Emily POV “So, I was thinking, how about we go to the Central Park Zoo after I pick you up from school?” I ask Liam with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. He isn’t happy, and he’s been walking around with a frown on his face ever since I told him Jacob had to leave in a hurry for his Brazil trip. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “Come on, it will be fun! I’ll even throw in a corn dog to sweeten the deal,” I suggest. “Oh, okay,” he says, and I see glimmers of a smile forming. That afternoon, instead of taking the car to get Liam from school, I opt for the subway. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a train, I need to feel the heartbeat of the city coursing through my veins again. Besides, I bet Liam will love the adventure of using an alternative route to get to the zoo. I really don’t want to deal with the awkwardness of running into Thaddeus, so I time it so that I get to school just as the last bell rings. Running towards me, Liam’s like a ball of pent up energy. “Can we go to th

Jacob POV You know that quote, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”? I think it was Abraham Lincon that said it. That’s exactly how I feel entering the apartment after my trip to Sao Paulo. I feel like a fraud, walking over to Emily and Liam and embracing them as if nothing is wrong. I don’t know when I became this person. Maybe it was that day in the doctor’s office, hearing about Emily’s diagnosis for the first time, or maybe it was when I stepped off the plane from Brazil. I breathe in her sweet smell and whisper into her hair, “I missed you so much.” She doesn’t realize the weight of my words and says it back to me. Liam is oblivious to my internal struggle, asking me what I brought him from my trip. “Ahhh, I got you this,” I say and pull out a plush toy from my backpack. “Awesome,” he says and grabs it out of my hand. “It’s so soft, Dad. What kind of animal is it?” “It’s a jagua

Nancy POV This isn’t the life I imagined for myself. When I was younger, my mom used to constantly remind me that I’d amount to nothing. When she happened upon my gift of using the power of persuasion to my advantage, she jumped on it. Being the silly girl I was, and desperate for her approval, I went along with her plans to trick willing victims out of their money. I didn’t know at the time that she was just using me—I was just another pawn on her chess board. After years of scamming and hustling people, I grew tired of her ways. Instead of splitting our profits equally, she’d skim a little off the top for me and take the rest for herself. Blinded by our supposed mother-daughter bond, I went along with it… Until Jessica happened. I must have been about eighteen years old. My mother and my father had just gone through a terrible divorce. He never cared much for me, so the split didn’t affect me in any way. Sometimes, I think his disdain towards me stemmed from the suspicion that I

Emily POV The incandescent lights of the drugstore throw a pale light over the shop shelves, making everything appear dirty and past their sell-by dates. It took me two weeks to make it here. Two weeks of incessant bouts of nausea and lightheadedness. At first, I thought it was the supposed tummy bug still working its way out of my system, but how could it take that long for my body to get rid of it? Another thing I can’t fathom is the involuntary muscle spasms I’ve been getting. They occur at the most unexpected times and I have no way of controlling them. The other day, while taking Liam to the park, I lost my balance and fell in the pathway. It’s like I’m overcome with a sense of inertia, and I lose the coordination to do basic things like walking or just sitting down. Flashbacks to the night before Jacob asked me to marry him are constant reminders that we didn’t use protection. We’re always so careful. On that one occasion, we just forgot. Standing in the feminine hygiene ai

Emily POV My body is rigid. All I feel is the coolness of the floor against my face. The apartment is silent, a sign that Jacob and Liam haven’t returned yet. I have no idea how long I’ve been passed out. When I look through Jacob’s bedroom window, the sun is setting in the sky. It takes me a while to move, my joints aching from being in this position for a while. Somehow I must have tripped, lost my balance and fallen on my head. I put my hand on the part of my scalp where it hurts and feel a bump. How did I get here? And then I remember my confrontation with Nancy. The black and white photo of Jacob and Jocasta when they were kids is still on the bed, a reminder that Nancy was right all along—I can’t compete with the memory of a ghost. I sit on Jacob’s bed with the photo in my hand, wondering if I close my eyes long enough, this will all go away. But when I open them again, there it is. The truth in black and white. I tell myself not to jump to conclusions; it’s just a photo.