Also by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Stay
Have You Seen Luis Velez?
Just After Midnight
Heaven Adjacent
The Wake Up
Allie and Bea
Say Goodbye for Now
Leaving Blythe River
Ask Him Why
Worthy
The Language of Hoofbeats
Pay It Forward: Young Readers Edition
Take Me with You
Paw It Forward
365 Days of Gratitude: Photos from a Beautiful World
Where We Belong
Subway Dancer and Other Stories
Walk Me Home
Always Chloe and Other Stories
The Long, Steep Path: Everyday Inspiration from the Author of Pay It Forward
How to Be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide
When You Were Older
Don’t Let Me Go
Jumpstart the World
Second Hand Heart
When I Found You
Diary of a Witness
The Day I Killed James
Chasing Windmills
The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance
Love in the Present Tense
Becoming Chloe
Walter’s Purple Heart
Electric God/The Hardest Part of Love
Pay It Forward
Earthquake Weather and Other Stories
Funerals for Horses
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2020 by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Trustee, or Successor Trustee, of the Catherine Ryan Hyde Revocable trust created under that certain declaration dated September 27, 1999.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542010054 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1542010055 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781542017831 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1542017831 (hardcover)
Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
Brooke: Shattered
It started that day with just the normal levels of my mother driving me crazy. Which, don’t get me wrong, is plenty bad enough. And some leftover feelings from the odd conversation I’d had with the young woman at my daughter’s new day care might have factored in.
I’d picked Etta up at day care after my work, at about five thirty, and it was the first time I’d seen the place. It was only my baby’s third day there.
My mother had been taking her in and picking her up, at least for the first two and a half days. But then she’d started complaining that it was too much for her “old bones.”
I guess it sounds strange that I hadn’t checked the place out first with my own eyes. But I was dealing with a stress fracture to my psyche, thanks to my mother, that sprang up midweek. And three entirely unrelated people had recommended this as the best place in the city. And my phone and internet experience with them was stellar. Also, my mother would have been the first to point it out if the place wasn’t up to snuff. It’s not like me to fall back on her judgment. But if there’s one thing I can trust her to do, it’s judge.
The yard of the place was on the side of a hill, shaded by trees. Terraced, so the kids had nice flat areas to play, with steps in between. On different levels I saw giant sandbox complexes, swing sets, riding toys. A building pad where two boys were constructing a small city of giant blocks.
It was late in the season, so nearly dark outside, a heavy dusk, but the yard was well lit.
My eyes flew directly to my daughter. She was sitting on one of the riding toys, a bright red plastic horse with a black “flowing” plastic mane. It wasn’t a rocking horse, exactly. It was attached by springs to a solid metal frame. It had handhold pegs below each ear, and nice wide platforms for little feet where the stirrups would be. She could bounce up and down on it, or rock it back and forth just a few inches, imitating the gait of a galloping horse.
Etta was doing the latter.
I had dressed her that morning in red tights—almost exactly the color of her horse—and a striped tunic. A light wind was blowing the curly brown hair off her face. And she was lost in utter concentration. She hadn’t even noticed me yet. I wondered how real the ride felt in her head. If her horse was galloping along a sandy beach or down a grassy hillside.
She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. But I did anyway. In fact, I couldn’t stop.
The young staff member came up behind me. I didn’t notice her until she spoke, so it startled me a little.
“I like the way you look at her,” she said.
I smiled a little. At least, I think I smiled. I meant to. I said, “Don’t all mothers look at their kids that way?”
“Ha!” she said. “I wish.”
Then we watched the girl in perfect silence for a time.
“Etta is very attached to the bouncy horse,” she said. “Almost to the point where it’s become a problem for her. It’s very hard for her to let the other kids take their turn. The good news is, she will. She’s not the least bit bullying or unfair about it. But it hurts her. You can tell. She mopes. She seems brokenhearted.”
“Oh good heavens,” I said, “I’ll end up having to buy her a pony. Number three hundred and thirty-four on the list of things I want for her but can’t afford.”
She laughed. But it hadn’t really been a joke. It had been a genuine worry about the future.
“She did very well with her big-girl pull-up pants and the potty today. No accidents.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“We were glad to see you come in instead of your mother.” That just sat in the air for a moment. Awkwardly, like a thing looking for a place to hide. I could
