A Mother Would Know (31)

“So sad.”

“Wow. Much too young.”

“Prayers to the family.”

But then I reach one that stops me cold.

“That bitch got what was coming to her. She was nothing but a tease.”

Asshole.

Back in my performing days, I met a lot of guys like him. Men who thought I owed them something for the money and time they’d spent on our shows. As if the music wasn’t enough.

I distinctly remember one man cornering me after a show, and when I politely asked him to leave me alone, he’d said that I’d been flirting with him with my eyes the entire show. He was too dumb to know I could barely see the crowd through the stage lights. Most shows, when I sang, I looked like I was smiling at everyone, but I didn’t even see them.

The username of the person who wrote the vile comment was “Anonymous.”

Of course. Coward.

The words are so hateful, I try to imagine the anger he must have felt to spew such vitriol about a dead woman. I don’t know that it’s a man, but I’m assuming. Could he have been involved? Is that what happened? Molly rejected a man and he lost it? The scenario plays out in my mind, an enraged man wrapping his hands around Molly’s neck and squeezing hard. And that’s when a long-forgotten memory surfaces.

I heard a rattle. Then a scrape and a stomp, followed by an ear-piercing scream.

All coming from upstairs.

My shoulders tightened. What now? I’d just finished cleaning up a vase Hudson had broken. God, those two had been fighting constantly lately. Darren criticized me for letting them duke it out. “Are you the parent, or are you eight, too?” he’d asked only days ago after sending Hudson upstairs for yelling at his sister on my watch—but I was at my wit’s end. I had half a brain to let them kill each other.

The noises stopped suddenly, blanketing the house in silence.

That was what made me leap up. As annoying as all the noise was, that was typical. Silence meant something was wrong.

I tore up the stairs and raced into Hudson’s room. He was over his sister, his hands wrapped around her neck as she clawed at him. Hudson had always been big for his age—and strong.

“Oh, my god. Stop!” I hollered, prying his fingers from her neck until they finally came loose. I grabbed Hudson by the shoulders, yanked him back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“She started it!” my son insisted.

“Yeah, right.” Kendra’s voice was hoarse.

“I don’t care who started it. You don’t lay hands on your sister like that,” I snapped.

Hudson crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at his sister. She stuck out her tongue. Beneath my fingers, I felt his muscles clench.

“Hudson, you’re in time-out. Kendra, you can go.”

As Kendra left, I stared in horror at her reddened neck and wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t come in when I did.

I click out of the comments and refill my glass of water. As I sip it, Jared Browning’s face emerges in my mind like a reflection in moving water. It takes a minute for the entire memory to become lucid—seeing him at the Full Moon Tavern and having a conversation. Had he really said that Hudson was with Molly the night she died?

Bro, stop hitting me up or I’m gonna block you.

The text I’d seen in his phone was from someone named Blondie. Molly was blonde. And it had come in the night she died. At what time, I’m not sure. I hadn’t thought to check the time stamp.

The “bro” part reassures me a little. Don’t guys call each other bro? And if it is from a girl, doesn’t the bro greeting mean they were friendly?

I feel like maybe I’m reading too much into the text. It could have been playful or teasing, not necessarily ominous.

I think about Hudson’s infectious laugh and charming smile, and how much he puts me at ease. And not just me but everyone around him. When he was younger, his teachers always told me he was a joy to have in class. His baseball coach said he was a natural-born leader.

I know people are different at school and on a baseball field than they are in romantic relationships. But for years, I saw the way he was with Heather—back when they were friends and then when they started dating. He was nothing but sweet and gentle with her.

It’s actually how they became such good friends.

“Hey, Mom, can Heather ride to school with us tomorrow morning?” Hudson asked the Tuesday night of Heather’s first week at his school.

I knew Leslie didn’t work, so I wondered why she couldn’t take her. She hadn’t mentioned anything to me, and we’d just spoken that morning.

“Sure,” I said. “Is everything okay with her parents?”

“Yeah.” He frowned, running a hand through his unruly hair. “It’s not because of her parents. It’s because of the kids at school.”

“What about them?”

“Some of the kids are really mean to her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, ’cause they’re stupid.” He shrugged. “But I just thought if she rode to school with me, I could protect her.”

I smiled. “That’s really nice of you, Hudson.”

He’d spent the next seven years being Heather’s protector and friend. That’s one of the many reasons it was so hard to reconcile the way Leslie turned on him after that fateful night in October.