❀ Amy ❀
My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary as I pulled into the school parking lot. My stomach had been in knots all afternoon. Not because of work, not even because Eva had a math quiz, I had forgotten to help her prep for. No, the real reason sat somewhere deeper, tangled in hope and fear. Clark was back. He had moved to Willow Creek. Permanently. I should have felt nothing but joy. And yet, there was a tightness in my chest I couldn’t shake. Something about the permanence of it all, the idea that the man who had started off as a stranger pretending to be my husband was now, somehow, my person. It scared me. In the best and worst way. Eva came bounding down the school steps, her ponytail bouncing, backpack swinging behind her like it weighed nothing at all.
“Hi,
