“Yes.”
He nodded slowly, filing it away.
After a moment Naomi stood and passed Grace carefully to their mom, who took the baby with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times. Then Naomi crossed the kitchen and wrapped both arms around Rowan from behind, her chin resting on her shoulder the way she used to when they were girls.
Rowan closed her eyes.
“None of this is your fault,” Naomi murmured.
“It feels like it is.”
“I know.” Naomi squeezed once before letting go. “But feelings lie sometimes.”
“I’m going to call Micah.” Caleb started to leave the room but paused at the doorway and looked back at Rowan. “We’re going to figure this out. All of it.”
The confidence in his voice was so steady and so certain that it nearly undid her.
Then he was gone. Naomi and Millie also both muttered excuses about things they needed to do. They also disappeared, taking Baby Grace with them.
She knew the truth.
They were giving her time alone with her mom.
Her mother refilled her coffee without asking and sat down beside her.
Rowan stared at the pond through the window, the water still beneath the pale sky. “I really made a mess of things.”
“You got scared, and you ran.” Ruby’s voice was matter-of-fact, not unkind. “That’s a human thing to do.”
“I should have stayed. I should have gone to the police that night.”
“Maybe. But you can’t undo what’s already done, sweetheart. You can only decide what you do next.”
Rowan swallowed hard. “I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”
Ruby looked at her as if she could see straight through to the part Rowan was trying to keep hidden.
“Yes, you do.” Her voice softened. “You’ve always known. That’s the thing about the way you were raised—the right thing has a way of making itself known whether you want it to or not.”
Rowan didn’t say anything.
Her mom reached over and covered Rowan’s hand with hers. “The question was never what’s right. It’s whether you trust God enough to do it even when you’re terrified of what it might cost you.”
Emotion rose sharp and sudden in Rowan’s throat.
Because her mother was correct.
She’d known what the right thing was since she’d stood in that hallway and watched a man die. She’d known it every mile of the drive across the country. She’d known it standing across from two detectives an hour ago and choosing her words carefully instead of simply saying everything.
Fear had never been confusion.
It had always just been fear.
Her phone buzzed on the table, and she looked at the screen.
It was another news alert.
She opened it anyway.
