“No, it’s fine. You want me gone. I’m gone.” He reached down and squeezed her hand, his eyes not able to meet hers. He didn’t want to see conflict there. That might give him hope, and if he knew Amelia well enough, he knew there was no hope. “Have your lawyer draw up the divorce paperwork and send it on when you’re ready. Feel better.”

With those last words hanging in the air between them, he slipped into the hallway and let the door shut behind him. There, he slumped against the wall and dropped his head back, hard. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe, his hands aching to reach out for her and pull her into his arms. But he wouldn’t. He would forfeit for the first time in his life, because that was what she wanted.

And in that moment, he realized it was because he loved her enough to give her what she wanted, even if it killed him to do it.

* * *

Amelia had thought their house was large with the two of them in it. Tyler had taken his personal things, some clothes and his laptop before she came home from the hospital. The rest, she assumed, the movers would pack up. The house had hardly been full before, but Tyler’s absence made it just that much emptier. When she was alone, it was like being locked in the Metropolitan Museum of Art at night. Room after room surrounded by eerie silence and unfamiliar shadows.

The first night there alone hadn’t bothered her as much, but she hadn’t really been alone. Natalie had picked her up from the hospital and all the girls had met her at the house with reinforcements. They’d piled up in the bed and had pizza, wine and copious amounts of chocolate while watching a couple of sappy chick movies. It was an excellent distraction, and crying during the movies had been a much-needed outlet for all the emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to process yet.

Tonight was her first night by herself. Gretchen had offered to come by, but Amelia had shooed her away. She could use some time by herself, and really, she was used to being alone. She’d always lived on her own. She wasn’t sure how living with Tyler for only a few weeks could make it feel as though somehow he’d always been there.

He was back in New York now. He had texted her that much. Other than that, he had thankfully left her in peace. When she’d told him to leave, she hadn’t been sure he was going to. She’d seen the resistance in his pale blue eyes, the curl of his hands into fists at his sides. He’d wanted to fight, and for a moment, deep inside, she’d hoped he would. She’d lied when she said she didn’t love him, but she wasn’t about to admit to something like that when he wouldn’t do the same. If Tyler truly cared about her, and hadn’t just been sticking it out for the baby’s sake, he would’ve told her no. He would’ve proclaimed that he loved her and he wasn’t going anywhere no matter what.

But he’d just walked away, confirming her worst fear. And breaking her heart.

She’d lain in her hospital bed and sobbed after he’d left, only pulling herself together when she’d heard the nurse coming. Amelia had managed to hold the fragile pieces of herself together since then, but it was hard. In one day, she’d lost the man she loved, her best friend, her husband and their child. Despite the promises they’d made, Natalie was right. She really didn’t think their friendship would survive this, and that was what hurt the most. She had never felt so alone in her whole life.

Amelia was standing in the kitchen, attempting to replicate Tyler’s hot cocoa, when she heard the buzzer on the gate. She made her way over to the panel by the door, where the screen showed a fuzzy image of her grandmother waiting impatiently to be let in.

She had made the obligatory call to her parents and her sister the day before to tell them what was going on. One of them must have passed along the information to her grandmother and had dispatched her from Knoxville as soon as she could finish curling her hair.

Amelia swallowed hard and pressed the button that would open the gates. She unlocked the front door and left it ajar as she ran back to the kitchen and pulled the milk off the stove before it boiled over. By the time she got back to the foyer, her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Kennedy, was standing in the doorway.

The woman had recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Amelia was a clone of her grandmother. Elizabeth’s flame-red hair was as bright as Amelia’s, but maintained now by a fine salon in Knoxville. Her dark eyes saw everything, with the thin curl of her lips giving away her wry sense of humor. She was sharp as a tack, as nimble as ever and drove her old Buick around like an Indy driver.

The moment her grandmother saw her, she opened her arms up and waited. In an instant, whatever threads that were holding Amelia together snapped. She rushed into her grandmother’s arms and fell into hysterical tears.

“I know, I know,” Elizabeth soothed, stroking Amelia’s hair and letting her tears soak through her sweater. When Amelia finally calmed down, her grandmother patted her back and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen, shall we? I think a time like this calls for a warm drink and something sweet. I, uh...” She looked through the various doorways. “Where is the kitchen? This place is enormous.”

Amelia chuckled for the first time in a long while and took her grandmother’s hand, leading her through the maze of halls and rooms to the kitchen. Elizabeth’s eyes lit up when she saw the kitchen, reminding Amelia of her first day in the house. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Her grandmother nodded. “It’s amazing.” She went around opening drawers and investigating. “If this is any indication of the rest of the house, I’m moving in.”

“It’s available for rent,” Amelia said with a sad tone in her voice. “The current occupants will be out by the end of the week.”

Elizabeth spied the pot of cocoa on the stove. “You sit down. I’m going to finish this cocoa and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

Amelia did as she was told, climbing gingerly onto a stool and watching her grandmother cook the way she had as a child. Her grandmother had passed along her love of cooking to Amelia. Most of her childhood they lived apart, but she had looked forward to summers spent with her grandparents and visits at Christmas. It was her favorite time of year.

Elizabeth restarted the cocoa, stirring it with a spoon before going into the pantry. She came out a moment later with peanut butter, cornflakes and Karo Syrup, making Amelia’s eyes light up with delight.

“Cornflake cookies?”

Her grandmother smiled. “Of course, baby. Now, what is this I hear from your father about you getting married to that little boy you used to run around with?”

Amelia took a deep breath and started at the beginning. She told about the elopement in Vegas, the pregnancy and the whirlwind romance that followed. She ended the tale with its new, sad conclusion. “And now he’s gone, and once I’m out of this house, it will be like none of it ever happened.”

Her grandmother placed a steaming mug of cocoa and a plate of still warm and gooey cornflake cookies on the counter in front of her. “I doubt that,” she said. “From the sound of things, nothing is ever going to be the way it was before.” She pushed up her sleeves and started scrubbing the pans in the sink.

“Just leave those, Grandma. We have a lady for that.”

Elizabeth scoffed at the suggestion. “I think better when I’m working in the kitchen. So what are you going to do now? Move back to your apartment?”

“Yes,” Amelia answered. “Until my lease is up. Then I think I might buy a townhouse, something with a little more space, although not as much as we have here.”

“And what about you and Tyler?”

Amelia shrugged and shoved a cornflake cookie in her mouth to avoid the question awhile longer. “I’m hoping we can still be friends. Obviously we’re not meant to be together romantically. I knew from the beginning he wasn’t my big love. I was just hoping I was wrong.”