Daisy’s heart squeezed. “Her wedding dress fitting?”

Her mom nodded once. “It was two days before the wedding. Katie was…she was texting Lincoln.”

Daisy’s heart squeezed harder.

“You see all those statistics,” Brenda said, her voice a whisper now. “About the dangers of texting while driving, and it just doesn’t feel real. You think drinking and driving, falling asleep at the wheel, but you don’t think a split second of looking at your phone when you should be watching the road…She veered just a little to the left, and her little Honda was no match for the big SUV. My only daughter. Gone.”

“I’m so sorry,” Daisy said. Ineffective, insufficient words, but true. Daisy was sorry. Sorry that it had happened to Katie. To Brenda. To Lincoln.

“I lost my daughter that day,” Brenda said again. “I know that sounds callous, and I don’t mean that I don’t love the Katie that’s in this room right now with every ounce of my being. But the little girl I raised, the woman who couldn’t wait to marry Lincoln. She’s gone. I love this Katie no less, but I don’t pretend that she knows me from the nurse, or the nurse from Lincoln. Or night from day, or even waking from sleep.”

Daisy glanced down at her forgotten coffee cup. “Surely she knows—”

“No,” Brenda said, cutting Daisy a kind but firm look. “She doesn’t. We’re fortunate she didn’t lose the ability to breathe and swallow on her own. It gives her a certain amount of freedom throughout the day from machines, but beyond responding reflexively to loud noises, she’s not aware of her surroundings. Doctors are quite clear on this, but more important, I know it in my own heart.”

Daisy shuffled the coffees again to free up a hand, and rested her fingers on Katie’s mom’s arm with a comforting squeeze, knowing no words would offer comfort.

Brenda Lyons looked down in surprise at the touch, before she studied Daisy’s face more carefully. “He wanted to marry her, you know. After the accident. Even after the diagnosis, when it was clear she wasn’t going to come back to us. Said love was eternal, and he wouldn’t walk away because she’d suffered a trauma.”

“Mrs. Lyons,” Daisy said, “you don’t have to warn me off. I promise you I don’t in the least have a romantic interest in Lincoln. We’re friends, and not ones that know each other that well.”

“I wasn’t warning you off,” Brenda said, looking back at Lincoln and Katie. “I merely…you’re the first woman he’s ever brought here. The first person he’s ever brought here, although his parents stopped by occasionally in the early days.”

As though finally sensing that he was the topic of conversation, or perhaps wondering where Daisy had gone off to on her overlong coffee run, Lincoln looked over his shoulder, jolting a little in surprise as he observed Brenda and Daisy speaking.

Daisy watched as Lincoln stood, saying something to Katie, touching her hand before he came toward the open door.

“Brenda! I’m so glad you came, I haven’t seen you in a couple months.” He wrapped her in a warm hug, and Daisy felt the now familiar lump in her throat as she watched Lincoln embrace the woman who would have been his mother-in-law.

Lincoln looked at her and smiled, then down at the coffees. “One of those for me?”

Daisy handed it over. “It’s a mocha. I took a gamble that maybe you liked your coffee as sweet as your cocktails.”

He laughed. “Says the woman who matched me shot for shot of Jack Daniel’s last night. But yeah, you’d be right on the coffee.”

Daisy shot a nervous look at Brenda out of the corner of her eye, but while the other woman seemed to be studying them, there was no judgment in her eyes. No accusation.

“Where’s Glen hiding?” Lincoln said, glancing around.

“He came by yesterday. There was a big golf tournament at the club today. He said to tell you hello.”

Lincoln nodded. “Give him my best. You guys are okay?”

“We are,” Brenda said, with a warm smile for Lincoln. “We’re happy.”

Daisy didn’t think she was imagining Brenda’s slight emphasis on the word happy. Almost as though she was giving Lincoln permission. No, more than that. Like she was urging him to be happy.

There was a moment of awkward silence, and Daisy, ever the peacemaker, cleared her throat. “Shall we see what happens next in that story?”

Lincoln glanced down at her. “I think Katie’s had enough. I’ll just say good-bye, and then we can head back to the city?”

“I’m not in a hurry,” she said, rushing to reassure him. It was bad enough that she’d escaped to go get coffees so as not to cry in front of him. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was eager to leave.

His expression was distant as he looked toward the bed where Katie lay unmoving, then shook his head as though to clear the devastating thoughts. “I’m good. I’ll just be a minute.”

He stepped back into the room, going to Katie’s bed. Daisy meant to give them their privacy, she really did, but it stole her heart, the way he was with his fiancée. She watched as he gathered the other woman’s body to him in a hug, cradling her head carefully with his palm.

His lips moved, whispering something in her ear before gently laying her back down and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Daisy lifted a finger to flick away a tear. “He really comes every month?” she asked Katie’s mother quietly.