jesus, if he looked at his dad he’d start bawling like a baby. “Mom’s going to be okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Tom sniffed mightily. “Isn’t that what I’ve just been telling you? Your mother’s been looking after us all her life. Me. You kids. It’s time for me to take care of her now, that’s all. As long as I’ve got her, everything else will work itself out.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Matt said.

He remembered the way he’d felt with Allison, the way she made everything better at the end of the day.

As long as I’ve got her
…

Except he didn’t have her anymore. And that was his own damn fault.

T
AYLOR SAT ON
the curb outside the high school building after school on Monday, waiting for Josh.

She was totally old enough to walk home by herself. But when Uncle Matt decided he was right about something, he was stubborner than a donkey, as Mom would say.

Taylor swallowed the familiar lump in her throat when she thought of Mom. Things were better now that she knew she could stay on the island. Uncle Matt said so—
Whatever it takes
, he’d said—and she believed him. She didn’t want to go back to Grandma Jolene’s. But she missed her school and she missed her friends and even though Fezzik was the best dog ever, she still missed Snowball. It sucked being the new kid, especially at a school where everybody had known everybody else since forever. And this weekend had felt all mixed up, no Allison and no Aunt Meg and talking or not really talking to her dad—to Luke—on the computer and then crying all over Uncle Matt before they piled into the truck and drove to the hospital to see Grandma.

Taylor stared at her sneakers until the laces blurred, feeling
tears behind her eyes. That had been the worst, seeing Grandma Tess in the hospital.

Like Mom.

What if Grandma died like Mom?

Taylor swallowed again, hard, but it didn’t stop the tears from burning the back of her throat. It was like once she started leaking she couldn’t stop.

Some of the girls from Taylor’s class came by, Rachel Wilson and Madison Lodge, walking with Rachel’s big brother, Ethan. Josh’s friend.

Taylor tugged down the brim of her hat so they wouldn’t see her sniveling.

Madison was okay. Her mom had helped out at the inn this weekend. Mrs. Lodge’s cookies weren’t very good and the way she tied up her shirt to show her stomach when she thought Uncle Matt might be looking was kind of gross.
Call me Cynthie
, she said. As if Taylor would. But she wasn’t mean. Madison wasn’t mean, either.

Rachel was mean.

“Hey, Taylor,” Madison said as they walked along the curb.

Rachel sniffed. “Why are you talking to her? She’s a stupid dingbatter.”

Taylor raised her head. “Fuck off, Rachel.”

Ethan laughed.

Rachel’s eyes widened. “You can’t talk to me that way. Nice girls don’t talk that way.”

“Guess you talk like that all the time, then,” Taylor said. There was a certain wretched satisfaction in baiting Rachel, who was pretty and popular with long, dark hair that her mother French-braided every morning. “Since you’re not nice.”

“At least I’m a girl.” Rachel smiled, going in for the kill. “At least I don’t dress like a boy in a stupid baseball jersey and a stupid army hat.”

Red hazed Taylor’s vision. She jumped to her feet, fists bunching at her sides. “Take it back.”

Rachel tossed her head, the French braid switching from side to side. “Why should I? You do dress like a boy. Everybody says so.”

“Hey, Rache, take it easy,” said her brother.

“Does everybody say you’re a bitch, too?” Taylor asked.

“At least I’m not a boy,” Rachel said.

Taylor couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t breathe. Rage and misery balled together in her chest, squeezing her lungs.

“Come on, Rachel, leave the kid alone. Maybe she doesn’t dress like a girl because she lost her mom.”

Rachel sneered. “She probably died of shame.”

It was the last straw.

With a howl of grief and fury, Taylor flung herself at Rachel.

Only Rachel’s brother stepped in the way, and she tripped over his feet. She went down, pain exploding in her knees, ripping across her palms.

Rachel tittered as Taylor swayed on hands and knees on the ground.

“Shit,” Ethan muttered. “Chill, would you? Both of you.”

He tripped her.
Taylor lurched to her feet in a welter of blood and snot and tears and punched him as hard as she could in the stomach.

His breath whooshed out.
“Oof.”

Rachel screamed.

“Hey.” Warm, strong hands. Warm, calm voice.
Joshua
, grabbing her shoulders, pulling her back. “Knock it off.”

Taylor almost sobbed in relief.

Madison hopped from foot to foot. “Here comes Miz Nelson.”

The vice principal.

“Shit,” Ethan said again.

“I’m gonna tell,” Rachel said.

Joshua threw her a hard look. “What? That your brother got beat up by a little girl?”

Josh’s scorn withered Rachel as nothing else could have done. Josh was one of the lucky few, the golden ones who sauntered through the halls of Virginia Dare a head taller than their other, lesser, pimpled peers. Taylor clutched his arm, clinging to his protection, her head spinning, the pain in her knees almost blinding.