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minutes Kate would drop her off at the Garveys’ house, and she probably wouldn’t see her much anymore. If only—
    If only!
    She had to stop using those words. How many times had she thought them over the last two months? A hundred? A thousand? If only her mother hadn’t died … if only her father had stayed home that night … if only she had stayed home that night. But none of that had happened, and she had to deal with things the way they were, not the way she wished they were. Now her mother’s voice echoed in her head.
    Wishing, wishing, doesn’t make it so!
    We have to deal with things they way they are, not the way we wish they were
.
    She was right, Sarah told herself. And that’s what I’m going to do.
    Finally, she looked out the window and discovered that they were no longer making their way along the narrow road that wound through the farms from the prison to Warwick, but had come into the town itself.
    The school Kate was pointing out looked as if it had been there for at least a hundred years, but it was freshly painted in white with black trim, just like most of the houses around it. It was one large building with a big sports field next to it and a tennis court behind the parking lot. There was a flagpole in the center of the front lawn, and as they passed, a bunch of boys in football jerseys jogged around a track while cheerleaders practiced their moves on the infield.
    “I hear they’ve got a good team this year,” Kate said, her gaze following Sarah’s.
    “My dad played football,” Sarah said, then wished she could pull the words back.
    “You can visit him once a week,” Kate said. She turned left, and two blocks later Sarah felt like she was looking at a movie set.
    The town of Warwick had been built around a square, and in the center of the square was the kind of gazebo she’d seen dozens of times at the movies, but never before in actual real life. Across the street from the square, a bigger-than-life-size bronze statue of a man holding an old flintlock rifle stood in front of an ancient log cabin with a steeply pitched roof. “That’s Jeremiah Bigelow, in front of the first house built in Warwick, back in 1654. It’s a museum now.”
    “It’s pretty,” Sarah said, scanning the small shops that lined the street. Nowhere could she see a 7-Eleven, or a Minimart, or any of the other chains she was used to seeing elsewhere. And as they passed the corner of the square, she could see an old Carnegie library next to a post office with half a dozen cars parked diagonally in front. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she went on, her spirits rising at the sight of the town that seemed to have come right out of the past. “Look!” She pointed at two old dogs relaxing outside a coffee shop, waiting patiently for their people. “The dogs aren’t even tied up!”
    Kate turned left again after they passed a large park with a jogging trail winding through the maple trees, and a large church with intricate stained-glass windows, a simple sign in front proclaiming it to be THE MISSION OF GOD. Then Kate turned right onto a tree-lined block and pulled up in front of a modest two-story brick home. “This is it,” she said. “Twenty-seven Quail Run.”
    All the anxiety that had been slowly easing as they drove through Warwick suddenly gripped Sarah’s stomach again.
    “Do you remember their names?” Kate asked.
    “Garvey,” Sarah said, struggling to concentrate. “Angie is the mother, and the kids are Tiffany and Mitch.”
    “No, Mitch is the father. The kids are Tiffany and Zach.”
    “Zach. Right.” Sarah tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t—it felt as if a band of steel had closed around her chest. Yet there was no choice but to get out of the car and face whatever was to come next.
    As Kate got her suitcase from the trunk, Sarah tried for the umpteenth time to find the words to the question she’d been wanting to ask Kate for weeks now. But every time she practiced