"I promise."
He studied me. "She's sick."
The sentence landed like a stone.
"How sick?"
He turned back toward the station. "You'll see."
Fifteen minutes later, I followed Evan's dented blue car down quiet back roads. The sun was sinking when we reached a small yellow house with peeling shutters and a porch crowded with potted herbs.
A woman stood behind the screen door.
Even before Evan parked, I knew.
Seventeen years had changed Nina.
Her hair was shorter, with gray near her temples.
She was thinner than I remembered, and one hand gripped the doorframe as if standing took effort. But her eyes were the same. Those dark, searching eyes that had found me at the end of an aisle and promised to choose me.
I stepped out of the car, and she covered her mouth.
"Jasper," she breathed.
My name in her voice nearly put me on my knees.
