“I’m so proud of her.” Katie sniffled, tears welling in her eyes and threatening to spill over. She bundled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and wiped at her cheeks. Katie let out a wry laugh. “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.”

  “You’ve got this, girl,” someone from across the room said.

  Chris couldn’t tear her gaze away. Katie was amazing. She had been through so much, and Chris had no doubt that she would come out on the right side of all of this. Katie wasn’t strong because of the trauma she’d experienced, but she was strong because she was willing to deal with it. Chris breathed relief. Her heart warmed slightly, comfort settling into the pit of her belly. Katie would be okay.

  “I’m so proud of my mom. Two years? I never thought it was possible for her to even make it past a week. There were times when she tried getting sober, but she always failed. But this time…” Katie turned, looking directly at Chris.

  Chris’ breath caught.

  Katie reached out, holding Chris’ hand in her own and squeezing hard. “This time I think she might do it.”

  Chris cried. She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She shook her head and wiped her own tears from her eyes.

  “It’s not been easy, that’s for sure, and I still don’t know who she is.” Katie faced everyone else in the room. “I don’t know how to get to know her. She’s my mom. I should know who she is, right? But I don’t. I don’t know. But I want to.”

  That small piece of hope was all Chris needed. If it took years, decades, the rest of her life Chris was going to work on her relationship with Katie. Katie deserved it. And she deserved both her parents to be in her life as much as she was willing to let them be.

  “So here we go. Step two of the rest of my life. Maybe someday I’ll know what it’s like to know who my mom is.” Katie sat back heavily in her chair and finished wiping the tears from her eyes.

  Chris snagged a couple tissues and shoved them into Katie’s free hand before leaning over and kissing Katie’s cheek. She didn’t care in that moment if they were in a room full of people and this was her adult daughter. Katie had to know.

  “I love you,” Chris whispered. “I love you so much, and I’m so, so sorry.”

  “It’s not okay, Mom, but we’ll figure it out.” Katie leaned her head on Chris’ shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Other people talked, but Chris barely heard what they had to say. She stayed focused on Katie as much as she could for the rest of the hour-long meeting. When it was time to go, they stood up and said their prayer. She kept a tight hold on Katie’s hand, not willing to let her go just yet.

  Ash stuttered in her step as she gathered her purse from the ground. Chris almost reached out, but Ash jerked her shoulder back and out of Chris’ reach. The clear sign was don’t touch me, and Chris was going to respect every second of that. She was just about to say something, when Ash shook her head, her eyes wide.

  Chris collapsed. Ash backed away from her before turning around and practically running out of the room. Normally, Chris would have followed her. She would have run after to figure out just exactly what she had done, but she couldn’t. Katie’s hand in hers was a strong reminder of why she was there.

  Amends.

  With Katie. Not with Ash. Not with anyone else. This was about her family and righting the wrongs she had already done, when she was a drunk. Not the fuck ups she made this week or last week.

  But why had Ash even been there? Chris was pretty sure it was her very presence that prevented Ash from sharing that night. Which was a pity. She’d obviously come there because she needed support. Just another notch of fuck ups to add to her belt. Chris couldn’t win no matter what she did.

  Katie looped her arm through Chris’ as they walked down the long hallway to the end of the church building. “I hope we can talk more.”

  “I’ll listen as often as you want to talk.” Chris dropped a kiss into her daughter’s hair. “I think we have a lot of talking and listening to do, respectively.”

  “Yeah,” Katie murmured. “But not tonight. That took everything out of me.”

  “I get it.”

  They stepped outside into the freezing air in the dead of winter. Chris shuddered as she looked around the parking lot for her car. She hit the button on her key fob just as Katie stopped her with a tug to her arm.

  “I didn’t lie tonight, Mom. I am proud of you.”

  Chris was ready to break down again. She smiled at Katie. “You’re amazing, in so many ways.”

  “So are you. I wish you’d believe that.”

  Parting her lips, Chris stuttered to find an answer. What was she supposed to say to that? Again Katie stole the words right out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry that I couldn’t be who you needed me to be.”

  “There’s still time, Mom.”

  Giving a small smile, Chris tugged Katie in for another hug. “Yeah. We’ll get there.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Holy fuck.”

  Ash swung into her car and slammed the door. She pulled out of the parking spot as fast as she could. She drove toward home, but stopped at Holliday Park. She couldn’t go home yet. She couldn’t walk into that house and reasonably look at her girls and think she could parent them.

  Because holy fuck.

  Chris was a drunk.

  Everything clicked into place. Chris never drinking when they went out, the subtle questions about why Ash wasn’t drinking, the closed-off feeling about her relationship with Katie and what she’d done to screw it up.

  Ash’s heart raced.

  How had she not seen it before? It was just like it had been with Mari. She’d been completely oblivious to the fact that the woman she was with was a drunk. Ash fisted her hands and crashed them down against the steering wheel. The bolt of pain was exactly what she needed to shock her back into reality. She did it again and again.

  Tears burned down her cheeks as she rested her forehead against the steering wheel and covered her face with her arms. How come she didn’t notice?

  How come she kept falling for women with the same problems?

  Ash dragged in a deep breath, her chest heaving as she tried to pull cold air into her lungs. She couldn’t do this. There was no possible way she could put herself right back in the same situation as before, right? That had to be asinine and crazy. She would do more harm to her girls than she could possibly think, especially with Avonlee in the state that she was currently in.

  “What the hell was I thinking?” Ash wiped her cheeks, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks, and she didn’t even try to stop them.

  The floodgates were opened, and she needed to let the demons wash through her. Mari had lied to her so many times in the years they had been married. It had become such a common thing for her to lie about how drunk she was, about how much liquor she had consumed, about how unstable she was.

  Ash had asked. And then she had stopped asking. She’d given up. She’d avoided. She’d ignored. All the signs had been there, and they haunted her ever since. She should have been so much more observant. She should have known better than to trust a drunk. The question was, would she make the same mistake twice? Because she damn sure didn’t want to.

  Which meant she couldn’t be with Chris.

  It meant that she had to practice self-preservation instead of allowing her heart to run the conversation. She had to protect herself from going down the same path she did before. A cry ripped from her chest. It reverberated around the car, screaming back at her. It had been a long time since she’d heard such a horrific sound.

  Since Mari died.

  Ash withered.

  She had to talk to Chris. She wasn’t the asshole that was going to ghost her, but she really didn’t want to have that conversation. She didn’t want to explain the things that Chris didn’t know. It would wound her too much—both of them. For Chris to know… Ash had to stop that line of thinking. It would devastate her to the point of no return.

  Pulling back on the relationship was the only option she had.

  But she would have to talk to Chris first. But not today. Today she needed to let this all sit with her, let her heart mend a little and build up her defenses because she knew she would need them. She couldn’t be this raw. Chris would think it was all because she didn’t want to be with another alcoholic, and while that was true, it was another part that was more true.

  Ash allowed herself to cry for another ten minutes before she dragged her weary body, mind, and soul together. Her parents would be expecting her home already. She’d called them in a fit of panic last minute when she’d found the meeting and knew she had to attend. But she hadn’t gotten what she needed out of it. She hadn’t found support. She’d been too stupefied to even begin to find someone she could talk to about Avonlee.

  Driving home was difficult, but Ash knew she had to do it. She needed to talk to Char about Chris, and she needed to be in her safe place just so she could think clearly again. The long drive home was one of the hardest she had ever made. She pulled up into her driveway, and her phone buzzed in the cupholder. Ash parked and picked it up to stare at the text message.

  Chris 8:37 pm - Can we talk?

  Ash’s heart sank. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to listen. She wanted to ignore the problem that had just landed in her lap. But she couldn’t. She owed it to herself and to Chris to at least have one last conversation about what was going to happen next.

  Ash 8:38 pm - Not tonight.

  She slipped her phone into her back pocket as she turned off the engine to the car and got out. The last thing she needed was to be distracted by a conversation that she couldn’t control and one she knew which direction it was going to take.

  At least Chris was sober.

  That was the only thing she could think of. The thought that kept spinning through her mind. Chris was sober. But she was still a drunk. Ash understood how these things worked. She’d been working with homeless families for a few months now, but she’d been there and done that before. She knew what alcoholism could do to a family. First hand.

  It destroyed them.

  Screams echoed through the door and the closed windows before she even stepped inside. Ash’s shoulders pulled tight as she hesitated when she opened the door. Avonlee was in a deep rage. She should have known better than to leave her alone after the last few days. She’d held it together so far, and they had a few nice days of snuggles and calm conversations, but she also knew that the dam would break.

  It seemed tonight was that night.

  She should have planned better. She should have worked harder at keeping Avonlee safe from herself. Ash should have been a better parent. Because she needed to be. There was no one else who was going to be there for her girls. No one but her. Mari had made sure of that with her own stupid decisions.

  Ash pushed open the front door to the house. Her dad stood with Rhubie clinging to his leg. Her mom had her hands up as if defending herself against the onslaught that was Avonlee. Ash sucked in a sharp breath and held it in her lungs. She couldn’t let this get out of hand. She couldn’t let Avonlee keep running their life with her tantrums.

  She understood the pain and the anger. She felt it too. But that didn’t mean Avonlee had to take it out on the rest of them. It didn’t mean that she couldn’t learn to express these things in healthy ways that stopped hurting the ones she loved the most.

  “Stop it!” Ash shouted, catching the attention of the room.

  Avonlee jerked with a start, her gaze locking on Ash. Now she had a new target for her anger.

  Ash cut her hand across the air, silencing anything that Avonlee might have said. “You need to cut it out. I understand that you’re hurt, that you’re angry, but you need to take a deep breath and say it calmly. Stop screaming it.”

  “You’re screaming now!”

  “Enough!” Ash shouted back.

  She couldn’t take much more of this. Her soul was breaking every time Avonlee went into this kind of tantrum. All she wanted to do was hug her daughter, wrap her up in the love that she knew Mari felt for her. But it was impossible if Avonlee wouldn’t accept it. And right now, she’d be lucky if Avonlee didn’t storm off in another fit of rage.

  “I want you to take a deep breath.”

  “No!”

  “Then go get a pillow and scream into that.”

  “What?” The tension was thrown off. Ash pointed to the small square pillow on the couch. “Grab it. Scream into that. Shout at it like it’s Mom. Tell her how mad you are at her.”

  Avonlee looked from Ash to her grandparents. They encouraged her. Avonlee hesitated, but she stepped toward the couch and grabbed the pillow. She awkwardly said in a tiny voice, “I’m mad at you, Mom.”

  “Say it like you mean it!” Ash raised her voice again. “Let her have it. She deserves to know how pissed you are!”

  Avonlee shook her head.

  Ash sighed heavily, dropped her jacket and her purse on the back of the couch and snatched the pillow from Avonlee’s hands. She held it out in front of her before setting it back on the couch. “I don’t deserve this, Mari. None of us do!”

  Vibrations coursed through her body in seconds. The anger that she’d suppressed for years bubbled up, exploding out of her.

  “You did this to us!”

  “Mommy!” Avonlee screeched, her eyes wide.

  Ash shook her head. “This isn’t supposed to make sense, baby. This is to get off our chests what we’re feeling. And you know what, I’m mad as hell that Mom isn’t here. Aren’t you?”

  Avonlee’s jaw dropped.

  Ash turned back to the pillow. “You’re missing everything you wanted! You’re missing out on our babies growing up! On promotions, on graduations, on problems and laughs. You did this to us, Mari. No one else.”

  Avonlee clasped Ash’s hand, but her gaze was locked on that damn brown pillow. Hope surged into Ash’s chest. Was she actually going to do this?

  “I’m so mad, Mom.” Avonlee sounded way more confident this time. “I’m so mad at you. You left us.”

  Avonlee’s voice broke right along with Ash’s heart. This had been what they’d needed. Ash held her daughter’s hand while she yelled at the pillow like it was Mari. She stood there, not stoically like she wanted, but feeling every punch Avonlee gave to her dead mother. The bottled up emotion of years past came rushing forth in a release. The dam finally broke.

  When she was done, Ash held Avonlee in her arms and rocked her as she sobbed. She curled around her daughter, protecting her, dropping kisses into her hair and running soothing fingers over her arms as she held on with everything she had in her. Her parents put Rhubie to bed while Ash continued to hold her baby. She wasn’t going to let go.

  The explosion of emotion left her raw. Ash stroked Avonlee’s hair, the long strands coming loose. Her heart rate calmed as the night slipped into melancholy. Her mom reached over and brushed her fingers along Avonlee’s forehead, and Ash realized her baby was asleep in her arms, probably the first good night’s sleep she had gotten in a while.

  “Want me to put her down?” her mom asked.

  Ash shook her head and buried her nose in Avonlee’s hair. She sucked in a deep breath, calming herself with the scent. “I’ll put her down in a bit. I just want to hold her right now.” When had her voice vanished? She could barely make the words out.

  “I can’t blame you, honey.” Her mom sat next to Ash on the couch, stroking Ash’s arm back and forth. “What can we do for you?”

  “Nothing, Mom.” Ash closed her eyes. She felt awful, but that was expected. She was thrown through the ringer time and time again, and it was a struggle just to attempt to keep up with it all. Ash tightened her grip on Avonlee. “Thank you so much for being here tonight.”

  “Was the meeting helpful?”

  Ash mulled that one over. She wasn’t sure it was helpful at all. Looking her mother directly in the eye, Ash said the only honest thing she could. “It certainly brought a few things to light.”

  “The pillow thing was a really good idea.”

  “I had a therapist do that with me once. I was so shy at first, but once I got into it, it really worked for a while there.” Ash shifted her leg down. “I’m going to go put her to bed.”

  “Want help?”

  “No, I got it. Thanks.”

  Ash roused Avonlee into a half-sleep and walked her down the hall to her bedroom. While she laid down with her to get her back to sleep, Ash stared up at the dark ceiling. The front door closed as her parents left, and the house was cast into an easy and comfortable silence. Ash longed for more moments like these.

  She must have fallen asleep, because she jerked with a start when Avonlee flopped over on top of her. Blinking her eyes, Ash dragged herself out of the twin bed and into the living room. She checked the doors and turned off the lights, snagging her phone from the kitchen table where she’d left it. She didn’t even bother getting into pajamas. She stripped down naked and climbed into her cold bed.

  Her phone lit up with a text. She almost put it down without reading it, but the name caught her attention. Ash slid her thumb along the screen, opening her phone. Her heart couldn’t take much more of a beating that day. She was so weary. Reading the text, she dropped the phone onto her chest. Sliding it onto the charger, she turned onto her side and stared at the wall until she fell asleep.

  Chris 8:40 pm - Just let me know when you want to talk.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chris pressed her phone to her ear, the incessant ringing she knew wouldn’t end until Ash’s sweet voice came over the line with an, “Hi, you’ve reached Ashton Taylor. Please leave a message.”

  Day one she had expected it.