Chapter 1

Six years married, and my husband never once let me touch so much as a hairdryer.

He liked to hold me close and murmur against my ear:

"Reese, let's have a girl."

"Our little girl. She'll grow up as pretty and sweet as you."

He'd heard the old wives' tale that sour cravings mean a boy and spicy cravings mean a girl.

So for two whole years he wouldn't let me near anything sour. Only spicy.

But in six years of marriage, there was one exception.

Every New Year, he couldn't spend it with me. He went back to his hometown alone, to keep his lonely mother company.

I wanted to go with him. Clay always talked me out of it, said the long trip would wear me down.

This year he'd barely left when I found out I was pregnant. I decided to cross the thousand miles home and surprise him.

Instead I walked in on a family dinner.

He had his son on his lap, gently picking out food for his ex-wife.

"You've always been sorry you never had a daughter, haven't you?"

"These two years, I've had Theresa Pruitt eating hot sauce every single day. Not one sour candy."

"When she has the girl, I'll tell her the baby died."

"Then I'll bring her here for you to raise. So you'll finally have both, a boy and a girl."

My mother-in-law held her former daughter-in-law's hand and sighed with a smile.

"See that. You can't have children, and Clay still found a way to get you a daughter."

"Divorced or not, he still loves you."

Watching the whole happy little family, something in me turned to ice, and right there I booked the abortion.

Clay Henson.

He wasn't going to get his complete little set after all.

1

"Ma'am, are you going in?"

The driver had watched me stand there in silence, and finally asked, careful about it.

"No."

I turned and got back in the car. "Take me back the way we came."

The driver hesitated.

"You're sure? Back the way we came?"

"That's over a thousand miles..."

Disbelief all over his voice.

Yes. Over a thousand miles.

It had still been morning when I learned I was pregnant.

All I'd wanted was to tell Clay in person, first thing, this good news that I was pregnant.

So I hadn't spared myself the trouble. I'd had the driver take me all the way home.

And this was what I found.

"I'm sure."

I closed my eyes. "The holiday counts as overtime. Triple the bonus."

The driver's foot hit the gas at once. "You got it!"

The car had barely turned around when a message came in.

From Clay.

"Be good and stay home, okay? I'm at my mom's now. She made a ton of hometown specialties, I'll bring them all back for you."

"Look, we're already sitting down to our holiday dinner."

A photo came right after.

In the frame, only Clay and his mother, beaming.

I clenched my fist. Six years married, every year the same.

The same routine. The same report.

The same photo of just him and his mother.

If I hadn't come all this way and seen his ex-wife and their son Oscar with my own eyes, I really might have simply believed it.

I typed back.

"That's so much food. Can two people finish all of it?"

Clay replied instantly. "A few neighbors and some other relatives are here too. Everyone gathers, it's lively."

I pressed him. "Who else?"

A few seconds of silence on his end.

"You wouldn't know them anyway, just neighbors from around. Oh, Reese."

"Don't you love hot sauce?"

"My mom heard you love it, so she made a big batch just for you. Told me to bring it back."

"See? Even when you don't come home, my mom's thinking of you."

I stared at those messages and felt sick.

When I still didn't answer.

Clay's messages filled with worry.

"Reese, are you asleep? Why aren't you answering?"

"I haven't seen you all day. I miss you. Send me a photo, okay?"

I turned my face away.

Out in the thick dark, the scenery kept sliding backward past the window.

Did he really miss me, or was it a guilty conscience.

"I'm going to sleep."

"Okay. Get some rest, then. Love you."

The car kept jolting, and a faint ache started low in my belly.

I laid a hand over it and drifted off, half-asleep.

By the time I reached the house in Bayport, the sky had gone light.

I walked into the home I'd lived in for six years.

The first thing I did was throw out every jar of hot sauce packed into the fridge.