Page 62 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“It was Grimshaw Pemberly. At the funeral. With the statue of Mary Magdalene looking on.” Each sentence was recited like a gameof Clue. “There. I confessed. Are you happy now? Can I cry into the rest of this pie in peace now?”

She had no idea how she made it to the couch or how an actual cup of chamomile tea—the last of her grandmother’s stash—was placed in her hand. Or why there was suddenly a blanket over her shoulders, which were shaking, shaking, shaking in a way that looked like crying but felt like worse. If she had to guess, she’d have said that Chrissie had clicked into full-on martyr mode. Her saccharine soul had been prepping for this moment for years—for her whole life, in fact.

She was wrong.

“Drink that, Scarlett.” Mitchell spoke softly but gruffly, his voice belonging to a man twice his age. “It has an obscene amount of sugar in it, but you look like you’re about to pass out. In fact, I think youdidpass out for a second there.”

“Where’s Chrissie?”

Scarlett used the lengthy pause that ensued to sip the tea, which was hot enough to burn her tongue. Instead of spitting it out, she let the burning water swirl around her mouth, scalding everything until it felt almost as numb as the rest of her.

“She, uh, went outside,” Mitchell said. He jerked his head toward the double doors on the far end of the apartment, which opened up onto a minuscule balcony overlooking the parking lot. From her position on the couch, Scarlett could make out a flash of Chrissie’s hair but little else. “She said she needed some air.”

“That’s right. A little oxygen, a moment to reflect, and she’ll be back to her usual self.” Scarlett was unable to hide the bitterness in her tone, but that might have been because of the first-degree mouth burns. “I can’t wait to see how she blames herself for this.”

“Scarlett, that’s not fair.”

She knew it wasn’t. That was the whole point.Noneof this was fair.

“Do you think maybe we should post someone below to catch herin case she jumps?” Scarlett asked. “I don’t think I have the emotional capacity to attend another funeral so soon after the last one. I bet Grimshaw wouldn’t mind, though. He keeps texting me, wanting to know when we can hook up like that again.”

Mitchell gave her a disgusted look before snatching the tea away from her, hissing sharply as the hot water scalded the backs of his hands. “Look at her shoulders, Scarlett. She’s out there sobbing.Sobbing.”

She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to know. But there was such an aura of command around Mitchell—annoying little Mitchell—that she had no choice but to do as he said. And the moment she saw the way Chrissie’s whole body heaved, as if every breath came at a cost, she wished she hadn’t given in.

She’dneverseen Chrissie cry like that before. Not one tear had she shed for her dead brother. Not a single streak of mascara had darkened her eyes after Grandma had been laid to rest. When calamity struck, there was a stoicism to Chrissie that seemed to strengthen her from within.

But Scarlett had done the unthinkable. Scarlett had done the one thing that broke her.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Scarlett whispered. Her own eyes started to fill again. “Mitchell, I don’t know how to fix this.”

“I don’t think youcanfix it,” he said, his voice as cold as the blood running through Scarlett’s veins. “What the hell is wrong with you, Scarlett? It’s bad enough that you left the funeral with my stupid cousin. Why did you have to go and tell Chrissie about it? And in such a way?”

That, at least, she had an answer for. She got to her feet, surprised to find that her legs held her weight without a single tremor.

“Don’t go out there,” Mitchell warned. “Give the poor girl a minute to herself.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” She strode to the bathroom and pulledthe pregnancy test out from under the towel. She was tempted to squeeze her eyes shut or shove the plastic under a cascade of running water to render the results null and void, but she didn’t. She needed to see those two pink lines for herself—to realize the full enormity of what she’d done.

Her legs continued not shaking as she reentered the living room and placed the evidence on the coffee table next to the still-steaming tea. It was her voice that did that instead.

“I’m pregnant,” she said. “And as I’m sure you can guess, the baby is Grimshaw’s.”

Chapter Twenty-OneChicago, Illinois

Present Day

Chrissie knew she’d been found out the moment they walked into the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel.

Luxury accommodations had never been her thing. The sleek marble and shining gold accents, the upholstery that was too expensive to sit on, the way everyone talked in hushed, muted tones—it all reminded her too much of her childhood. If she wanted a sterile mausoleum where sincerity went to die, she knew exactly where to get it and not pay five hundred bucks a night for the privilege, thank you very much.

“Don’t get mad, but I booked us a suite. After the past few days, I figured we’ve earned it.” Scarlett’s arms wound around Chrissie from behind. Since the breast cancer disclosure, Scarlett had eschewed the molded bras she’d been wearing the entire trip. The flat of her chest pressed against Chrissie’s back in a way that felt achingly real. “According to the lady I talked to, the bathtub in there is like something out of an Icelandic architecture magazine. I plan to get you justdrunk enough to let me do a photo shoot we can send to Walsh. Is he more of a leg man or a breast man, do you think?”

Chrissie let herself back in the warmth of Scarlett’s hug for exactly ten seconds before detaching herself. “He’s a personality man.”

Scarlett snorted. “Of course he is. I bet he used to read his dad’s oldPlayboysfor the articles, too. Do you want to head up straightaway, or should we grab a bite to eat first?”

The moment of truth had arrived.