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everything was clear in my mind. Now, however, I find myself
struggling and I’m not sure where to begin.
I can start by saying this: I’ve come to believe that in everyone’s life,
there’s one undeniable moment of change, a set of circumstances
that suddenly alters everything. For me, that moment was meeting
Alex. Though I don’t know when or where you’re reading this, I
know it means he loves you. It also means he wants to share his life
with you, and if nothing else, we will always have that in common.
My name, as you probably know, is Carly, but for most of my life,
my friends called me Jo…
Katie stopped reading and looked at the letter in her hands,
unable to absorb its words. Taking a deep breath, she reread those
words: for most of my life, my friends called me Jo…
She gripped the pages, feeling the memory she’d been struggling
to retrieve come into focus at last. Suddenly, she was back in the
master bedroom on the night of the fire. She felt the strain in her
arms and back as she heaved the rocking chair through the
window, felt the surge of panic as she wrapped Josh and Kristen
in the comforter, only to hear the loud splintering sound behind
her. With sudden clarity, she remembered whirling around and
seeing the portrait hanging on the wall, the portrait of Alex’s wife.
At the time, she’d been confused, her nerves short-circuiting in the
hell of smoke and fear.
But she’d seen the face. Yes, she’d even taken a step closer to get a
better look.
That looks a lot like Jo, she remembered thinking, even if her mind
hadn’t been able to process it. But now, as she sat on the porch
beneath a slowly darkening sky, she knew with certainty that she
was wrong. Wrong about everything. She raised her eyes to gaze
at Jo’s cottage again.