Chapter 1
Ten minutes before my mother's funeral, my sixteen-year-old daughter shoved a phone into my hand and said, "Mom, Dad isn't stuck in traffic."
On the screen, my husband was cutting another child's birthday cake.
A red LIVE badge blinked above a room full of green balloons. Kellan stood behind a dark-haired boy at Redfern Lanes, forty-seven miles from the church, guiding the plastic knife through a dinosaur cake.
He was wearing the charcoal suit I had picked up from the cleaner for him. The suit he was supposed to wear while carrying my mother's casket.
The boy leaned back against him and grinned.
"You really came."
Kellan squeezed his shoulder. "I said I would, buddy."
"Thanks, Dad."
Something hot rushed up my throat. I swallowed it because my father was twenty feet away greeting people who had come to bury his wife.
At 10:36, Kellan had texted me that an accident had stopped traffic on Route 202.
Five minutes later, the woman filming this party had gone live.
I looked at her username again. Ainsley Keene. I had never heard it before.
"How did you find this?" I asked.
Hadley pulled the cuffs of her black cardigan over both hands. Her eyeliner had smudged beneath one eye, but she had stopped crying sometime during the drive to the church.
"It showed up."
"Why would her video show up on your phone?"
"Mom, not here. Please."
The funeral director stepped into the alcove. Vernon had been speaking in the gentle, low voice people use around the newly bereaved, but now his eyes moved to the clock.
"Tamsin, we're ready. Do you want us to wait another ten minutes for Kellan?"
Through the narrow glass panel, I could see the white spray of lilies on Mom's casket. Kellan had helped Dad choose them. He had promised to walk beside my brother when we carried her out.
On the phone, somebody cheered as the boy smeared icing across Kellan's cheek.
I handed the phone back to Hadley.
"No. Ask Quentin to take his place."
Vernon's gaze stayed on my face. "Are you sure?"
I was not sure of anything except that my mother should not have to wait in a closed casket while my husband finished cake.
"Open the doors."
My father was holding a hymnal when Hadley and I entered. His hands shook so badly the pages fluttered.
He glanced behind us.
"Kellan parking the car?"
I sat beside him and took the book before it slipped from his fingers.
"He isn't coming, Dad."
His mouth opened. The organ began before he could ask why.
Mom had trusted Kellan. Four nights earlier, when she could no longer lift her head from the hospice pillow, he had bent close and promised her I would not have to handle the funeral alone.
She had squeezed his fingers with the little strength she had left.
Now I stood at the lectern alone with her Bible open beneath my hands.
I told everyone about the February she drove six hours through sleet to see eight-year-old Hadley perform for four minutes in a school play. I told them Mom complained about the parking fee but never the drive.
People laughed in the right place.
My voice broke in the wrong one.
I gripped the edge of the lectern until the room settled. From the front pew, Hadley whispered, "Mom," and started to rise.
I shook my head. If she touched me, I would fold in half. I finished the psalm with half the words blurred by tears.
At the graveside, Quentin took Kellan's corner of the casket. Rain darkened the shoulders of his coat as he passed me.
"Where the hell is he?" he murmured.
"Not now."
"Tamsin—"
"If you make me say it out loud, I won't get through this."
Quentin's jaw worked once. Then he moved into place without another question.
I watched the casket lower until the first rope disappeared below the wet grass. Dad leaned so heavily against me that my heel sank into the mud.
Kellan's next text arrived while the minister was still praying.
Traffic's moving. Tell your dad I'm sorry. I'll meet you at the cemetery.
I almost laughed. The sound rose inside me sharp and ugly, and I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
He was still lying while my mother went into the ground.
Hadley did not speak until we were inside the car with the doors shut. Rain drummed against the roof. I put the key in the ignition, then pulled it back out because my hand would not stop shaking.
"How long have you known that boy?"
Hadley stared at the wet knees of her tights.
"His name is Tobin."
"How long?"
"Since July."
The answer hit harder than the video. July meant family dinners. Hospital nights. Kellan driving Hadley to soccer and kissing me in the kitchen while she carried this between us.
"He made you lie to me?"
"He said it wasn't lying if you weren't ready to hear it."
"That isn't an answer."
"I know!" She slapped both palms against her thighs. "I know, okay? I knew it was messed up. But Grandma was dying and you barely slept and he kept saying one more thing would break you."
Her face crumpled. For the first time that day, she looked sixteen instead of carved from the same stone as the headstones outside.
"Mommy, please don't make me tell you everything here. Grandma's still back there. I can't—I can't do both things right now."
I reached for her. She came across the console so fast her forehead struck my shoulder.
She sobbed into my black dress, apologizing in broken pieces I could barely understand.
I held her while fury moved through me, hot and alive.
Kellan had not only abandoned me at my mother's funeral. He had put his secret inside our child and told her it was love.
When Hadley could finally breathe, she whispered, "Tobin already calls him Dad."