Chapter 1

"Still getting talked into impossible plans by Megan. Still answering when she calls."

Ethan read the sentence from our high-school graduation yearbook with a small smile.

It was not a love letter. That was what made it worse.

It was the kind of promise people called harmless because it had been written at seventeen.

But four days before our wedding, I could suddenly see how much of Ethan's future had always been built around the same five people.

And how often I had been asked to understand from the outside.

Megan's parents were selling their house and moving to Florida, so all six of us had come back to help clear out the garage.

It was Wednesday evening. Early-autumn wind came through the open door and lifted dust from the cardboard boxes in soft little swirls.

Ethan and I had been together for eleven years. We had lived together for eight.

This Sunday, we were finally getting married at Old Oak Manor.

My mother's illness, changes at my job, and the worst years of Ethan's company had all pushed the day back. Even after the invitations went out, I still woke in the middle of the night to check whether the florist had answered my email.

RSVPs, menu allergies, hotel rooms for my mother's side of the family--they all sat in my phone's notes app, waiting to be confirmed one by one.

He had found the yearbook in a box labeled Class of '06. It was dark blue, hardbound, and still smelled faintly of old paper.

On the last page, someone had written a question in thick black marker:

Where do you see us when we're forty?

Ben grabbed the book first and read his answer aloud.

"Living in a Manhattan penthouse, driving a car that doesn't need gas, and still buying everyone drinks every Friday."

"On a history teacher's salary?" Lily asked. "You'll be lucky if you can afford a model car."

"Dreams aren't taxable," Ben said.

Everyone laughed.

Megan pointed to her own page.

"I wrote that I would never live more than three hours from the coast. Now I have to pick a weekend without client calls just to make it to the lake."

Ethan stood behind her and looked down at the page.

Megan looked up, smiling a little self-consciously.

"Whose calls didn't you answer when you were seventeen?"

"Other people's calls didn't come with an implementation plan," Ethan said.

Ben whistled. Megan jabbed him with her elbow.

It was the kind of ease people have when they have known each other since childhood--light as a joke they have already told a hundred times.

The book moved on.

Lily had written: I hope my kids will still get to eat birthday cakes made by Aunt Megan.

Ben had written: If you get lost, follow Megan.

Ryan adjusted his glasses and read his answer.

"At the same table, with the same five people."

He paused on the last word. His eyes flicked toward me.

"Things you write at seventeen sound pretty stupid now."

"Back then, all you cared about was mock trial and us," Ben said, clapping him on the shoulder.

The subject changed.

Then the book came to me.

My handwriting was neat, almost painfully careful.

I hope all six of us are still at the same table. No one should have to wonder if there's room.

Lily smiled softly.

"You've sounded like everyone's mom since then."

Ethan came over, kissed my temple, and took the stack of old newspapers from my arms.

"You still make room for everyone."

I smiled once, my fingertip resting on all six.

When I closed the book, a Polaroid slipped from the back cover and landed on the concrete floor.

I bent down and picked it up.

It had been taken at the lake house. Five people were squeezed onto an old dark-green couch: Megan laughing in the middle, Ethan's arm stretched along the back of the couch, Lily leaning against the other side, Ben and Ryan each holding a beer.

On the back, someone had written:

Same five. Still us.

The date was from the week my mother had gone into the hospital for her second heart surgery.

That weekend, I had sat outside the ICU for two days and two nights.

On Saturday evening, I called Ethan. He told me he was home finishing drawings. Everyone was tired, he said. No one had gone anywhere.

There was another line on the back of the photo, penciled in and mostly erased. I tilted it toward the light from the garage door.

Claire's with her mom. Ethan said not to make her feel she had to answer.

There was no signature.

Maybe Megan had written it. Maybe Lily. The handwriting had been rubbed away too much to tell.

"Hungry?" Ben called from the doorway. "Meatloaf at the old diner. My treat."

Ten minutes later, we pushed open the door of the American diner in the center of town.

The host looked up and recognized us.

"The usual? Table for five?"

Lily, walking in front, answered without thinking.

"Yes."

Then she saw me. Her face changed.

"No. Six. Sorry--six."

The host led us to our usual table by the window. Five high-backed wooden chairs were already set around it.

Ethan took the inside seat. Megan set down her bag across from him. Ben, Ryan, and Lily sat in the remaining chairs.

I stood in the aisle.

"It's okay," I said to the host when he turned back. "I'll get one from the next table."

The chair legs scraped briefly across the floor.

No one stood up.

The conversation had already moved from the old photo in the garage to Ben's classes for the following week.

I set the chair down and sat. One hand stayed over the Polaroid in my coat pocket.