KATHLEEN McCLEARY

I’m not running away, Susannah told herself. After all, what she was doing could hardly be called “running away” when she was bringing her kids with her—including the child who, to be honest, she’d rather leave behind. She wasn’t leaving Matt, even though half the town thought so. This wasn’t about Matt, although he could have been a little more involved—okay, a lot more involved. She was doing exactly what she had sworn to do from that moment fourteen years ago when the nurse had first placed fierce newborn Katie into her arms: She was protecting her children.

The ferry began to move, and Susannah gripped the green iron railing with both hands and tried to still the fear rising in her chest. The blue-gray water rose in soft swells around the boat, and small whitecaps crowned the waves. It’s going to be okay, she said to herself. The breeze caught her hair and whipped it around her face and for a moment she forgot her fear and felt a sudden sense of freedom. I’m really doing this. I’m leaving all that behind.