She knew Tommy well, could tell from his expression that he was angry, resenting Cass, maybe everyone, for making him into the bad guy. Because that’s what he was thinking, feeling, that they’d all turned him into the villain in the story, and he wasn’t the villain. He was just being honest. Practical. After six years of trying unsuccessfully to have a baby, Tommy was done. He didn’t need a baby. He wanted peace. He needed to stay sane.

As Cass cut the cake and Meg assisted by passing the plates around, Kit wondered what Cass had wished for. Was it a baby? Or was it for Tommy to want a baby again? Because their marriage was suffering. Both of them were suffering. Kit wasn’t even sure a baby would solve everything anymore.

She suddenly ached with wishes of her own…

For Mom’s cancer to go into remission.

For Cass to have her baby.

For Tommy to be happy with Cass again…

Later, after cake and presents, Meg’s three kids were excused to watch television in the living room, while Jack and Dad headed outside with Tommy to look at Tommy’s new car, which was really an old car, a 1960 Cadillac he bought on Craigslist for next to nothing and was determined to restore himself.

“Just us now,” Meg said, sitting back in her chair with a soft, appreciative sigh. “The girls.”

Kit was glad, too. She was tight with her sisters, and they were all close with Mom, so close that for the past ten years they had all taken an annual girls-only trip together, calling it the Brennan Girls’ Getaway, spending a long weekend or week at the family beach house in Capitola.

On their getaway they’d eat and drink, talk, read, sleep. It was a time to let their hair down, a time to celebrate family, and hopefully a time to feel safe, although the last couple of getaways had been tense because of friction between Brianna, Kit’s fraternal twin, and Meg. Cass had missed the last getaway, too, back in May, as she’d been in the middle of an IVF cycle and her doctor wouldn’t let her travel so close to the egg retrieval.

Mom shifted in her high-back chair and focused on Cass. “How are you?”

Mom wasn’t making polite conversation. She was genuinely concerned about Cass, and now that Tommy was gone, this was a chance for Cass to open up…if she could. No one was sure that she could, or would. It’d been almost three and a half months since she’d miscarried and this miscarriage had been the worst…not just for her, but the whole family. It was her fourth miscarriage, and it’d happened later than the others, this time at twenty-four weeks, just when Cass had let her guard down. Just when she’d started to get excited about the baby.

The entire family had grieved with Cass. All of them had been so happy about the baby, and then their hearts were broken. But this time Tommy didn’t want their meals or phone calls or visits. This time Tommy announced that he and Cass wanted to be alone, and he asked that the family give them space and privacy to deal with the loss their way, in their time.

Kit’s baby sister, Sarah, who lived with her husband and children in Tampa Bay, had been on the phone immediately with Kit and then Meg, hurt, even outraged that Tommy would push them away, but Mom and Dad backed Tommy, insisting that his sisters respect Tommy and Cass’s need for space. As Mom reminded them repeatedly, having children, or not having children, was a part of marriage and no one’s business but Tommy and Cass’s.

Of course the Brennan sisters couldn’t ignore Cass, not when they knew she was hurting so much. Without consulting one another, each of them quietly sent Cass private e-mails and text messages, letting her know she was loved. Tommy could refuse meals and visitors, but he couldn’t expect his sisters not to reach out to Cass. They loved Cass, and they told her so, repeatedly. Cass didn’t answer all, or even most, messages, but later in December, just before Christmas, she sent her sisters-in-law a group message thanking them for their amazing support and constant love. She hadn’t had sisters, only two younger brothers, and she told them that she felt incredibly lucky to be one of the Brennan girls.

“I’m good,” Cass said softly now, two spots of color in her cheeks.