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“I’m sorry, Pen,” said Analise. “I know how much you love Julia and Dany.” To Dany she said, “And maybe I’m making the biggest mistake of my life, but I can’t marry you hoping that someday I’ll wake up and stop wondering what it would be like to give my daughter a mom and a dad—together.”

“And we didn’t have that?” he protested, standing. Dany thrust a hand at Penelope. “Have you asked Penny what she wants?”

“She’s my daughter, I’ll decide⁠—”

“Plenty of separated families make it work! She’s happy with us. You can work out a visitation schedule.”

“Taylor deserves more than that.”

His voice grew agitated. “You couldn’t decide this until just now?”

Melia sternly interrupted, “Dany.”

“What am I supposed to tell everyone,” Dany yelled, “that the bride jilted me at the altar for another man?”

Melia pulled Penelope out of the room and closed the door.

Analise cried, “No! I’m not running into his arms. I just need the time and space to figure this out!” She closed her eyes to shield his pain from her. “I’m sorry. I can tell everyone.” She opened them in time to see Dany yank open the door and walk out of her life. In the hallway stood Penelope wrapped inside Melia. Analise connected eyes with her mercurial daughter, not knowing what to expect. But Penelope rushed over and hugged her neck, saying repeatedly, “Ingen fara.” It’s okay. She clung to Penelope, thinking of Ulla. How this day was not meant to happen, not without the one person who still meant the world to her.

Melia entered and crossed to them, slow but agile in her ninth decade of life. She hunched over, placing a firm and loving palm on Analise’s face, thumbing away an errant tear. “Look at me.”

Analise obeyed, captured by Melia’s gaze. Its intensity shined like a clear summer sky, timeless, contrasting with the deep grooves of her porcelain skin and her silver hair. “Am I a horrible person?” Analise asked.

“Nein,” Melia negated in harsh German, and her eyes sharpened. “You are brave. Just like your mother. I’ve told you about the day I first met you in the hospital after you were born. You remember?”

Analise grinned faintly. “Yes, of course, you said she wouldn’t let go of me.”

“Not for a single moment.” And yet Melia shook her head, her expression transformed into one of fierce resolution. “It was not your mother that couldn’t let you go.” She touched Analise’s heart. “Liebchen, she is your sister.”

Chapter Sixty-Three

Ulla

Ulla cussed loudly in Swedish. She prided herself on solving cars, could assemble one from scraps, and had done so many times. If it didn’t start, there was always a solution. The spark wasn’t igniting, the pistons weren’t oiled, the carburetor didn’t have the correct ratio.

Now had to be the time Tina was stumping her? When Ulla, finally, at the eleventh hour was going to crash Analise’s wedding, beg forgiveness, and somehow find a way to vomit the horror she carried the past thirty years.

Damn car. Like an enigmatic human that hadn’t come with a manual. Ulla emerged from the hood coated in snowflakes and kicked the tire with a closed-mouth scream.

She looked up, and her heart caught in her throat. “How did I not hear you?” she said to Analise. “What are you doing?” The vision of Analise in her gown plucked Ulla’s chest, sent pangs reverberating, and loosed her emotions. Penelope was with her, too, dressed in her bridesmaid gown, hair and makeup done. A contrast to the dingy coveralls she’d tossed over her dress to keep it from getting mucked.

Analise’s expression was unreadable, and she tightened the faux fur capelet around her shoulders. “I’ll never forgive you for keeping Penelope from her father.”

Ulla steeled herself.

“But I forgive you for keeping me from mine.”

Ulla pressed her fingers to her mouth. Then planted her hands on her hips and nearly doubled over.

“Peter Johansson,” Analise said, her face now revealing a deep sympathy, and she sent a backward glance to the Pontiac, where Melia sat in the passenger seat, watching. “She told me everything. He’s the one you were really afraid of all this time. The reason you were able to pass off as my mother in the hospital, and change the birth certificate, was because the U.S. Marshal Service helped you do it, and they covered up the murder to keep people from asking questions. No one wanted him to know I survived. They were going to put him away for life.”

Peter. His name sent Ulla reeling. “Isa, he never would’ve found us if not for Linnea. I hated her. I needed to get as far away from her as I could, and I didn’t care if it meant taking you away from Taylor, but there was Melia and Shorty—” Ulla straightened and turned to the house. Somehow, she saw Ronja step out. “I felt her here the most. Like she could protect us.” Ulla faced Analise. “And besides, I was always notified when he was due for parole.” She shuddered with grief, trying to contain the sobs, but Analise freed them when she embraced Ulla with a tender force. Ulla caught her breath, walling back the images of Ronja’s murder. “When he was released a few years ago, I didn’t have the heart to uproot you and Penelope from Dany. But he never came looking for me.”

“You didn’t have to hold onto this, Mamma, not after all this time,” Analise implored. Snowflakes dotted her thick, wet eyelashes.

Ulla remembered calling herself “Mamma.” Something she’d seen mothers do with their babies. It was foreign and uncomfortable, but calling Analise, “Isa,” was organic. She’d rock her as a baby and imagine Ronja singing along the name of her own baby sister she once spoke of: Analise, lise, lise, analisa, isa . . . Ulla felt Penelope touch her back. She unhooked an arm from Analise, bringing her into their embrace and exhaled long and deep.

Two cars slowed on their street and stopped in front of the house. A silver Lexus RX and a black Lincoln Continental. The three of them exchanged befuddled glances.