There had been a time when starting over thrilled Kitty. A new city had once meant possibility. A bus ticket meant escape. An unfamiliar skyline meant that somewhere beyond the horizon there might be a better version of her life waiting to begin. Arizona felt different. Perhaps it was because she'd traded one of America's largest cities for the quiet outskirts of Scottsdale. Perhaps age had finally dulled her appetite for reinvention. Or perhaps Kitty simply had nothing left

Kitty's forty-fifth birthday began with an email. She read it once. Then again. An invitation to interview for a corporate position—the exact sort of job Gavin had once looked down on her for failing to pursue. Twenty years earlier, Kitty might have interpreted the invitation as salvation. The right title. The right salary. The right employer. One more accomplishment that might finally make Gavin respect her. Now she looked at the message and saw only inconvenience. Longer ho

Seattle had been exactly the escape Kitty needed. For a few days with Stafford, she almost forgot Florida. She forgot Gavin. She forgot the nanny. She forgot the university campus that had made her feel unwelcome in a place she'd once regarded as salvation. Seattle became its own little world, separated from everything awaiting them back home. Stafford never asked her to explain herself too thoroughly. Kitty never asked him what he planned to tell Marnie. They ate in restaura

Kitty discovered that the enrollment process moved considerably faster when tuition could be paid in cash. Gavin was remarkably eager to finance her graduate education. Not because Kitty wanted it, of course. Gavin had always been embarrassed by the bachelor's degree attached to the mother of "his son." Whenever some application or school form required him to list Kitty's education, he seemed personally offended by having to check the bachelor's box. A master's degree would l

Weeks became months, and before Kitty quite understood where the time had gone, Guy was turning two. Gavin had returned to work long ago. Opal, unfortunately, had not found anywhere else to be. The woman remained a pest, appearing at the condominium with such regularity that Kitty sometimes wondered why Gavin didn't simply give her a key. Then again, Opal had her uses. She was always willing to babysit Guy, and that afforded Kitty opportunities to continue seeing Stafford. Ki

Stafford made Kitty an offer. It was not a good one. Years earlier, he had bought back Sandy's old house. He and Marnie had renovated the property, modernizing the house and converting the detached garage into a mother-in-law suite that could be rented separately. Stafford suggested Kitty live there. Under Sandy's roof again. This time as Stafford's mistress. Kitty was appalled. After all these years, after everything that had happened between them, Stafford had somehow found

On the eve of her twenty-seventh birthday, Kitty found herself in bed beside Gavin Alton, wondering how two people could spend nearly every night together and still live almost entirely separate lives. They had been a couple for two years, yet Gavin insisted on maintaining his own apartment. He stayed with Kitty often enough that his clothes accumulated in her closet and his toiletries occupied her bathroom, but he resisted anything that resembled actually joining their lives

Kitty's community college graduation had been a minor ceremony, but everyone she cared about had been there to cheer for her. Her university graduation was different. Kitty wanted to walk across the stage. She had worked for years for that moment, surviving summer courses, impossible schedules, student loans, and more lonely nights than she cared to count. Yet when the time came, she couldn't bring herself to participate. She imagined herself crossing the stage in her cap and

The Greyhound trip carried Kitty farther than she had ever traveled before. By the time she stepped off the bus into the heavy air of a Chicago summer night, she was exhausted, damp with sweat, and awestruck by the city lights. Her first persistent thought about her new home was that it was beautiful. Chicago seemed cleaner than the places she had known in Ohio, grander and somehow more alive. Within weeks, she decided that the trains were infinitely better than buses. The bu

Kitty was on schedule to finish community college the following year. As the months passed, she saw Stafford occasionally, though she became increasingly skilled at escaping him. A sudden appointment. A study group. A professor she absolutely had to speak with. Kitty discovered that adulthood came with an unexpected advantage: people were much easier to avoid when you had somewhere else you could plausibly claim to be. During her final semester, her course load lightened enou

That summer consisted mostly of Kitty learning the odds and ends of campus life. She was still an undeclared major, but no one seemed particularly concerned about that. Freshmen were allowed some uncertainty. This itself was a revelation to Kitty, who had spent most of her life feeling as though every decision she made was permanent and every mistake carried consequences she could never undo. College allowed mistakes. College even seemed to expect them. By the time fall arriv

The bus arrived on campus earlier than expected. Students slowly filed out into the sunshine of the late-spring day, stretching their legs after the long ride and scattering toward the buildings beyond the stop. Kitty remained still for a moment. The campus looked different. The last time she had been there, it had been evening. She had been cold, starving, frightened, and uncertain whether she had any business being there at all. Now the trees were green. The sidewalks were

The first time Stafford asked about Sandy's will, it was raining. April rain ticked steadily against the kitchen windows while Kitty carried dinner to the table. She had made roast chicken with potatoes and carrots, the kind of meal Sandy liked because the house smelled warm for hours afterward. "This is wonderful, Kitty," Sandy said after her first bite. "You've become such a good cook." Kitty smiled. "Thank you." Across the table, Stafford snorted. "She's not in the will, r

Every weekend after Sandy’s fall, Stafford dropped in to check on his grandmother. At least, that was what he called it. As far as Kitty could tell, most of his visits consisted of trying to convince Sandy to fire her. He made no effort to hide it. He would sit in the living room with his grandmother and discuss Kitty as though she were not standing ten feet away, sometimes for an afternoon, sometimes well into the night. No amount of time with Stafford was short enough as fa

That morning, Sandy came downstairs in her nightdress, one hand trailing lightly along the banister. The staircase walls were crowded with framed photographs from the different lives she had lived. Family portraits. Vacations. Christmases. Her daughter at various ages. People who had once seemed permanent and had somehow become memories instead. One photograph remained her favorite. In it, Sandy stood outside the courthouse in a tweed suit beside her then-teenage daughter and

As winter pushed along, Sandy found herself beginning to enjoy Kitty's company. She would not have admitted to becoming attached to the girl—not yet—but she had grown accustomed to the sounds of another person moving through the house. Cupboards opening in the morning. Footsteps in the hallway. The washing machine turning over in the afternoon. Even Kitty's peculiar habit of trying to move silently had become a kind of presence. Still, Sandy found something about her strange.

Over the weekend, Kitty made several bus trips back to her now-abandoned apartment, partly to collect what little she owned and partly to escape the awkward silences between her and Sandy. Friday had been a whirlwind of changes, and Kitty had not completely absorbed any of them. Sandy explained that, in exchange for staying at the house, Kitty would need to help with the household chores. That included working in the garden when the weather allowed, preparing light meals, doi

Kitty seeks a place to lay low while things blow over, but for how long?

With either her brisk stride or her habitual slouch, Kitty seemed to announce to the world that she felt smaller than everyone around her. To an outside observer, she was a frail teenager with little to show for her short life except an abundance of insecurities and very little hope for the future. Kitty probably would have described herself much the same way, had anyone ever bothered to ask. Few people did. Most simply dismissed her as “the sad girl.” Still, Kitty understood