Rebecca was a stranger who had done what predators do.

Emily was my daughter, and I had left her out there alone.

Chapter 13 — Three Times

I made myself count them, in the days after, the times my daughter had tried to warn me and I had turned her away.

I owed her that much — to look squarely at each one.

The Christmas before, Emily had asked me, carefully, why Rebecca seemed so interested in my investments, and I had told her to stop being suspicious and let me be happy.

Two months before the wedding, when Rebecca floated the idea of my revising my will “to protect our next chapter,” Emily had asked me to slow down, and I had told her she needed to accept that I’d found joy again.