Addison stared at them both balefully. He said, “I’m leaving, too.”

They all shook hands. Did the Chief need to remind them not to talk about this?

“So, for the kids’ sake…”

Addison held up his palms.

Jeffrey said, “Not a word. Obviously.”

Addison and Jeffrey weaved their way between the tables and out of the restaurant. Faith trailed them and kissed them both before they left. The waitress reappeared and cleared their glasses and the Chief’s plate. She said, “Can I interest you in dessert?”

The Chief said, “Yes.” And he ordered the mud pie.

ANDREA

The only time she felt like a human being was when she was up in the farm office with Jeffrey. It felt secret, illicit, affair-like, even though they never got close enough to each other to touch. But there was warmth, a connection, energy. They were on a mission: to remember everything they could about Tess DiRosa MacAvoy.

They had made it all the way to modern times. Tess and Greg were married, they were teaching, taking modest vacations, fixing up their house. They were getting ready for the next step.

“It’s time,” Andrea said, “to talk about the pregnancies.”

Jeffrey paused. He looked squeamish. He didn’t want to go there. He was a typical man; he couldn’t do trimesters or blood, separated placenta or gushing miscarriage. It was feminine territory, like tampons and waxing. He wanted to skip it. He wanted, perhaps, to say, It was a tough road, but eventually Chloe and Finn were born.

Well, too bad! He had taken Andrea places during these conversations that she hadn’t wanted to go. There were hours, for example, when they had to talk about Greg. So, yes, they were going to do the pregnancies; they couldn’t talk about Tess without talking about her pregnancies.

Tess got pregnant for the first time in January of 2000; she and Greg conceived, most likely, in the high-gloss luxury of Room 1910 in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. They had only just started trying to get pregnant, and voilà—pink stick. Tess jumped for joy; she had been put on earth to be a mother, she felt. She embraced her pregnancy. She talked about her sore breasts, her incessant nausea, her cravings (grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup), her complete and total exhaustion (she fell asleep with her head on her desk while her class was at music). In week eight, she announced to everyone, including the school custodian, that she was pregnant. There was no reason not to shout it from the mountaintops—pregnant! due September 30!—because Tess’s life had been easy and blessed. She was secure and smug. She had been put on earth to be a mother.

The call came at four in the morning. Andrea picked it up thinking that it was a call for Ed, a police emergency, something bad happening to some poor nameless, faceless soul.

But it was Greg. It was dark and still and silent at four in the morning at the Kapenash house, but on Blueberry Lane, where Greg and Tess lived, all the lights were on and Greg was shouting.

“She’s bleeding, Andrea! She’s really fucking bleeding! There is blood everywhere.”

Andrea’s heart fell through a hole and disappeared. Tess was losing the baby. She crossed herself and said to Greg, “I’ll be right there.”

“I’ve called 911. An ambulance is coming!”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the hospital.” She hung up. Ed rolled over and said, “What’s happening?”

“She’s miscarrying,” Andrea said.

“Shit,” he said.

Ed and Andrea had two healthy kids asleep upstairs, ages seven and five and a half. They had been parents long enough to know how nature worked: one out of every five pregnancies terminated spontaneously in the first trimester. This didn’t mean the woman wasn’t healthy or couldn’t go on to have six future children, all of them perfect and beautiful and headed to Ivy League colleges. It just meant that this one particular pregnancy wasn’t meant to be.

Andrea tried this reasoning as she sat by Tess’s bedside in the hospital. The ultrasound showed that the miscarriage had been complete and clean; there was no need for a D&C.

“That’s good news,” Andrea said.

Tess, who was lying in bed looking pale and despondent, said, “Good news? How can you say that?” She asked the question but did not wait for Andrea’s reply. She burst into tears that became full-blown hysteria, sobbing and moaning about the lost life, the destroyed dream. Tess’s vision of herself as a mother had popped like a soap bubble. Tess’s tears were the most heartbreaking display of sorrow Andrea had ever seen, and she cried in sympathy, and apologized again and again because her words had been insensitive. Insensitive, but true. The pregnancy wasn’t meant to be; there was no reason, these things just happened. It wasn’t Tess’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.

Tess got pregnant again two months later. She told only Andrea and the Chief. She was going to keep it a secret until she had her ultrasound at seventeen weeks. She did not talk about her nausea or her exhaustion or her leaden breasts; she wore smock tops over her swelling midsection. She looked positively morose and at times frightened, as though there were a man with a gun in her house, holding her hostage.

She and Greg heard the baby’s heartbeat at each of their prenatal appointments, but Tess would not crack a smile. She would not relax. She said to Andrea, “I am not going to let myself love this baby until he or she is born.”

Andrea said, “Honey, everything is going to be fine.”