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so glad to see the sun after the downpour I’d experienced when leaving Georgia. “There’re windows along all the living room and dining room walls,” I tell Sally.
    “Is there a fireplace?”
    I know Sally thinks a fireplace makes or breaks a place. She told me that during her years at the veterinary school in Vermont, her apartment’s ceiling leaked whenever the upstairs tenant ran his dishwasher, the pantry had a live-in mouse, the odor of fried fish permeated the walls, and yet there was one saving factor: the apartment had a fireplace. Sally lit a fire every night during the cold months—of which apparently there are many in Vermont—and studied by the glowing flames.
    “Yeah,” I tell her as I walk over to the white stone fireplace. “And even a hot tub out on the deck.” I push a blue drape back from the window to view the hot tub. Actually I don’t even know if it works. The thick tan cover spreads over it like a skin, and it looks too heavy for one person to remove. Maybe my aunt can help me with that, I think. Then, like a bolt of lightning, a memory hits me. The last time I sat in a hot tub, Lucas was with me. He asked what kind of engagement ring I wanted. He took my hand, caressed my fingers, and then kissed each fingertip. “When we get married,” he said, “let’s get a hot tub.”
    “So”—Sally bursts into my thoughts—“what’s next? How are the brochures?”
    The brochures are part of my plan to start my own cake-decorating business here in the mountains. Eventually, I want to expand to a full-fledged catering business, but I’m going to start with cakes and see how it goes. I did a mockup of the cover weeks ago, but I still need to work on the inside copy. Sally wants to hear something positive, so I say, “It’s so beautiful here. I know I’ll be inspired to work on the brochures.”
    She sounds relieved. And I’m grateful I can protect her from how I really feel. I don’t want her to worry. Let me be the one who worries in this friendship. There’s no point in both of us filling that role.
    When the conversation ends, exhaustion fills me, as though I’ve just made a five-course dinner in record time. I slide onto the bar stool. Resting my chin in the palms of my hands, my elbows supported by the counter, I stare at nothing. Then I feel warm tears fall along my fingers. Growling like a captured animal, I start to form the words. “I hate him.” The sound of my own voice scares me; the tears fall faster. “I hate that he left me,” I cry to the walls, the kitchen utensils, and the pictures. I turn to see the woman with the fan hiding half of her face. Annoyed that the picture is there and that I have no idea why she has that fan covering her, I yell, “I hate you, too!”
    I don’t even know her.
    My gaze rests on my right arm, and although my arm is fully covered by the sleeve of my terry-cloth bathrobe, I know what lies beneath. I shouldn’t take a shower or bath. There is just too much damage to see. Who knew a Mustang was so sharp? The word shattered comes at me like a large grizzly, teeth bared and ready to pounce.
    ————
    As I pull on a pair of khakis and a pink long-sleeved shirt, I remind myself that I won the Georgia Teen Cook Award at the state fair when I was a senior in high school. This reminder is supposed to make me feel better—alive, worthy, and capable. The mayor presented me with a gold-embossed certificate and a check for fifty dollars. He told me that my winning entry—a strawberry cream pastry—was surely a sign that my life would be filled with “everything sweet from here on out.” Easy for him to say; he was the mayor of Atlanta.
    When I push open the sliding glass door leading to the deck, I think of how I spread the mounds of thick whipped cream onto the buttery crust of that pastry over a decade ago.
    Two squirrels scamper over a mossy tree stump, reminding me that I’m not in Atlanta anymore. I take in the serene vista from the