Regina shakes her head. “It’s not silly; it’s this town. It was either a guy who looks like him, or it was him. Stranger things have happened.” She reaches across the Formica table and pokes my stomach right where it’s bulging. “You have to trust your gut.”

I want to weep with relief. “I haven’t told anyone about thinking I saw the mugger here. Not even Deck, or my best friend in Minneapolis.”

She paints an X over her heart. “Your secret dies with me.”

“You think I should go to the police?”

“You positive he was the one who got hit by the car?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know that anyone got hit by a car. I know a vehicle went off the road downtown and that a man who looked like the mugger was on the ground immediately after. Did you hear any buzz about it at the bar?”

She glances toward the ceiling, like she’s sorting through memories. “Not that I recall. But I tell you what. If it was me, I wouldn’t go to the police. First of all, I avoid them on principle. Had some run-ins. Second, it sounds like the situation sorted itself out one way or another. I think the real problem is that you don’t feel comfortable talking to your old man about it.”

I notice for the first time that she’s wearing a necklace, a tiny tooth-colored pearl on a gold chain, very much like the one I stole for my mom. I smile and take another tiny sip of the amber whiskey, its warmth rolling down my throat and unhitching my bones. “It’s not Deck I don’t trust,” I finally say. “It’s Lilydale, like you said. It makes me jumpy. I’ve never lived in a small town before. I always feel like I’m being watched.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Regina says. “Welcome to the fishbowl.”

It could be the whiskey, or the fact that she isn’t treating me like I’m mad, but I suddenly want to tell her everything about the Fathers and Mothers. I haven’t been sworn to secrecy, but I sense they wouldn’t want me to share.

To hell with them.

“You know that Johann Lily who founded the town? Well, he started a group, too. They’re called the Fathers and Mothers. Can you believe that? And they want me to join!”

I hoot, and Regina laughs along, exactly like I wanted Ursula to do. I’m beaming.

“Would you like more whiskey, Mother?” she asks.

Impossibly, my laughter doubles. “Yes, please, Mother. But we mustn’t tell Father.”

She can’t breathe, she’s laughing so hard.

“I think I am going to ball Kris,” she says.

I hold up my glass in a toast. “Go with God.”

She clinks her jelly jar to mine. “Not like there are a lot of men to choose from, with them all off at war. Why isn’t Deck?”

“War’s for uneducated men,” I say, before I realize I’m mirroring Deck’s own words, something he said to me back in Minneapolis.

Regina stiffens.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Her face seals like an envelope. “And waitressing is for uneducated women, I suppose?”

I grab her hand. “Please, Regina. My mom was a waitress, and she’s the best woman I’ve ever known. It was a stupid thing to say. I’m a jackass. Forgive me?”

A slow smile blows across her mouth. “Your Mother forgives you, child.”

And we start belly-laughing again. I’m desperate to stay connected to her, to remain in this easy, amber-colored girlfriend space.

“You have a scissors?” I ask.

She glances around the kitchen. “Somewhere. You wanna sew?”

“I want you to cut my hair.”

Her eyes go wide. “What?”

“Yep. Cut it all off. I’m turning into an old lady, Regina, fast-track dying right in front of your eyes.” I tug out my headband and bobby pins, shaking out my shoulder-length hair. I’ve used so much hairspray that it barely moves, even without anything holding it in place. “Save a gal, would ya?”

She grins and stands, rustling through the drawers. “You’re lucky I used to cut my boyfriend’s mop all the time. I hope you’re okay with a flip.”

“I was thinking more of a pixie.” When I close my eyes, I see Mia Farrow on the cover of Vogue. “Could you do that?”

She spins, holding a pair of scissors in hand. “I can try.”

CHAPTER 34

She does a marvelous job.

I help her clean up bundles of my hair.

She doesn’t blink when I ask if I can use some mouthwash to rinse away the perfume of whiskey. I touch myself up in her mirror—I look so different, so young, my eyes wide and innocent when framed by the pixie cut—and walk back to my car. My plan is to drive it home so it’s there if Deck needs it and then walk to the newspaper offices.

Now that I’ve talked to Grover, I want back in those archives. Meeting with the retired sheriff made me realize how lax I’ve been in researching the article, how complacent Lilydale has made me, either deliberately or because it’s the nature of a small town.

When I reach home, Slow Henry is the first to greet me.

Deck is the second.

He goes white when he sees me.

I feel the hot itch of guilt, and I don’t like it. “You’re home early!” I say with false cheer.

“Look at your hair,” he says, still pale. He swallows, seems to collect himself. “I love it.”

I touch it self-consciously, all the buoyancy I felt with Regina draining away. Should I have consulted him? “Thanks. It was a spur of the moment decision.”

He nods. “How was Saint Cloud?”

“Good.” I scramble to remember what I told him I was doing today.

“You liked the shopping?” he asks.

I try to hold the mask on my face. That’s right, I said I was going to the mall. “It was wonderful! I didn’t stumble across anything I needed to have, though. Maybe that’s why I got the haircut. So I didn’t drive all that way for nothing.”

I go to him. I want to be in his arms if for no other reason than that he can’t see my face.

He doesn’t return my embrace, but I nuzzle in.

He finally wraps his arms around me.

“I adore you,” he says.

The emotion in his voice catches me off guard. He squeezes me tighter. “And this baby,” he says. “I’m going to love it more than I’ve ever loved anything.”

My eyes grow warm with tears.

“Hey, you know what we should do?” he says. “We should buy a crib. There’s a store over in Cold Spring that’s supposed to have quite a collection. I can sneak out of work over lunch tomorrow and take you shopping. Would you like that?”

“I’d love it, Deck.” In the safety of his arms, I speak the closest truth that I have, hoping to bridge the distance that’s grown between us since we’ve moved. “I haven’t been feeling like myself, you know that, right? I’m so jumpy, worried all the time.”

“You’ve been through a lot this year, Joanie.”

“I know, but—”

“We’re having people over for dinner tomorrow,” he says, talking right over me. “It’ll be a big party. Everyone on Mill Street plus some others, so all the important Mothers and Fathers.”