Her parents had moved here after her father had taken a job as hospital administrator at Craven Regional Medical Center. Once Sarah’s divorce had been finalized, they’d begun to prod her to move down as well. Knowing how her mother was, she’d put it off for a year. Not that Sarah didn’t love her mother, it was just that her mother could sometimes be…draining, for lack of a better word. Still, for peace of mind she’d finally taken their advice, and so far, thankfully, she hadn’t regretted it. It was exactly what she needed, but as charming as this town was, there was no way she saw herself living here forever. New Bern, she’d learned almost right away, was not a town for singles. There weren’t many places to meet people, and the ones her own age that she had met were already married, with families of their own. As in many southern towns, there was still a social order that defined town life. With most people married, it was hard for a single woman to find a place to fit in, or even to start. Especially someone who was divorced and completely new to the area. It was, however, an ideal place to raise children, and sometimes as she walked, Sarah liked to imagine that things had turned out differently for her. As a young girl, she’d always assumed she would have the kind of life she wanted: marriage, children, a home in a neighborhood where families gathered in the yards on Friday evenings after work was finished for the week. That was the kind of life she’d had as a child, and it was the kind she wanted as an adult. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Things in life seldom did, she’d come to understand.