ONE MONTH LATER, ELEANOR CAME TO OUR HOUSE
No pearls.
No lipstick.
Gray coat.
Red eyes.
Sophie answered the door.
She didn’t invite her inside.
“I need Ethan.”
Sophie looked toward me.
My decision.
Everyone understood that now.
I stepped onto the porch.
Eleanor was holding something.
A birthday card.
Noah’s.
The original card he had given Natalie.
I stared at it.
“Natalie mailed it to me.”
“Why?”
“She said she believed I needed to see what I rejected.”
I looked at the crooked hearts.
Eleanor opened the card.
“He wrote…”
Her voice broke.
