Chapter 1

Prologue:

My friends never liked coming over, all because of one rule my husband kept.

Nothing in the house could be moved from where it sat.

The teacups had to stay on the coffee table. The throw pillows had to sit at both ends of the couch.

Even the couch itself had to face a certain angle, the one that looked straight out at the mimosa tree past the window.

All because these were his late wife's habits.

I fought him over it more times than I could count. He'd soothe me every time, and then everything went right back to how it was.

There was nothing I could do, so I told myself to stop caring.

Until he rejected my city planning proposal, and I marched straight into his office.

"Professor Delgado, you're throwing out a proposal I stayed up all night on, over one tree standing in the middle of the road?"

"Did you forget I had a car accident because of that tree, and lost a baby over it?"

"It's just moving it somewhere else. Why is that impossible?"

Not a flicker of feeling on his face.

"Doreen planted that mimosa. She loved sitting on the couch watching the blossoms fall."

"Worst case, take a detour to work from now on. It's only an extra hour. I can drive you."

Looking at his face, I went cold all over.

If that tree had put down roots in his heart, then I'd be the one to leave.

【Chapter One】

That mimosa tree grew right in the middle of the road.

I wasn't a good driver. The very first time I got behind the wheel, I hit it.

I suggested we move then. Earl Delgado refused, said it was too much trouble.

A month later, swerving to dodge a delivery trike coming the wrong way, I slammed into it again.

I was barely over a month along. I lost the baby.

I cried and begged to move, but Earl held me with this pleading look on his face.

"Rita, I've lived here so long. I get attached to places."

"I know it's a lot to ask you to take the detour. Or I can drive you."

For three years after that, my daily commute cost me an extra hour each way.

Until one day I was late for work, and I couldn't take it anymore. I called in a crew to cut the tree down.

Earl threw himself in front of it like a man out of his mind.

"Doreen planted this. Nobody touches it!"

That was when it hit me. It wasn't just the couch and the trinkets in the house that couldn't be moved. Even this tree was a shadow of the dead wife he couldn't stop thinking about.

Three years. I swallowed it, and swallowed it again.

This time, with the city planning project, he'd handed it to me.

I thought it was a chance to say goodbye to the past.

But Earl only wanted to live in the past.

I squared my proposal and stacked the pages.

"This tree is blocking the middle of the road. It's a serious hazard to pedestrians. My plan is legal, it's up to code, and I refuse to change it."

Earl pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated. "Rita, why are you so determined to fight a tree?"

I pointed at my stomach and gave a bitter laugh. "Shouldn't that be my question for you? Just how long do you plan to guard this tree?"

"I lost my child. My uterus is damaged. I may never conceive again. Haven't I paid enough?"

He faltered, but his face stayed cold.

"Rita, don't drag your personal feelings into work. It makes you look very unprofessional."

"If you can't do this proposal, then I'll hand it to someone who can."

He was the lead on the city redevelopment. He held veto power.

Tears rolled down my face, but he never looked. He kept his eyes on the computer.

On the screen was his 【Proposal Rationale for Preserving Special Structures and Vegetation】, thousands of words packed tight across the page.

And I understood, all at once, that more than three years of us caring for each other, side by side, still counted for less than a wife five years in the grave.

I didn't argue anymore. I slammed the door on my way out of his office.

On the drive home, only then did Earl text.

【Rita, give me a little more time. I'll pick out a new place, and we'll move.】

【But the old house can't be touched. That's my line.】

I didn't want to say a single word. I just shut off the phone.

Back in front of the building, I saw the mimosa tree again.

The railing around it had been carefully reinforced, the trunk painted white against insects.

Where I'd once split the bark, tiny stainless steel pins held the seam together, so it could knit itself whole again.

The weak light of the streetlamp fell over it, cold, like a silent sneer.

I laughed at myself.

Back home, Earl texted: 【Something came up tonight, I'll be back late. Be good and eat your dinner.】

I glanced at the calendar. The seventh of July. His late wife's birthday.

Every year on this day, he took a cake to her grave and lingered a few hours, then went to catch up with her parents.

He didn't skip it even the time I was still in the hospital after the miscarriage. I'd long gotten used to it.

Staring at the nursery, sealed off for three years now, I suddenly wanted to go in and look.

After the miscarriage, Earl had locked the door and hidden the key, afraid it would upset me.

I pushed it open, and froze.

The whole room was portraits of the same woman, in white dresses of every style, each one signed in the bottom right corner with two words: Doreen Sullivan.

That was Earl's handwriting.

The moment I saw the portraits clearly, every drop of blood in me seemed to freeze.

She and I were half alike.

No wonder, at that first blind date years ago, a man as aloof as Earl had chosen me at a single glance.

No wonder his friends always looked at me with that strange pity.

No wonder he'd given me a whole closet of white dresses.

So I was nothing but a stand-in, kept in the dark from the very start.

I wiped the tears from my face and took the scissors to every last dress.

Earl, since your dead wife has taken root and grown inside your heart.

She won't leave, so I will.