When I woke, I hoped, it would be to a new life—better, but strange—Daphne would be on an exotic island. My dad would be healthy and happily in love, married to Ramona. The Eatery would be... I didn’t know. And I would be wife to the man of my dreams andmother to two energetic, hilarious, sweet little girls. I could hardly breathe I was so eager to start this new life.
By force of habit, I slipped my hand in my pocket, reaching for the hard, gritty reassurance of the lemon drop. But my fingers found no pocket at all. Only a smooth fabric waistband. I glanced down, panic spiking through my chest. And then in a flash I remembered. Daphne. The change of clothes. I was wearing her yoga pants. In the whirlwind after Dad’s stroke, I had changed out of my chocolate-smeared jeans. Daphne had taken them with her when she left.
I drew a quick sigh of relief. It would be all right then. Daphne was famous in our family for her procrastination about doing any sort of housework. It was almost a sure bet that she’d simply dropped the clothes in my room or left them by the front door. The lemon drop was almost assuredly nestled safely in my jeans pocket. Still, I leaned forward in the back seat of the Uber, eager to get home and have the lemon drop once more in my hand. It held all our futures now.
Bertha greeted me at the door with a happy tail wag. The house was dark and silent. Daphne had texted me earlier to say that she was going to stop by the house to grab some things for overnight and then head to Damien’s apartment. Tonight she didn’t want to be alone.
Inside I poked hurriedly around the most likely spots, looking for my clothes, checking all the usual areas with a growing sense of concern. Bertha trailed me, standing in the doorways and snuffling. I checked the shoe area by the front door. My room. Laundry room. Bathroom hamper. Even the trash under the sink. Nothing. Where was it? Maybe she hadn’t dropped my soiled clothes off at home like I predicted. Feeling a little panicked, I texted Daphne.
Hey, looking for the dirty clothes you brought home for me. Any idea where they are?
It was late, but she was naturally a night owl, so chances were good she and Damien were still up.
Ping!A text. I fumbled with my phone.
Threw them in the wash with my yoga stuff when I got home. Should be dry by now. I know. I’m amazing.
And a smiley face emoji with hearts for eyes.
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. I tore into the laundry room, ripping open the dryer, pawing through the hot pile of staticky clothes inside, stifling a scream. There they were, the blue jeans I’d worn, smelling faintly of fabric softener. I pulled them out and frantically searched the pocket, willing the lemon drop to still be there. It had to be. Ithadto be.
Empty. The pocket was empty. Just a tiny sticky circle and the faintest whiff of lemon candy.
“No.” I sank back on my heels on the tile floor with a strangled cry, numb with disbelief. It was gone. My last chance was gone, disintegrated with hot water and Tide. Everything I was going to fix, to change, to make okay again. No healthy Dad. No Rory. No Sophia and Freya.
“No!No!” I screamed, slamming my hand against the dryer, bruising my palm. “It doesn’t end like this. It’s got to be here somewhere.” It had to be. Everything depended on that little yellow oval.
With a blind determination, I searched every crevice of the laundry room, even sticking my hand down the dryer hose and turning the trash cans upside down in a shower of dryer lint and gum wrappers, hyperventilating, desperate for the impossible. But there was no little spot of yellow sunshine amid the detritus of our lives. It was truly gone.
Slowly, so slowly, I sank to my knees, then curled up in a fetal position on the cold tile floor, lying so still and quiet I wasn’t even sure I was still breathing. I felt completely numb. Bertha watched me uneasily from the doorway, whining and shifting from foot to foot. Slowly, starting from my chest and radiating out to my limbs, I began to shake, from the cold floor or the shock, maybe both. I couldn’t stop. And then the tears came, silent at first, and then great wracking sobs. I was choking on the tears and grief, sobbing at the memory of my dad splayed out on the kitchen floor—his worn face a slack, pallid gray—sobbing for the loss of my one last chance to have so many good things.
I had lost my mother, now perhaps my father, very likely our family’s diner—our heritage and livelihood. And now I had also lost Rory and the girls for good. The thought was unbearable. Loss upon loss. I’d had to give Rory up before, and this was my second chance. But now I would never be his wife, never be a mother to those two sweet little girls. There was no way to turn back the clock, reverse time, make a different choice. My future had just imploded all over again.
Early the next morning I blinked groggily, my head pillowed on a pile of clean towels, coming to consciousness stiff and sore and freezing on the hard tile, with Bertha’s wet nose pushing into my ear.
“Ugh.” Scrambling to a sitting position, I struggled to remember where I was and why I was there. In the cool gray light of early morning, the events of the night before all came rushing back in a terrible moment of recollection.
“Oh no.” A whisper, sheer despair. I wrapped my arms around my legs and hugged myself, trying to get warm, trying to grapple with the truth. There would be no fixing this, no second chances. Bertha snuffled my face worriedly and grumbled, and I rubbed her ears, not ableto offer my usual words of reassurance. I was not all right. Nothing was all right. I feared nothing would ever be all right again.
My phone buzzed with a text and I searched the laundry piles, locating it under some towels. Daphne.
I’m at the hospital. Where are you? Couldn’t sleep so I came over early. Nurse says Dad’s stable. He’s asking for you.
I swallowed hard.
Be right there.
I typed the words woodenly. There was only a dull ache in my chest.
Staggering to my feet, I tried to think. I needed a shower. Coffee. To feed Bertha and let her out. To reverse time about twelve hours so I didn’t change out of my jeans. To reverse time about a decade, before all the worst things of my life happened one after another.
Fifteen minutes later I was passably clean, dressed, and gulping down a cup of coffee standing at the sink. I saw Aunt Gert’s light blink on in the cottage and in a split second made a decision. I set the cup down, half-full, and slipped out the door, heading for her little house.
She opened the door at my knock, improbably dressed in a pair of red woolen long underwear, the kind prospectors and miners wore in the 1800s.
“How’s Marty?” she asked immediately, brow furrowing in concern. With her thin white curls and tubby belly she looked like a dour elf.
“He had a seizure last night after you left, but he’s stable now. I lostit,” I blurted out. “I lost the last lemon drop. It was going to fix everything.”
