She hadn’t had a date for the first three years the children lived with her, and after that there had been some minor relationships, but never a serious one. She didn’t have time. She was too busy taking care of her nieces and nephew and establishing herself as an architect. There was no room for a man in her life. Her closest friend, Whitney Coleman, scolded her for it regularly. They had been friends since college, and Whitney was married to a doctor in New Jersey, with three kids of her own, younger than the Marshall children. She had been a source of endless support for Annie, and invaluable advice, and now all she wanted was for Annie to think of herself. She had thought of everyone else for thirteen years. The time had moved like a bullet in the night. The early years had been a blur, but after that, Annie had truly enjoyed the children she had raised. She had lived up to the vow she had made Jane and she had gotten the children grown up, and all three were doing well.

“Now what?” Whitney said to her after Kate moved into the dorm. “What are you going to do for yourself?” It was a question Annie hadn’t asked herself in thirteen years.

“What am I supposed to do? Stand on a street corner and whistle for a guy, like a cab?” She was thirty-nine years old and not panicked about being single. She didn’t mind. Things had turned out differently than she’d planned, but she was happy.

The kids were all good people, her architecture firm was a success, and she had more work than she could handle. She was doing well, and so were they. Ted had just applied to law school and had gotten a new apartment with a friend from college, and at twenty-five, Liz had just landed a job at Vogue, after working for three years at Elle. Each of them was on a career path. Annie had done her job. The only thing she didn’t have was a life of her own, other than work. They were her life, and she insisted that was all she needed.