Please.The word shrank with each repetition, smaller and smaller.Please, please, please.
Until they were gone. And I was alone.
Now I give Dad a squeeze and climb into the driver’s seat, and Hannah and I weave our way through the winding roads of Sherman Ranch along the river. Hannah is still immersed in her phone when we come upon the bend, when the river widens into The Hollow, the limestone ledges bleached by sun. The well, an unblinking eye of sapphire blue. I flex my fingers on the wheel, swallow back that feeling of bile rising up my esophagus.
Hannah looks up from her phone. “Everyone is talking about how badass you are, Mom,” she says, and I can hear the pride in her voice. “I mean, where did that even come from?”
I have never been a brave person. But I look at Hannah now, at her new shiny, soft curls, at the makeup she’s used to cover the freckles that normally scatter her cheeks. Babies aren’t born with freckles, you know? I watched each appear on her face, the way you watch the stars appear in a sky sliding from dusk to evening.
Dad says being brave is doing the hard, right thing.
But I know, with absolute clarity, that I would do anything—even the wrong thing—if it meant protecting my daughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTCAT
I wanted to give Kennedy Claire the benefit of the doubt. After all, I know, better than most, that people can change. But she hasn’t. If anything, she’s gotten sharper. She didn’t pull that little stunt at orientation just to humiliate me. I saw the way she looked at Olivia. She feels threatened by my daughter.
I pull up to Mark’s house, a pretty two-story with white siding and blue shutters. Red Knock Out roses grow by the porch. Olivia hops out of the car and I follow her up to the front door. It opens before she even reaches for the knob, and Emily pulls Olivia into a hug. “Oh my goodness. I heard what happened at the orientation. Are you okay?” She leans back to look at her.
Olivia laughs lightly. “I’m okay.”
Emily kisses my daughter on the forehead. “Want me to call Smoothie Palace, tell them you can’t come in today? They’ll understand.”
“I’m fine. I promise. I’m gonna go change.” Then she turns back to me. “See you tomorrow, Mom.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say, and I watch her disappear into the house.
Emily leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. She’s wearing yoga pants and a Cypress Creek Elementary T-shirt. Her shoulder-length auburn hair is clipped back. “You doing all right, Cat?”
“Doing great,” I say. It’s a loaded question. When Emily asks meif I’m doing all right, what she really means to say is,Are you staying on the wagon this time?
Emily has never liked me, never trusted me. To be honest, she has every right to hate me. The night Mark and Emily got married, I called him, drunk, of course, and high on whatever I could find at the time, to tell him that I still loved him, that I hoped he could be happy without me. Then I hung up and refused to answer for weeks, knowing he’d be worried sick. Eventually, Mark had to hire a private eye just to track me down, to make sure I was still alive.
I think of that night sometimes now, and I wonder if Emily was still wearing her white dress while Mark tried his best to talk me off the ledge.
I’ve apologized to her, for that and the countless other times I was a piece of shit.I just hope you can keep it together this time. For Olivia’s sake, was all she said in response.
Mark comes up behind her now, puts his arm around her. “I heard about Abel. Came into the orientation waving a gun?”
“He wasn’t waving it,” I say.
“Well, what do you expect? He’s a drunk.” Emily burns eyes into me when she says it.
“Want to come in?” Mark says. “I can put on a pot of coffee.”
Emily glances up at him, and I can tell she isn’t too happy with his offer.
“I better get back,” I say.
On the drive back to the model home, I think about the ninth step in recovery:make direct amends. With the caveat, of course,wherever possible. Because some damage can’t be undone.
I’m still turning that over in my mind when I spot the truck in my rearview mirror. A white Chevy Silverado. Just like the one parked outside last night.
I wonder how long it’s been following me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINEINGRID
When Izzy and I were little, Dad used to pop a Jim Croce cassette tape in and start singing along, loud and out of key, which meant it was time for us to crawl into his lap on the rocking chair. By the third or fourth song, we’d pretend to fall asleep, so that he’d carry us up the stairs to bed together, one of us in each arm. Mom followed close behind, always afraid he’d drop us. They’d tuck us in, and we’d wait a full minute or two before crawling back out to play Barbies.