“You can ask about them at the hospital, too,” the woman says. “Hopefully they’ve already been rescued, or they’ll be there soon.” Her voice is even, and she pats Ash’s knee. “You two are lucky. You’re going to be fine.”
Fine, fine, fine.The word echoes in Caro’s exhausted brain. It makes her think of the fine, slender bones in the canyon, of the empty eye sockets looking back at her. She feels as if something began stirring the moment they came near the bones, as if there’s the slightest presence haunting her now.
Which means she’s exhausted. Caro doesn’t believe in ghosts.
But still, the question hovers over her.
Who did we find?
21
BEFORE
ASH IS PRETTY SUREthat her husband thinks she’s having an affair.
It’s golden hour, and she’s out in her office in the flower barn. She’s hoping that Wade won’t get it into his mind to come out and see what she’s up to. (Why would he? She often works late, and he hasn’t come out to the barn in ages. She’s being paranoid.) She made dinner, fed everyone, and cleaned up. The girls are out with friends. Wade is watching a basketball game on TV.
The flower barn is a converted carriage house down the driveway from the main house. When Ash had had the idea to resurrect the gardens and sell flowers as a side business, Wade had wanted to help her, was proud of her fledgling idea. He spent his spare hours doing thankless tasks like hauling the old frames and tools that couldn’t be salvaged to the dump, helping her build a greenhouse, going over flower options with her, and sanding and painting the splintery wood of the barn. They’d spent hours out here together working, chatting or in companionable silence, the baby monitor propped up on a metal stool so they could listen to the girls. They’d eaten meals out here. Made love on the old sofa they’d brought out to the barn. One memorable night they’d fallen asleep there, Ash tucked up against his chest, both so exhausted that neither of them had moved allnight long. They’d only been awakened when baby Claire’s loudsquawkof indignation crackled through the baby monitor.
Ash opens the camera on her phone so she can get a sneak peek at what she’ll look like on the call. She’s left the curtains open so that the soft evening light can stream in. She does not look as tired as she feels, thank goodness. Her heart lifts, which feels so wonderful it scares her.
Ash is pretty sure that she needs this more than the other two.
It’s her fifth conversation with Hope and Caro, and she’s been looking forward to it since the moment the last one ended. When she gets their texts between book club meetings, she wants to drop everything. Sometimes she does, turning her back on a tableful of flowers or an Excel spreadsheet or her own children to read what Caro or Hope have said. Sometimes, she laughs out loud.
She’s in love, that’s for certain. Or infatuation. And she knows it can’t last, but she’s damned if she’s not going to get everything she possibly can out of it while it does.
Because, really. How long can this actually go on? How long is she going to be in a book club—how long is she going to befriends—with these extraordinary women? Carolina, who is an outright doctor and who is so cool, calm, and collected she makes Ash feel that way, too? Like she responds to Caro, sees a way to be that she might dare to try on? Caro, who is effortlessly lovely and loved, her doting husband always wandering through the background of her screen, who is such a good person that she helps people every dayfor her job? Ash does some nice things, it’s true, like making up the leftover flowers into bouquets for women’s shelters and old folks’ homes, but her business itself is very much for gain. Sometimes she feels like all she thinks about is profit margins and seedlings and color palettes for LikeMe wedding season posts.
And, of course, there is the huge revelation that happened along the way: Their sparkling, winsome, wicked, hilarious, wise friend is actuallyHope Hanover, the movie star.
Ash has kept Caro’s and Hope’s existence from Wade and the girls.Well, that’s not exactly true. They know she’s in a virtual book club, but they don’t ask questions about it. Mostly they want to know what’s for dinner or when she’ll be done with work or if she knows where the car keys are or if she can make up a bouquet for one of the hygienists at the practice who recently lost their mother…
Ash wants this time. This time with her friends each month. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, she knows.It is.She already has her flowers, after all. That’s what everyone says. “I love the way you’ve made this happen for yourself,” a woman interviewing Ash told her admiringly. “I love that Wade lets you do this,” his mother always says when the subject of Three Sisters Flowers comes up. “It’s such a lovely hobby.”This “lovely hobby” paid off Wade’s student loans!Ash wants to scream.It makes our lives possible as much as his job does!When she’d been interviewed for a local magazine, they’d put her on the cover with her arms folded and her head tipped to the side, standing in front of a table full of flowers and wearing a patterned apron.FLOWERCHILD,the headline ran,ORBOSSBABE?Ash still finds herself cringing at the thought of it.
The girls, of course, do not think she is a boss babe. They think she is their mom, and that’s great with Ash because that’s what she is. She does, however, wish now and then that they thought she was atinybit cool for doing what she’s done.
Would the girls even thinkHopewas cool? Or would they think that she wasn’t relevant? She’s not an influencer, at least not the way they seem to admire, and she’s not in her twenties.
Ash looks at her computer. It’s time. And within seconds there they are, on-screen. Caro, her lean, intelligent face and kind eyes. Hope, grinning away. That devilish tilt to one side of her mouth when she smiles is so appealing it makes Ash’s heart hurt. For a minute, there’s a flicker, as if another screen is about to pop up, but it’s gone before Ash can blink.
Ash is trying to figure out where Hope is today from her background—is she in her California home in Santa Monica, a gorgeous old Spanishrevival that, yes, Ash googled after catching glimpses of it in the background of their calls? Or is she somewhere else? Could she beon location?
“Wow,” Hope says, at the same moment that Caro says,“Ohhh,”in a reverent tone that Ash hasn’t heard her use before. It takes Ash a minute to realize that they’re both staring at her—not her, actually, butherbackground, what’s behind her. Ash turns to take it in. The light is streaming gold through the window and perfectly illuminating the rows of Nicholas dahlias she’d cut earlier.
“Is that the flower barn?” Caro asks.
“It is.” Ash’s heart leaps.
“It is absolutely dreamy,” Hope says.
“You must be so proud,” Caro says, at the same time Hope says, “You must be exhausted.”
“Thankyou,” Ash says, because that is the truth of it, plain and simple. Sheisproud of what she’s made. Sheisexhausted. “I love it, and at the same time I want to set it all on fire.” The moment the words are out of her mouth she wishes them back, but she’s shocked to see that her friends are nodding vigorously. “Amen,” Hope says, and Caro says, “Ditto.”
For the first time in years, Ash is seen. And more than that—she’sunderstood.
