“I don’t have much information about him.” Tillie passes me her old yearbook across the table and gets up for more tea. “I know he doesn’t live around here anymore, and he’s married to the girl he dated after me.”

I look at the photo. It’s of my birth father, Jimmy Chester, seventeen and sitting on a car in the lot of their high school—the same one I attended. When she was a senior, Tillie painted the mural in the cafeteria: an abstract sunset, deep honey fading into pink, like rose water, with mint-green text:

“and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart/i carry your heart.”

It was from an E.E. Cummings poem. She said she’d chosen it for me. I’d stared at, day after day, no idea of the connection I had with those words and colors that followed me for years.

“That’s me, behind him,” she says. “I was hiding a cigarette behind my back.”

“So you guys were, like, rebels.”

She laughs. “We certainly thought we were.”

“How did he take it?” I look at her. “The news about me, I mean.”

Her smile flatlines. “Not great. Terribly, actually.” With both hands wrapped around the mug, she brings it to her face, elbows on the table, and stares into it. Like it’s a crystal ball, showing her the past. “He didn’t believe you were his until the paternity test came back. We’d already broken up by then, and his family just wanted to make me go away. They threw me a few thousand, then cut all contact.”

“That’s awful. So you never heard from him again?”

“Well, we still saw each other in school, until he dropped out. After I gave you to Evelyn and Richard, I think it was easier for us to be civil.”

“Did he ever see me?”

“Once.” She sets down her mug. “At the hospital, right after you were born.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Sighing, she puts her hand on my forearm and gives a gentle squeeze. “He was a child, though. We both were. Not that it excuses what he did, but...it makes it more likely he could have changed since then, right?”

I stare at the photo again. Tillie has one arm behind her back, guarding the unseen cigarette, while the other drapes across Jimmy’s shoulder and chest. He holds her hand over his heart, both of them smiling like someone finally got them to crack up, their rebel personas dropped for just a moment.

“Does he have other kids? Do you?”

Tillie shakes her head. “From what I heard, he hasn’t had any more. And I never met the right man, I guess. Getting married, starting a family...it was on my to-do list and all, but just didn’t work out that way. A lot of things didn’t.” She pauses, her smile pinging back. “But meeting you was always the one thing I wanted most.”

“Really?” I fight the tears that sear my eyes, yet again. It’s a strange feeling, to say the least, sitting beside a woman I barely know and feeling this closeness. I miss my mom more than ever, the more I get to know Tillie, but decide it’s okay to feel both: grief for the mother I lost, grief for the one I went so long without, and thankfulness that I was given the chance to know both.

“So where do you live, now?” Tillie takes my tea to the stove, refilling it for me. “With Richard gone, I guess you’ll be inheriting his house?”

I shake my head. “I’m selling it. It would be too hard, living there without him.”

She nods understandingly. “What about your aunt?”

“She offered me her guest room, but I’ll only stay there until I find an apartment. I know they want to sell their house someday and travel.” Betty and Wayne have talked about it for years, but never made the leap. Frankly, I don’t think they ever will—but I don’t want to be the reason.

“Oh, that’s my dream,” she smiles, the accompanying sigh wistful. “Traveling the world, working for myself. That’s why I started freelancing, after I left the outlet.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“A lot of reasons. I wanted to save up for an RV first, then rent the house completely so I’d have extra cash coming in while I was gone. Meeting Nick kind of slowed it all down.” She hands my mug back and looks around the kitchen. “To be honest, I think I was afraid to pull the trigger. I kept coming up with excuses.”

I’m about to tell her that she could still go. It’s never too late, and she’s only forty, after all.

My words are interrupted before they’ve even formed: the front door rattles as someone tries the handle. Tillie freezes. I jump up and grab a frying pan from the sink before prowling into the foyer, ready to knock Nick out cold.

Then we hear a key slide into the deadbolt. The knob turns, and the door opens.

“Shepherd!” Tillie exclaims. She rushes past me to hug him.

Over her shoulder, I see his face display a mixture of happiness and shock. Whether either one is meant for me, I can’t tell.

“I came by for some stuff, actually,” I tell Tillie, as she bombards me with questions. “So, uh...where were you?”

“I’ll explain later,” she sighs, shaking her head. “Why don’t you sit down and join us? I’d love to catch up.”

Lila’s eyes burn into me. I do my best to ignore them. “Thanks, but I really should grab some clothes and get going.”

“Oh, you can stay for a few minutes. I’ve got questions about the house, too. Did the water heater go out? Because I tried the sink earlier....”

It’s no use. She pulls on my hand and leads me to the kitchen like a puppy by the scruff. I sit.

While Tillie prepares me some tea I don’t even want, Lila sets down the frying pan she brandished when I came in—which I hope wasn’t intended for me, specifically. She takes the seat across from mine. We stare at each other.

“Uh, so...you parked in the garage,” I say to Tillie, turning my head.

“Why does that matter?” Lila’s first words to me in days, so simple, scrape my ears like metal. She must hate me. “Trying to go unnoticed?”

“Just didn’t see the car when I pulled in, that’s all.” I steady my eyes on hers. “Can we talk?”

“You didn’t want to talk in Houston,” she spits. “Before you abandoned me, exactly the way you said you wouldn’t.”

“Hey, Tillie?” I stand. “Lila and I need a minute to...square up.”

“No. We don’t.”

I open the back door. She doesn’t move.

“Kathryn,” Tillie says, then gives a slow blink, correcting herself. “Lila.” They share a smile at the slip-up, and Tillie nods in my direction. “At least hear him out.”

After a minute, Lila stands. She refolds her arms as she walks past, taking care not to touch me even the slightest bit.

“Good luck,” Tillie whispers, before I close the door behind me.

We sit like we did the day we met: her on the steps, smoking a cigarette; me, on the carton in the grass.

“So,” she says, blowing the cloud straight up into the air, “you wanted to talk. Go ahead.”

“I’m not sure where to start, actually.” I scratch my chin, the stubble longer than I’m used to after so many days without a razor. “Glad you found Tillie.”

“She was exactly where I thought she’d be. Guess it wasn’t such a crazy plan, after all.”

I close my eyes. She deserves to get her jabs in, and a whole lot more. When I look at her again, she has her jaw set, staring past the tree line at the edge of the yard, like she’s trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry for bailing on you like that.”

“But not for bailing on me at all?”

“Well...no, not really. I think I did it for the right reasons, just not in a nice way. Like you said, I could have talked to you about it, first. I should have.”

She ashes the cigarette so hard, it breaks. While she grinds it out with her boot, she asks, “Why didn’t you?”

“Told you. I’m a huge scaredy-cat.”

Lila tongues her cheek and raises her eyebrow, giving a nod.

I remember her making that face before: at her ex, the one who stopped us on our way out of town. Great. I’m a nuisance.

Worse than a nuisance. I’m someone she has to guard herself around, now. Someone who’s hurt her.

“Tillie told me about rehab.” She pulls out another cigarette from the pack, but doesn’t light it, instead spinning it like a baton between her fingers. “The cocaine, the heroin.” She glances at me. “Is that what you meant, about dragging me down? Like...did you relapse, or something?”

“No. I’ve been clean fifteen months.” Like earlier, with my dad, I pass her the chip as proof. She sets the cigarette down into a groove between the bricks and studies both sides, like appraising a jewel.

“But, yes,” I go on, “that’s what I meant. If I ever did relapse, I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting you, or getting you into all that.”

“I know I said this once before, but that’s insulting, Shepherd. I’m a grown woman. I know how to walk away. It took me a while to do it with Donnie, I’ll give you that. But I still did it.”

She flicks the chip to me with her thumb. I lean back and catch it. “And it’s also insulting to compare me to that girl. We’re two totally different people.”

I nod along to everything she says. Jess was wild in the worst way, hell-bent on self-destruction. Lila is....

Well, that’s the thing: Lila is wild, too, but in a way I never imagined was possible. The kind of girl who takes off on a road trip with little more than blind faith. The kind who forgives a stranger—eventually—for stealing something precious and pawning it. Who sings along to the radio like no one’s there, even while the driver bitches about her love for pop not two feet away. Who props her feet on the dash and hangs her hand out the window, even when it’s cold, to let the wind push it up and down like the roll of a wave.

“Besides,” she goes on, “isn’t that kind of stupid? Living your life like you’re about to relapse any second? That’s just setting yourself up to fail.”

Reluctantly, my brain considers this. She’s right. Again.

“Why’d you come back here?” she asks.

“I needed some clothes. I...I talked to my dad, and we worked some stuff out, so he invited me to stay the night and catch up.”

“Wow.” Her sternness slips. “That’s really cool, Shepherd. I mean...I’m happy for you.”

Her voice sounding anything other than furious feels like salve on my headache. “Thanks,” I say, risking a smile. “It felt good, clearing the air with him. I’m glad I got the chance to do that with you, too.”

She stiffens again. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m still pissed.”

“You have every right to be.”

“Anyway, I didn’t mean Tillie’s house. I meant Indiana. Crossbridge. Like...you had the perfect opportunity to start over, just like you wanted. Why didn’t you?”

I stare at my palms, still scratched from the fight at that bar. “I didn’t deserve to leave town that way. If I was going to make a clean break, it had to be on my own. Not because I’d left somebody else high and dry.”

“Oh, but pawning somebody else’s stuff to bankroll it was okay, huh?”

“That occurred to me, too. Which is why I stopped by the pawn shop on the way here.” I hold out my hand.

She hesitates, then gives me hers. I drop the locket into her palm.

“Shepherd,” she whispers, “how did you get this back?”

“Before you get excited, it isn’t the real one. Just a lookalike they had in the case.”

The sunlight skates off the surface as she turns it, no longer looking for her initials, but just observing.

“I used most of the money to buy that,” I explain, “plus whatever else I pawned that hadn’t sold yet. It’s all out in my dad’s car. Here.” I dig into my pocket and pass her the very last of my money. “You can get it engraved at a place in the mall for pretty cheap. Maybe ‘L.A.’ instead of ‘K.D.’” I chew the inside of my mouth, then add, “If you want to.”

She opens and closes it, testing the clasp. “Thank you,” she says, her voice drained of its venom. “That was really sweet of you.”

“I’ll get you more money soon, to buy the real one back. If you ever do get a call from the buyer, I mean.”

Lila lifts her eyes to mine. “You know,” she says, “you really are a nice guy. I don’t know why you think you’d drag anyone down. You’re not even dragging yourself down.”

My mouth sets in a line. I turn and sweep my gaze across the yard, overgrown and dying.

“I’d understand if you’d relapsed, or if your recovery was new. But fifteen months....” She waits until I turn back to finish her thought: “Don’t you think it’s time you give yourself permission to live your life again? To actually enjoy it?”

Without waiting for me to answer, she gets up and brushes off her pants. “Look, I’m not going to beg. If you want to be with me and see where things go, instead of assuming the worst, you know where to find me. And if not...I guess I’ll see you around. Until you leave town for real, anyway.”

She goes inside. Through the window, I see Tillie open a book and point something out. They both laugh, their smiles identical.

I want to be with Lila. In her school of thought, this should be enough. Everything is black and white to her. A or B, true or false, this or that.

There’s a gray area, though, even if she disagrees. It’s the place where two contradicting facts exist together—like wanting to be with her, but wanting to be alone, too. It was true, what she said: I shouldn’t assume I’ll drag her down, or that I’ll slip up along the way.

Maybe it is worth trying. Whatever the outcome, it would be better than not knowing.

But I was right, too: I still have some things to fix, before I can give myself—even just a piece—to anyone else.