Chapter 3

I didn't expect Owen to follow me back. He rubbed his hands together awkwardly.

"I drove behind you the whole way. Paige is doing a lot better, so I sent her home."

I didn't answer. I was busy clearing out the nursery.

He watched me work, baffled.

"Why are you tearing it down already? We'll have another baby, and then we'll just have to set it all up again."

Even now he thought I was sulking.

Of course he did. He'd never been sick every morning for three months.

He'd never felt the baby move.

He had no idea how every small kick had run straight through my heart.

It rose up in me all at once, and I made myself not cry.

I slept hard that night, and I woke up to find Paige in the house.

She dropped straight to her knees in front of me.

"Grace, please help me. You're the only one who can."

I had no idea what she was talking about.

Owen tried to pull her up, but she wouldn't leave the floor.

"Grace, my grandmother is all alone out in that country cemetery. I want to bring her closer to the city. Please give her a home."

I reached for the door, speechless.

That was a conversation to have with a cemetery, not with me.

Owen blocked it.

"Paige has never asked you for anything. At least hear her out."

She looked utterly wounded.

"Your baby was so small. He doesn't need a whole plot to himself. Couldn't Grandma's urn go along one side? The space is just sitting there empty."

She wanted my son to share a grave with a stranger.

I said no without a second's thought.

Her eyes went red.

"There's nowhere in the city with grounds that peaceful. Grace, please — think about how much I loved her."

My answer was final.

"Never."

Owen stepped into my path.

"Grace, I get a say in this too. Sharing a plot isn't some unheard-of thing. Stop being so old-fashioned about it."

The words went through me like a blade.

I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and slapped him.

"Say that one more time. Over my dead body. I mean it."

Paige immediately put herself in front of him.

"Grace, take it out on me, not him. Don't do this. I'll take Grandma back to the country if that's what it comes to."

I thought that was the end of the whole ridiculous business.

That evening Owen seized my shoulders, shaking with it.

"Paige already backed off. What more do you want? Why would you send her a letter like that? That boy was unlucky to get a mother like you. No wonder he didn't make it."

I stared at him while the tears came down on their own.

"What?"

He heard himself and softened a little.

"Look, I know you're angry. But you didn't have to threaten her. She'd already given it up, and now the poor girl can't sleep."

I said I was calling the police.

"I don't confess to things I didn't do, Owen. We're getting divorced."

He'd swallowed a setup that clumsy.

I thought of our vows, and the way he'd smiled when he made me that promise.

"If you say it happened, I'll believe you. If you say it didn't, I won't believe anyone else."

He still handed that out. He'd just given it to someone else.

I used to be his navigation.

Now he'd learned every road for another woman, and there was nothing left for me to be.