My husband died on our wedding day. Fell off a cliff while my best friend Luke watched. I plummeted into a world of nightmares, a hurricane of my in-laws’ demands for his grandmother’s ring and other things that didn’t belong to them. A deep and murky pool threatened to drown me in memories of my mother, who died when I was a teenager. Since then my sister Phoebe had mothered me, and her continued control of my life drove a wedge between us. My still-grieving father dissipated even further into the background. And Luke, who had always been my rock, vanished in his own pain.

I knew I had to break the surface. I knew I had to learn to open myself to possibility. To sift through the dreams I had bottled up long before I met Andrew. There was a facet of myself that craved a more meaningful life, but it meant leaving the people I loved. Could I ride the tide of grief and rediscover the paths before me? Would I ever be my own person? Or would I simply stop swimming and sink?