In acknowledgment of his personal growth, I got him a T-shirt that says THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE.

It didn’t change what he’d done, of course, but it mattered.

Plus, he’d started dating someone—the director of the women’s shelter, in fact, which improved his personality quite a bit. I could almost see why people liked him now. Almost.

* * *

I WANT TO tell you that Diana managed to permanently kick her cancer through sassiness and sheer force of will, but she didn’t. Even before the wedding, the tumor had started growing again, and she already had another grim diagnosis.

But, in that way of hers, she didn’t tell me.

She let me have that one beautiful, breezy night to stand in my white silk gown and drink champagne and look fully forward to all the blessings that lay ahead.

She never officially told me, actually. She never spoke the words. She knew that once the tumor was back in action, I’d figure it out. In the end, we got a year more than we’d hoped for. And she knew that neither one of us took even a single day of that extra time for granted.

She’d hoped to see a grandbaby before she was gone, but we couldn’t get that done in time. I did manage to get pregnant, though—just barely—before we lost her. Somehow, she knew before I did.

“Guess what?” she said, on the day before she died.

“What?”

“You’re pregnant.”

The rookie and I had been trying for a baby—with enthusiasm—but nothing had taken yet. Several months of clockwork-like periods had left me a little discouraged.

I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t feel pregnant.”

“But you are,” she said, closing her eyes. “And it’s a girl. And you will love her more than you love yourself. And you’ll disappoint her, too—and never live up to the standards you set for yourself. But don’t worry. She’ll be okay.”

“Yes,” I said, shoving tears off my cheeks. “She will.”

Diana did wind up leaving Wallace’s house to me, and the rookie and I wound up moving in, and we now have two toddlers ransacking the place on a daily basis. But we figure if that place could handle Samuel and Chastity McKee, and those eight children, and all the countless fish they pickled, it can put up with a few Hanwell-Callaghans.

We kept the pottery shop open for a while, to sell off what was left of Diana’s stock to fans and friends. Some of the loveliest, most special pieces, we kept to display in an antique hutch with glass doors that lock with a skeleton key. Those, we’ll hold on to. But the rest of them, we use. She wanted us to use them. They are the bowls and plates our kids are growing up eating on.

Eventually, the rookie converted the old shop into a lively little restaurant with seven tables. We stay open year-round, and there’s always a line out the door. DeStasio helps in summer, during the busy season. It’s hard work, but the rookie doesn’t mind.

And yes, we all still call him the rookie.

I went back to my job in Lillian. Eventually. After they groveled for a while.

It’s actually a pretty good schedule for a mom. I only work two days a week—twenty-four-hour days, but still … Josie managed to have two more babies, and her mystery husband wound up shifting jobs after that to be home a lot more. Her littlest one and my oldest were born just days apart, and we’ve worked out a kid-sharing co-op to cover the evenings when I’m working and the days when Josie is. Between us all—as well as the world-famous C-shift babysitting crew of Lillian’s bravest—we get it done.

It really does take a village. And a half.

* * *

SO I FORGAVE my mother. And my dad did, too. And the rookie forgave himself for once having been a very dumb kid. And I forgave DeStasio for recently having been a very dumb adult. And all in all, as a group, we pretty much mastered forgiveness.

I even read a whole book on the psychology of post-traumatic growth, and how, in the wake of the terrible, traumatic, unfair, cruel, gaping wounds that life inflicts on us, we can become wiser and stronger than we were before.

Am I wiser and stronger now?

Without question. Even in the wake of it all.

I’ve spent so much time wishing that what happened never happened.

But it did. And the question I try to focus on is, What now?

Now that I’m older, and better, and have done so much healing, I do try to think about the bigger picture. I pay attention to politics, and I vote for candidates who care about safeguarding women. I taught self-defense classes in Texas, and I’ll teach them again here once my kids get a little older and I have more time. I always make sure in my job to treat victims of assault with special compassion and tenderness.

And I’ve started volunteering with a nonprofit group that asks survivors of rape and assault to go into schools, prisons, and colleges, and tell their stories. To girls—but, equally as important, to boys.

It’s terrifying.

I go once a month without fail, and I have to stop on the drive home every single time to throw up by the side of the road.

But I do it anyway.

I do it because I believe that human connection is the only thing that will save us. I do it because I believe we learn empathy when we listen to other people’s stories and feel their pain with them. I do it because I know for certain that our world has an empathy problem with women, and this is one brave thing I can do to help fix it.

Honestly, I tell myself, if I could share my story with DeStasio, I can share it with anyone.

I hope those kids hear me. I hope they come away resolved to be better people. To be more careful with one another. To try like hell to use their pain to help others rather than harm them.

Maybe they get it, and maybe they don’t. All I can do is try.

But when I get home, Owen is always there, waiting for me. He makes sure he has dinner ready—something warm and soothing and buttery. On those nights, I play with our kids and kiss their chubby little bellies until bedtime, and then he takes them up to their little attic bedroom with pom-pom curtains and tucks them in. When he comes back down, he brings me a blanket and a mug of tea, and we sit on the sofa and talk about the day. He tries his best to make me laugh. Sometimes he gives me a foot rub with lemon-scented lotion. Sometimes we watch bad TV.

He can’t fix it, but he tries to make it better.

And then, when it’s our bedtime at last, he falls asleep in my arms, and I fall asleep in his.

Unless I can’t get to sleep right away.

Then, just like I’ve done for so long, I close my eyes and imagine making chocolate chip cookies. I measure out the chips. I crack the eggs. I watch it all churn in the mixer. It’s the same as it always was. Except now it’s different.

Now, it’s not just me baking cookies alone. Now, I always imagine my sixteen-year-old self there, too—right beside me.

When the cookies are ready, we pull them out, sit side by side on the sofa, and eat them—still warm and gooey—and drink glasses of ice cold milk. Sometimes I put my arm around her. Sometimes I say compassionate, understanding, encouraging things. Sometimes I lean in and promise her with all the conviction I possess that what happened to her won’t destroy her life. That in the end, she will heal, and find a new way to be okay.

She never believes me, but I say it anyway.