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you?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t have done him any good to be close to you,” Drew said, rising to go speak with Tyler.
    Michelle sputtered from all the swear words that came to mind. She took deep breaths to calm down, but it was no use—she was furious. To think she’d felt so grateful that he’d taken such good care of things, when he hadn’t at all. He had abandoned her. “Drew!”
    He came back inside the living room.
    She held up the get well card. “Where was this mailed from?”
    He shrugged. “Someone at the hospital opened it. Every time we visited, there were more cards in your room. Clients and friends—”
    Michelle remembered Nikki’s words about feeling awful. “Oh my god, was it Nikki’s fault? Was she driving?”
    â€œNo, honey. You were.”
    Michelle blinked, trying to remember. Her anger began to cool from the effort. “Right, that’s what the lawyers kept asking about. Car insurance or something.” She looked through the glass at her son playing with Bella, as if nothing had happened. Michelle had always feared that something would happen, as soon as they left her sight. Nikki would fall off the swing set onto cement, or Tyler would be struck in the head by a baseball, or a bomb would go off on a field trip. And sure enough, that time had come. How could she not have felt it, deep inside? “Does Tyler know?”
    â€œLet’s get you back to bed. Let Tyler be—this has been hard on him, too.”
    She pulled her hand away. “I can imagine. He had to lie to his mother for—oh, I don’t know—almost a year?” She spied a napkin left on the floor beneath the dining room table. The thought of her friends at the party last night made her stomach clench. “Tyler wasn’t the only one pretending, was he? Is that why Julie didn’t know about Australia—because you forgot to tell her? Cathy was acting strangely, too.”
    â€œI’m sorry, honey. I really am.”
    â€œI don’t understand. Why pretend at all?”
    â€œYou were already overwhelmed. Lexi dragged you from one rehabilitation room to the next all day long. I wanted to tell you, but every time I visited, you were too exhausted to have a serious conversation. And to be honest, I didn’t want Lexi to know.”
    Michelle was relieved that at least one person hadn’t betrayed her. “Why? Because she would have told me?”
    â€œThat, or she’d ask to be reassigned to avoid saying something that might hamper your progress. The doctors were adamant that we were not to let anything upset you. Anything.”
    Michelle heard Tyler coughing. Drew swore under his breath and stood up. “I need to run out and get him a new asthma inhaler. I’ll fill your prescription while I’m there,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
    â€œLike I woke up in the Twilight Zone.”
    â€œYou need rest. Let’s get you back to bed.”
    Michelle let him help her back down the hall and into the bedroom. But one thing was certain. She was not staying in bed.

4
    Michelle had learned to pick door locks with bobby pins long ago, but opening Nikki’s lock was tricky using only one hand. She was tempted to ask Tyler to let her go through the adjoining bathroom, but his father had expressly ordered him to make sure Michelle got some rest. He had been caught between loyalties for long enough. Finally, Michelle felt the lock surrender. She dropped the flayed bobby pin into the pocket of her bathrobe, pushed the door open, and stepped inside Nikki’s bedroom. It felt like a forgotten world.
    Dim light filtered through the front window blinds. Stripes marked the bare mattress. Michelle flipped on the ceiling light. The bulb popped and went dark, but the buttercup walls still glowed. This pale yellow paint was the only thing she and Nikki had agreed on after they’d torn down the bunny