He glowered at her.

She took a step closer. “It’s not out on the water or up in the sky, though I know they somehow help bring it together for you. The music’s here.” She pressed her finger to his chest, aiming for his heart. “But you can’t keep hiding from it and then blame it for deserting you.”

His face might have been made of stone except for the tic in one cheek. “Amazing how philosophical you can be with my life when you live yours in front of a camera and let a network humiliate you and your family on a daily basis.”

She wasn’t going to let him change the subject. “That may be, but we don’t have other options. None of us have a voice like yours. And not one of us can write lyrics that make people feel something all the way down inside their bones.”

His eyes crackled with anger. But she was crackling pretty good now herself. He leaned toward her and there was enough heat and electricity between them to set the whole damned island on fire.

They could hear the sound of footsteps in the brush nearby, and then Kyra’s voice. “Mom? Mom!”

“Excuse me.” She handed him the wand as her daughter approached.

“You forgot your phone,” Kyra said, taking in Will and Maddie and their soaked states. “It’s Dad.” She handed the phone to Maddie. “Our house has been sold. He needs you to come up for the closing.”

* * *

Maddie showered and dressed and laid her suitcase on her bed. She was throwing things into it when Deirdre popped her head in. “I heard the news. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Maddie looked down and realized her hands were shaking. One minute she’d been toe-to-toe with William, ready to combust; the next she’d been racing back to the houseboat and trying to process what Steve was saying about emptying the house and getting ready for the closing.

“Selling the house is a good thing, right?” Deirdre stepped inside the tiny space. “It’ll give you some seed money for whatever comes next. And provide a little more closure.”

“That sounds right, but it doesn’t exactly feel that way.” Maddie crammed a handful of underwear into a corner of the suitcase. “My children grew up in that house. I lived more than half of my life there.” She rooted around in one of her two drawers for her nightgown. “Now I have less than ten days to empty it and turn it over to someone else. Then my old life will really be over.” It was odd to not only think but say the words.

Deirdre smiled. “I’ve been watching you. Your new life is already under way. I watched you starting it even before your old one had finished crumbling.” She lifted one shoulder. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. You’ve been a rock to all of us. Not to mention a teacher and an inspiration. You helped me get my daughter back. I’ll never forget it.”

“Goodness.” How odd it was that a woman she’d had so little affinity for when they’d met had become so supportive. “I don’t think I’m exactly ‘all that,’ as my kids would say.”

“You’re all that and more.” She picked Maddie’s bathrobe off the floor where it had fallen and handed it to her. “You’ve even got something going on with a rock star. You don’t want to forget that while you’re packing up your ‘old’ life.”

“Well, when you figure out what I have ‘going on’ with William Hightower, I hope you’ll let me know.” She shoved two more T-shirts into the suitcase.

“It’s a little unclear. Especially to him. But there’s some kind of connection,” the other woman insisted.

“We had sex, Deirdre. Pretty outstanding sex, in my book. The likes of which I don’t expect to see again. But a connection?” Maddie shook her head. “William Hightower doesn’t really ‘do’ connections. At least not with former suburban housewives.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Deirdre picked up a lone athletic sock still lying on the bed and handed it to Maddie. “Sixty is an age when you start seeing things a lot more clearly . . . when you want to do something about your regrets. Only shallow people want the cute twentysomethings at sixty-one. William Hightower has a bunch of issues, but being shallow isn’t one of them.”

Maddie zipped up the suitcase then began to paw through her carry-on, discarding refuse and slipping in the things she’d need back in the real world. Her hand brushed against the magazine she’d been holding on to and she pulled it out. A sticky note marked the article about Matthew Perry’s sober living facility that she’d been waiting for the right moment to show Will. Who knew if that moment would ever come? “Can you give this to William for me?”

“You want to give William Hightower a copy of People magazine?” Deirdre looked down at the magazine Maddie had placed in her hands.

“I want to give him this article in People magazine.” Maddie flipped the magazine open so that Deirdre could see the piece she wanted Will to see. “Whether he reads it or not . . . that’s up to him.”

Deirdre’s eyebrow went up in surprise when she saw the headline and the accompanying photos. “You go do what you need to do and hurry back.” She closed the magazine and folded it against her chest. “I’ll put it in William’s hands personally. And I’ll stay after him until he reads it.”

Chapter Forty-one

Maddie arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport feeling as dazed and disoriented as any tourist. Andrew picked her up outside baggage claim in his Jeep, an almost grown man with a voice that had deepened over the summer and an even more serious air, courtesy no doubt of his brush with corporate America and the changes in their family dynamic. He filled her in on the internship at Coke and mentioned a girl he’d been seeing and she realized how long she’d been gone. In two weeks he’d head back to college to begin his junior year; in two years he’d be out on his own. It was almost as hard to absorb as the traffic she’d once taken for granted but that now seemed downright alarming.

As they drove north on a highway she’d traveled regularly for much of her adult life, Maddie was stunned by the number of lanes and cars and the death-defying speeds at which they traveled. The buildings that bounded the highway rose high into the sky, their glass walls and spires sparkling in the sunlight. The once-familiar terrain and big-city sound and traffic were so not U.S. 1.

Off the highway the roads were smaller but no less crowded. The hills rolled lush and green as the Jeep wound toward their suburb. Flowers bloomed brightly but the gardens lacked the burst of tropical colors and shapes that she’d begun to grow used to. In their neighborhood the houses they passed no longer shouted “almost home” but looked like pretty paintings framed and stuck behind glass; still attractive and familiar, but one step removed.

Andrew parked in the driveway and pressed the remote and the garage door flew open. Steve’s car sat inside it.

“Is Kelly here?” Maddie asked as she climbed from the Jeep. She felt shell-shocked and disoriented. One minute she was giving William Hightower shit about hiding from his life; the next she was walking through a wormhole into a past that was in its final chapter. She wasn’t particularly up for chitchat with her ex-husband’s girlfriend.

“Nope.” Andrew said this with satisfaction. “Haven’t seen too much of her lately; not since the house sold.”

“Oh.”

The house looked like a hurricane had blown through it. Dirty plates and glasses sat on every available surface, a pile of ancient newspapers teetered on the fireplace hearth, stacks of mail littered the kitchen counter, and two empty pizza boxes lay on the kitchen table. There was no sign of a female presence.

“What happened here?” Maddie looked at her son. “After the bomb went off, I mean.”

Andrew looked around the space as if noticing its likeness to a disaster area for the first time. “While it was listed we had to keep it all picked up. But once it went to contract Dad said we didn’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, Maddie.” Steve came down the back stairs and hugged her, and that, too, felt alien and unfamiliar. He held on a little longer than expected. She was the one who stepped back. Andrew went upstairs.

“Great news about the house, huh?” Steve smiled brightly. “And we got full asking price.”

“Yes.” She smiled back. “So, how many of the rooms have you packed up?”

He slid his hands into his pockets. “Oh, um, I’ve been kind of busy. I figured once you got here . . .”

“I’d take care of it?” This, of course, had always been the way it worked. Somehow she’d always ended up responsible for whatever had to be done. Had she wanted it that way? Or had that simply become expected? When Steve had lost his job and their life savings and ended up on the couch, she’d been forced to step in and take over; something neither of them had really forgiven the other for.

With Avery, Nicole, Deirdre, and Kyra she often organized and saw to details, but everyone contributed their skills and everyone pulled their weight.

“Oh, Steve. I can’t possibly sort through all of this myself. I mean, I did start before I went down to Islamorada, but I assumed we’d have more time than this between contract and closing.”

“The buyers wanted to be in before school started, but I was able to push them back some until you could get back and take care of it.”

She stared at the man she’d been married to. He needed a haircut and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved for several days. And then there was the state the house was in. “What happened with the cleaners?” The Brazilian couple who’d been coming in biweekly for more than a decade would have never allowed this kind of mess to accumulate.

“That’s a couple hundred a month in expenses I thought we could cut.” Steve’s tone was eminently reasonable but something felt off.

“What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

He glanced down at his feet before meeting her eyes. “I lost my job.” He didn’t say “again” and neither did she. But he was looking at her like a puppy who was hoping for a treat while bracing for a rolled-up newspaper. “I just couldn’t rebuild my client base as quickly as I was expected to.”

“I’m sorry.” She meant it, too. But she reminded herself this was not her problem. They’d need to set aside enough from the sale of the house for Andrew to finish school, and wherever she ended up she’d need to be sure there was room for Kyra and Dustin and Andrew to come home to. Where and how Steve Singer lived wasn’t her business; and it definitely wasn’t her problem.

Andrew came back downstairs wearing athletic shorts and a T-shirt. “I’m heading out to shoot some hoops with the guys. I’ll see you later.” Andrew moved toward the garage door.

Maddie stopped him. “Sorry. But it’s going to take all three of us to get this house packed up in the time we have left.”

Both of them looked surprised and then alarmed. But Maddie’s Little Red Hen days were definitely behind her. “Andrew, you can tackle the garage and start on your bedroom today. You need to make one pile for trash, one for Goodwill, one to go into storage—and this needs to be only things you’re certain you will use in the future. The last pile will be for whatever you’ll need at school.” She ignored their mutinous expressions. “One of you will need to go find or buy boxes. And Steve? After you help with the garage you can focus on your office and personal belongings. Have you made plans for new accommodation?”

“No, I was waiting for you to . . .”

She couldn’t imagine why he’d be waiting for her. “Well, you’re going to have to move somewhere from here—even if it’s only into storage. I’ll schedule the cleaners for a final cleaning once the house is empty. At least Andrew will still be here to help you move.” She rummaged in a kitchen drawer and found a yellow pad. She began to jot on it as she talked. “I guess I’ll need to organize storage for Kyra’s things and mine until we figure out where we’re going to end up living.”

Both of them blinked at her like small animals that had been rooted out of hiding and flung into the path of an oncoming predator. Maddie knew the feeling. But there was no time for regret or fear. She scribbled several notes on the pad then yanked open the nearest cupboard and began pulling things from the shelves.

“Oh,” she said, spearing them both with one last look, “before you start sorting through things, please get a large trash bag and get rid of all the trash in here. And, Steve, maybe you could load the dishwasher. Unless you’ve stopped running it to save on water and power bills?”