As long as you’re alive, you’re alive. When you’re dead, you’re gone—”

“Unless you’re not really alive. Unless you’re just going through the motions.” Jack’s mouth flattened, and a small muscle pulled and popped in his jaw. “Like we are.”

You mean, like you are, Meg silently corrected, closing her eyes, shoulders rising up toward her ears.

“This isn’t working with us, Meg.”

She didn’t want to hear this, not now, not today. She was too sad. Things had been too hard. “We’re tired, Jack, worn out—”

“I leave tomorrow for D.C., and I think we need to really think about the future and what we want. We’re not getting any younger. We deserve to be happy. You deserve to be happy—”

“I’m not unhappy, Jack!” she cried, sitting up, knocking away a tear before it could fall. “I’m just tired. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and a very long day, and I will not lose you now, not after everything we’ve been through. We’re good together. We have the kids. We have a history. We have a future.”

“But maybe it’s not the one I want,” he answered quietly, his voice cutting through the dark room, and her heart.

Meg’s lips parted but no sound came out. She balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her thighs. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Things would work out. They always worked out. She just had to be strong. “Have faith, Jack! We will get through this.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Jack.”

“I’m not trying to be mean, Meg. I’m just being honest.”

Palm Sunday.

A beautiful Palm Sunday, too. Cloudless blue sky. No breeze. Seventy-two degrees. How could it be better than that?

Thirty-four-year-old Lauren Summers laughed softly, a low, rough laugh. Pure irony.

At least she’d made it here. That was something.