Heroine(43)

“Enough.” She puts out one hand, palm facing me. Her tone is sharp and concise, the two syllables tearing the air between us. She only puts her hand down once she sees I’m done, and when she speaks again her tone is softer, different, and I can’t help but wonder if this is how she speaks to the little ones right after they’re born.

“Mickey,” she says, coming to sit next to me on the bed. “I am not pretending to be happy for your father.”

“He’s not—” The hand goes up again.

“Whatever you want to call him is your choice, but that man raised you. I raised you. We did it together and it was a beautiful thing, and now he’s doing that with someone else. Does it hurt? Yes. But how I feel about it doesn’t factor into your relationship with him. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it.”

She’s switched from angry to sad, the tears rising, though she doesn’t let them fall. “Do you think of me as anything other than your mother?”

“No,” I say automatically, and it’s true. When the divorce came there was never any question for me of who I was going to live with. I love my dad—if that’s what I’m going to continue calling him—but it was Mom who took care of me.

“You’re my mom,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word.

Her tears finally fall, and she wipes them away. “Good,” she says, reaching for my hand. “Because you’re my daughter.”

I half choke, half sob, and fall into her, everything I’m feeling rushing out in a hot swell of tears, reminding me of the vomit I left behind on the road two weeks ago. She wraps her arms around me and rocks me for a little while, back and forth, the ancient calming movement so natural to mothers doing its job. I pull back finally, wiping my own face.

“You totally still have to go to your dad’s,” she says, and I laugh, a harsh sound that can’t quite find its way up my swollen throat.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” I say. “It’s not that I didn’t want to. I just . . .”

But I don’t know what I just.

“It’s okay,” Mom says quickly, one arm going back around me. “You were in an accident. You went through trauma, hon. But you kept your grades up, and you were still behind the plate for your first game. If you lose your temper over a little family drama, I can live with that.”

I go back into the hug, eager for her warmth.

“I don’t expect you to be perfect,” she says into my ear.

My eyes stray to the pill bottle.

“Good,” I say.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


broken: separated into pieces by force

Mom had lingered in my room after our talk, enjoying our closeness, so I had no time to slip a pill before I left for Dad’s. I was nowhere near nauseous, or in any pain, but my anxiety flew through the roof the second Devra opened the door.

“Hey, Mickey,” she says. “Come on in.”

The baby—Chad—is attached to her left breast, and she’s making no attempt whatsoever to hide that fact. I don’t care, exactly. I just didn’t expect to get a boob in my face first thing. I don’t know where to look, my eyes tracing down the length of Chad’s tiny, perfect leg, rolling to the side of Devra’s elbow. My face is flaming red, so hot I can feel it, which only makes it worse.

“Where’s Dad?” I say quickly, searching for the one familiar thing in their house.

Devra’s face tightens, and I realize I didn’t even say hi to her. She’s got deep bags under her eyes, and while her cheeks still hold a trace of the fullness of pregnancy, it looks like the skin is just hanging from her bones. She’s lost the baby weight in the past two months, for sure, but I can’t say she looks good, either.

“He’s in the kitchen,” she says, turning her back on me to close the front door.

I feel off, thrown the second I walk in. As usual I said the wrong thing or looked the wrong way. Their front hall is small and I bump into a table, my ridiculously large body not made to pass through here. A small bowl flies off, shatters on the floor, spilling keys and spare change. Startled, Chad jumps in Devra’s arms. His feeding interrupted, he starts to scream.

“Sorry,” I say, dropping to the floor to pick up what I’ve broken.

“It’s okay—” Devra wants to say more, but she’s prevented by the small, angry fists pummeling her face.

“Dev? Everything okay?” Dad’s voice calls, and I follow it to find him, carrying shards of broken glass in my hands.

“Sorry. I broke . . .” I look down at them, unsure how to describe what I destroyed. “Something.”

“No worries,” Dad says, pulling out the trash can with one foot, both hands full as he stands at the stove. “Nothing in this place is priceless except the people.”

“Really, Dad? Lame,” I tell him, but I appreciate his effort.

“Where’s Dev?” he asks, stirring one pot while lowering the flame under another.

“There was a thing, with the baby,” I say. “I think I scared him.”

Saying it puts me right back where I was two seconds ago, large and ungainly, a girl who isn’t related to anyone in this house and who ruins things when she tries to be a part of it.