“A big family is not so different from a busy restaurant. It’s all about dishes and laundry.”

“The circle of life,” Virginia said.

“Where’s Fern?” asked Caroline. “With her dad this weekend?”

A curt nod. “She can’t wait to see you and meet the kids. I tried to swap weekends with Dave, but he refused. He is on a mission to say no to my every request.”

“Sounds like he’s doing his job as an ex-husband,” Caroline said.

“The one thing he’s good at.” Virginia had been divorced for a year. She’d had what everyone thought was a fine marriage to a lawyer, and a job as an investigator at his firm. Their eight-year-old daughter, Fern, was a bright-eyed Pippi Longstocking of a child.

In the Shelby family, Virginia was the “pretty one”—a designation people pretended not to espouse in this day and age. But they did. Virginia was adorable and perfectly proportioned. Virginia had a good hair day every day. Virginia had naturally fabulous eyebrows and flawless skin.

Yet when it came to love, she had either terrible judgment or terrible luck, depending on who was giving the opinion. “I’ve had my heart broken so many times, it’s all scar tissue,” she often said with a flair for drama. When she’d married Dave, an ambitious, newly minted attorney, the family all thought the drama would end. It did for a while, until the previous year, when his wandering eye stirred things up again.

Mom held open the back door. “Adult conversation awaits.”

“Can I carry something?” Caroline offered.

“Just your emotional baggage,” Virginia said, picking up an appetizer tray.

So it was going to be that kind of conversation, Caroline realized as she followed her sister out the door.

Their father had made a cheery blaze in the fire pit and they sat around in the Adirondack chairs, faces aglow in the golden light. “Wow,” said Caroline. “We have a quorum.”

Both her parents were present, along with Virginia and their brother Jackson. He was cheerfully single, a fisherman with a wild streak that lingered long past adolescence. Yet when it came to buying seafood for the restaurant, he was all business—a serious foodie and an advocate for sustainable fishing practices. Almost none of the seafood the restaurant served came from a radius larger than a hundred miles. It didn’t need to, because the waters in the area yielded a bounty of cold-water fish and shellfish.

Their father lifted a glass of beer. “IPA from the Razor Clam Microbrewery, and the wine is a nice claret I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”

He was a level 4 sommelier and managed the bar at the restaurant. When he called the wine “nice,” it was almost always an understatement.

“A toast,” said her mother. “Welcome back, Caroline. I’m sorry about the circumstances that brought you back, but it’s wonderful to have you here.”

They clinked glasses, sipped and savored. The claret was, as expected, extraordinary. “Oh, man,” she said. “Thanks, Dad. Expensive wine is something I’ve never been able to indulge in.”

“Looks like that’s about to change.” He gave her the dad smile—eyes crinkled, mouth a perfect bow of affection—the indulgent look she used to live for.

Lyle Shelby was the family’s charming patriarch. He was the sun, blazing with passion and enthusiasm for life, and everyone else basked in his warmth. To win a word of praise was always the goal. He was so genuinely proud of his family that the worst punishment he ever doled out was disappointment. “We’ve missed you, C-Shell,” he said, smiling across the fire as he called her by the old family nickname.

She took another sip. “I’m really grateful I had a place to bring these poor kids.”

“They seem a little shell-shocked,” her mom said.

“They are. But believe me, they’re doing a lot better now.” She cringed, still hearing the echoes of Flick’s wailing cries for his mother and Addie’s gasping sobs those first few nights.

Caroline looked around at her family, their faces so familiar and dear to her. Despite the passage of time, the feeling of security, of balance, was as powerful now as it had been throughout her youth. She clenched her jaw to stave off tears of utter relief. And then she remembered she didn’t have to clench anymore.

She was home. She was safe.

Burning tears squeezed out on a wave of grief and stress, worry and uncertainty, fear and disappointment. And most of all, the utterly crushing knowledge that two little kids now belonged to her, and her alone.

She set down her wineglass and brushed off their concern. “Sorry,” she said, using her shirttail to dab at her face. “I’m all right. Just exhausted. Running on fumes.”

“Of course you are,” said her mother. “You’ll feel better tomorrow. Promise you’ll sleep in and let me look after the little ones.”

“I’d love to take you up on that,” said Caroline. “Tomorrow, though, I want to make sure I’m up when they are. I’ve lost count of all the different places they’ve awakened.” She tried to keep her voice steady as she added, “Poor kids. Their world’s been turned upside down.”

“It has,” Mom agreed, “and they’re lucky you were there to help.”

Caroline shook her head. “I’m awful. I should have seen what was happening. I can’t stop thinking about what I knew and what I didn’t know and what I refused to see.”

“Signs of domestic violence can be subtle,” Virginia pointed out.

“It wasn’t subtle. I saw bruises. And like an idiot, I let Angelique persuade me that it was nothing.” She stared into the flames, searching for answers she would probably never find. With an effort, she pulled her gaze and her mind back to her family.

“So that was my first clue that something was wrong,” she told them. “I never noticed signs of her drug use, either. I didn’t see how horrible things would get, so quickly. Maybe I didn’t want to probe deeper. And obviously I failed to ask the right questions.”

“You’re being really hard on yourself,” Virginia observed. “One thing I’ve learned since I started this new job is that people guard their secrets.”

Caroline pushed a stick into the fire, creating a flurry of sparks that climbed upward into the night. “You’re probably right, but I feel incredibly guilty. I was so focused on myself and my career that I refused to see what was right in front of me. I’ll never live down the idea that she was in danger and I didn’t see it. How will I ever stop regretting that?”

Mom came in for a hug, and somehow a box of Kleenex materialized. “I know, baby,” she said. “It must be overwhelming.”

“She was the one who was overwhelmed. How could I have missed the signs?”

Virginia gave her shoulder a nudge. “What the hell have you been designing lately? Hair shirts?”

“At least Mick Taylor wouldn’t rip off that design.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Virginia said.

“It seems like such a small thing compared to everything else that happened. It ended my career, and I thought it was the worst thing in the world. But this. God. I’ll never complain about work problems again.”