“A storage bin for the car. Now isn’t that handy?” Poised in the snowflake sweater she’d knit herself three years prior, Cassie’s mother beamed from her perch beside the potbellied Christmas tree. The branches were so thick with tinsel and lights her hair blinked red and green.
Despite Christmas parades, the mass creation of snowman jars, the assembling and distribution of shoebox Christmas projects, and the festive window displays that had covered the streets of Gatlinburg since the day after Thanksgiving, there was nothing quite like her mother’s annual elephant gift exchange party to really settle Cassie into the Christmas spirit, and let her know Christmas was truly around the corner.
Seven days to be exact. And for the first time in her adult life, she’d have a full house to share it with.
Her mother held the bin up and received a round of simultaneous ooohs and ahhhs in response from many of the adults—a comfortable mix of friends, family, and neighbors. The few in the room in their teenage or younger years merely clung tighter to the wrapped presents in their hands. But most of the women had a gleam in their eye, clearly considering swiping Mom’s present when their turn came up.
Cassie, it was painful to admit, was old enough to see the merits of the storage bin. But for the sake of her aging spirit, she gripped the bright-yellow wrapping paper around the shoebox-sized package in her lap, hoping there was a fidget spinner inside.
“Who’s number three?” Cassie’s mother raised her gentle voice as she took the bowl from Cassie’s father and lifted it, the one of the pair to bravely toss aside her reticent ways for the yearly party. She looked around the room, but none of the twenty-five or so faces waved a slip of paper with the scribbled number in the air.
After a long moment, Cassie realized the missing link and turned to Deidre. “What number do you have?”
Sure enough, Deidre handed her the slip of paper.
“Here, Mom.” Cassie put her hands on Deidre’s shoulders and spoke quietly. “It’s your turn to pick your present, Deidre. Go ahead.”
“Actually . . . that’s odd,” her mother replied, picking up a rectangular box with smooth, metallic-red wrapping paper. “I believe this one has your name on it, Deidre.”
She smiled as she handed it to Deidre, then gave a subtle wink to those around her.
It took a little convincing from Cassie, some playful tugs of the large ribbon placed squarely in the center of the box, a little nipping at the tape, but eventually Deidre turned her focus to the mystery of the gift inside. Cassie’s mother had generously rigged the game for Deidre, Kennedy, and Star beforehand, so it was no surprise to see Deidre’s face increasingly glow as she recognized the light-up tracing pad underneath.
“Well, look at that.” Cassie stroked one hand down the girl’s freshly braided ponytail. “Isn’t that what you pointed out at the store yesterday?”
Deidre nodded, already snapping out the blue-colored pencil.
Cassie heard Star, huddled on a stool in the corner, exhale loudly.
Cassie’s jaw clenched. For forty-eight hours she hadn’t been able to get anything out of Star. Not a “Good morning,” not an “Oh, thank you for getting up at 5:00 a.m. and making me eggs Benedict. That was so thoughtful.” For once in their relationship, Star had out-stubborned her. What had originated as hurt after the church service had turned swiftly and concretely into brooding, and with each passing hour, the top of the pot quaked more and more with the threat of explosion. Cassie had realized the grave errors she’d made and apologized. She’d talked to the silent door of Star’s room more than once, saying she was sorry.
Nothing came of it but silence.
Now, however, Cassie felt the threatening winds. She just didn’t have a clue how to respond. But for all the things she didn’t know, there was one thing she did: not here. Please, oh, please, don’t blow up here.
Her mother already thought Cassie was taking too much upon herself. She didn’t have to say so; it was written clearly in every casserole she brought over to help with dinner, in every piece of laundry she offered to help fold. Cassie came from a long line of traditional home-and-hearth women. To her mother, a full-time job as a single woman was an “alternative lifestyle.” Now a single working woman with three kids? It was positively mind-blowing. In the last two and a half weeks Cassie had gained enough casseroles to last a year.
For the next half hour or so, Star stared sullenly out the window, watching the blackness outside while the rest opened presents one after another. Until it came time for number eighteen.
Cassie felt her back stiffen as her mother repeated herself for the third time. “Eighteen, anyone? I think somebody must have it. I wrote down one for everyone.” Her mother gazed down at the half-full bowl as if expecting it to sprout another slip of paper.
Finally, Star turned her gaze from the window.
“Is that you, Star?” Cassie’s mother gently pressed. “Do you have eighteen?”
Star gave a lazy look at her number. “Yeah.”
“Oh! Well, isn’t that convenient. There seems to be one here with your name on it too.”
Star limply took the present from her mother’s hands—a sturdy, wide cardboard box containing what Cassie had been excited about: a pair of sky-blue, Moxi suede ice skates. Premium stainless-steel blades combined with a vintage floral print, so old-fashioned it was the latest trend.
To say Star would be thrilled was an understatement.
But just as she tugged off one loop of the yellow bow, she stopped. Exhaled, as if the work of unwrapping it was too much. Then dropped it. The box bounced to the ground, knocking against the back of the couch. She resumed looking out the window.
Cassie felt the heat on her neck as her voice rose. “Star, go ahead and open the present, please.”
Star didn’t move.
Comfortable silence suddenly became very uncomfortable, as the eyes of her neighbors and family began looking intently into the beige carpet or quickly engaged in conversation. “What do you think about that slicer,” she heard one of the women ask another. “I bet you’ll get lots of use out of it. Is it just for apples, you think?”
The hum of small talk began to fill the living room. Men with even less to say on topics of UT scarves and makeup kits left the room completely, opting for the eggnog station instead.
Deidre stopped doodling the pony on her pad. Her large, round eyes watched Star and Cassie warily.
Cassie stood. She dodged the sea of crumpled wrapping paper littering the floor.
“Excuse me.”
Mr. Patterson, the only oblivious one in the room, looked up from his new pocketknife and let her squeeze through to the backside of the couch.
Cassie turned her back to the rest of the guests. She spoke so quietly even Mr. Patterson and his wife, sitting inches away, would have to arch their backs to hear. “I know that you’re angry right now.” She wanted to add, And for the first five hours, through my first two apologies, you had every right to be, but held her tongue.
“But, come on,” Cassie continued. “My mother wrapped that present especially for you. Why don’t you just open it, thank her, and let everyone here have a nice time?”
“Or what? I’ll ruin the party because I don’t open a totally adorable pair of boots that’s, like, a must-have of the season?” Her over-the-top, preppy voice dropped as she crossed her arms tightly around her, speaking loudly—too loudly—out the window. “I don’t want anything from you. Or your mother.”
The room froze.
The heat that had been sitting in Cassie’s neck rose to her cheeks as she saw her mom stock still in the center of the room, a statue holding a tray of her famous crab dip.
“Let’s go,” Cassie said under her breath.
Star shook her head. “No.”
Anxiety was starting to turn into the inability to think clearly. What could she do? At the Haven, the girls worked off their misbehaviors by cleaning the cobwebs off the windows, scrubbing down toilets, mopping scuffed-up floors. If the punishment required more severity, there was suspension. More than that, and the girls were expelled.
But here, what could she say? You’ll obey me, missy, or else you’re going to be grounded for two weeks? Scrubbing the bathroom floor of the house you’ve only lived in a matter of weeks? Suspended? Expelled?
There was a fire in Star’s eyes that just dared her to try, to say those unspeakable words.
Cassie knew she had failed Star on Sunday; the realization had hit her the same moment Star’s shoulder had, with equal force. It wasn’t about being the new girl in the crowd or the trivial fashion differences between Chucks and boots, sweaters and scarves. Star, of all people, had never been a fearful one or one to bow to the standards of another. She was a natural-born leader. Tough. So tough, Cassie never questioned her. Even when she managed to keep herself and her sisters alive for weeks alone. When every day she showed up at the Haven, shoveling food into her mouth, stockpiling pretzels in her backpack, claiming for days she’d forgotten money to eat lunch and asking Cassie to let her into the storage closet. Even through each of those brave-faced lies that Cassie now knew were part of Star’s only concrete plan to preserve their family.
Cassie had messed up. She didn’t anticipate how Star would really feel about going to Cassie’s church; she didn’t know because she had never asked. And without even realizing it, she had let the kids go through the motions of the first service, never imagining how they must’ve felt as one by one parents plucked up their children until they were the only ones left. The Sunday school teachers checking the clock for the fifteenth time and leaning their heads out into the hall, stretching their necks to see above the departing parents with kids in tow. Saying things in a sing-song voice like, “Nooo. I don’t see her yet. But I’m sure she’ll be here any moment.”
And the girls couldn’t even sleep in their own beds. How had Cassie not thought twice about insisting they get to stay together in their classes? Heaven knew Deidre and Kennedy had clung to Star and then each other, trying.
But they’d trusted her. In the end, they let Cassie convince them it was only an hour, only sixty minutes and then she’d be right back to pick them up. The time would fly by with the fun.
So they’d waited, alone, the obvious strangers, sticking out like black swans in a white flock one thousand strong. Hitherto, Cassie had not realized just how homogeneous First Community was; it wasn’t something you had to think about when you were the one fitting in. She’d let Jett’s handsome offer of cheap coffee, and then Rachel’s call, and then her own pathetic crying blind her from remembering she was about to hit the kids’ hot spot: abandonment.
And for over an hour, they had sat there, in a new place, wondering where she had gone.
How could Cassie try to discipline the girl whose wound she had just thrown salt on? Star, the one who’d never needed to clean so much as a light switch as reprimand at the Haven?
This was hard.
This was nothing like handling a group of kids from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Why did she so blindly think she could ace parenting so easily?
“I’m going to the car,” Cassie said. “I want you to come.”
Star inhaled suddenly and kicked her feet off the stool as she hopped down. “I’m going to Ershanna’s.”
Cassie shook her head. “You’re not going to Ershanna’s.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“No. You’re not.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Who wants some crab dip?” Cassie’s mother said loudly, and as if in unanimous vote, the group stood, only too eager to rush for it.
Even Mr. Baker, with a shellfish allergy, jumped up to the front of the line.
Her mother turned around. “I think I have more in the kitchen if you want to join me . . .”
The group followed her blindly. If she had said she had a pyramid of toilet paper rolls in the kitchen, they would’ve stormed for it.
Only Bree stayed behind at her post on the carpet, her braid reaching the floor while she opened the refrigerator of the dollhouse with Kennedy. Kennedy set a plastic doll on the bed, though her eyes were glued to Star and Cassie.
Time for a new tactic.
“Fine. You want to walk eight miles, you go for it.” Cassie moved over to her purse, picked up her keys. “Let’s go, girls.”
Both Bree’s and Star’s eyes widened momentarily, neither expecting Cassie to call her bluff. Star practically spit as she accepted the challenge. “Fine.” And with that she blew out of the room, out of the house, without so much as a glance back. Cassie picked up Star’s coat while taking hold of Kennedy’s hand.
Ten minutes later, Cassie’s headlights spotlighted Star as Cassie gripped the steering wheel, the speedometer reading so low it hovered at zero. Star held on to her ribs tightly as she pushed against the wind, houses of nearly identical designs flanking them on either side. There was no moon tonight; even it had no interest in peeking in on this melodrama.
“You got some sort of grand plan for all this?” Bree murmured from the passenger seat. “Because, just on a hunch, I’d say this is one of those no-no’s in the parental rule book.”
“I want to go back to the party!” For the seventeenth time Kennedy jiggled the car seat locks, her bottom lip jutting out a mile long as she looked out the window.
The car crept by a waving, blow-up snowman in a front yard. And then a bobbing reindeer. And then a dozen brightly colored lawn ornaments.
Thirty-five houses down, and Star still hadn’t acknowledged their existence.
Finally, Star shot her head their way. “Go away!”
“I’m not going away, Star.” Cassie leaned her head out the window, heat blasting through the vents. “If you want to walk to Ershanna’s, fine. But she’s just going to turn you back over to me. Why don’t you just get in the car, and we can go home?”
Star shouted something short and vulgar, her words piercing, her tone halfway hysterical, then jumped up on the sidewalk, farther from them.
Cassie threw the car into Park and unclipped her belt. “Take over, Bree.”
“You know what you’re doing?” Bree asked.
“No clue.” Cassie slung her coat around her as she jumped out of the driver’s seat.
And without pausing, she pushed her hands in her pockets and jogged up onto the sidewalk. Star stared straight ahead, jaw so clenched it threatened to break a tooth. She didn’t stop.
“Look,” Cassie began, “I’m sorry you had to wait around so long at church the other day.”
Star turned her head away, walking faster.
Cassie matched her pace. “I’m sorry, Star. I am. You know I am.”
Star pulled her hair in front of the left side of her face, concealing her eyes.
“But I didn’t forget you,” Cassie continued. “I may have let the time get away from me, but I didn’t forget you. And I would never, ever, ever just leave you. You’re my Star.” Cassie pulled Star’s jacket out from the crook of her arm. “Literally and figuratively.”
She held it out for Star. Waited.
“And if you don’t like that church, I get it. We’ll find another one. One we all want to be a part of.”
Star snatched the coat out of her hands without slowing down.
At the stop sign she strode even faster across the road, and Cassie sped up.
They walked together silently, Star’s breaths coming heavily as the neighborhood houses came to an end. Cars whizzed by as Star stopped, finally, at the stoplight for the main road. Bree slowed the car to a stop beside them, smoke gently curling from the exhaust.
“Look.” Cassie’s breath materialized as she spoke. “The truth is I don’t know what I’m doing. One minute I’m on the best date of my life, the next I’m figuring out how to do laundry for four. You gotta give me a break here. I’ve never had to be a parent before. Heck, you’re doing a better job at parenting than I am half the time.” She looked at the passing cars. “But, for my part, having you guys in my life has also made it the best weeks of my life—”
“You don’t mean it—”
Cassie turned to face her. “Yeah . . . I do. Of course I do.”
For the first time Star, too, turned and met her eyes.
The pit in Cassie’s stomach started quaking. For as much as she knew about Star, there were still parts she had kept hidden all these years, things about her home life she had kept under wraps. Frankly, Cassie didn’t know how Star would respond. To anything. Half of Cassie expected Star to knock her over then and there, shouting she wasn’t her mother.
“But . . . there was a reason I was late on Sunday. A reason I’ve needed to tell you. Something you need to know.”
Cassie felt the words being pulled from her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Star about her mother on Sunday, when Star had flown into her room and shut the door for hours on end. Cassie hadn’t found the words the morning after, either, when she’d heard Bailey’s car pull up in the driveway and seen Star leave for school—she could only hope—an hour early.
She didn’t know when the time would be right for this kind of news. Never, it seemed, was the time right for this kind of news.
“It’s . . . about your mom.”
Cassie could see Star’s eyes tighten, a momentary look of surprise before settling back into distance.
“What about her?” she asked quietly.
“They . . .” And suddenly Cassie realized she really had no idea how to handle this. Any of this. “They found her in Memphis. I, uh, I think your mom is going to face some charges. She might have to spend some time in prison. I don’t know how long.”
Star started nodding to the cement, her eyes hard as she bit her bottom lip. The light turned green, but she didn’t move.
Cassie dropped one hand out of her pocket, on the off chance she’d have to grab Star before she ran into traffic.
“And what about us?”
Cassie released an icy breath.
“You guys will stay with me. If you want. For . . .” Her words fell heavily. “For as long as you want.”
Star lifted her chin, brows furrowing. “What are you saying, Miss C?”
“I’m saying—” Cassie lifted her shoulders and dropped them again. “I’m saying I’d like you to stay with me.”
“No,” Star said, her voice rising sharply. “What are you saying?”
And suddenly Cassie was backed into a corner. Suddenly, she knew she should’ve talked with Rachel more about this. Should’ve waited until the PATH foster classes so someone could’ve gone over this conversation in detail, telling her exactly what to say. She didn’t know what she was doing. She hardly knew the meaning of the term “termination of parental rights”—nothing more than what the Wikipedia article had to say.
Someone else should’ve told Star. Star’s guidance counselor. Rachel with DCS. Really, anyone would’ve been better.
But they weren’t here, were they? And that’s what her job was now, wasn’t it? To be the person who did the hard things, sometimes. To be the person they could rely on. No matter what.
Cassie spoke slowly, carefully. “I’m saying that your mother signed over her parental rights.” Her voice felt more clogged by the moment.
But no, she couldn’t stop now.
“And . . . if you want me to,” Cassie continued, “I can adopt you.”
Star watched the sidewalk some more. Cars moved around Bree, who waited beside them, wipers on, lights flashing. Cassie glanced back to the girls in the back seat. Deidre pressed her face against the window, taking it all in.
The girls shouldn’t have been watching this. Yet another bad parental move, Cassie was realizing.
“You wanna take my sisters?” Star said abruptly.
Cassie stared. “Of course not. I want to take your sisters and you.”
The light turned yellow, then red. Cars began to line up again.
She didn’t have the heart to tell Star it was up to her, that she had to give consent before the judge. Maybe Star would hear that and back out, changing her destination from Ershanna’s to the DCS building, so she could be there first thing in the morning to give her statement and get out of Cassie’s home. She could do that, too, probably. She was old enough. The courts surely would respect her wishes—
Cassie felt her breath knocked out as she was suddenly hit in the chest. Just when she felt certain Star was in the throes of pummeling her, however, she felt Star’s arms wrap around her ribs, her face pressed so hard and so deep into Cassie’s chest she felt Star was getting zipper burn. She wasn’t trying to smother her. She was trying to hug her.
Relief flooded over Cassie.
Everything was going to be okay.
“Why doesn’t she want us?”
The almost inaudible, whispered words halted Cassie’s thoughts and turned her blood ice cold.
Suddenly she felt the wet tears on her neck, the slight tremors of Star’s body through their coats.
“Oh, Star.” Cassie wrapped her arms around Star’s shoulders and squeezed tight.
For seconds that turned to minutes, they stood in silence.
Eventually, Bree turned the car off.
Finally, after the fourth series of cars went by, Cassie pulled away enough to look down at her, her throat throbbing. “I don’t know, Star. No matter what, though, I’d like you to stay. With me.”
She swallowed, these emotional moments—especially with the stream of cars watching—foreign and uncomfortable.
Star pulled back and rubbed her nose against her jacket. She didn’t move. Didn’t seem to breathe.
After a long, thoughtful pause, she nodded.
Slowly they both stepped toward the car and slipped into their seats.
They sat in silence the rest of the way home, even Deidre and Kennedy in tune to the heavy moment. Hours later, after Cassie had cleared the cookie crumbs from the kitchen table and helped the girls get baths before bed, she quietly shut the door to Star’s room and tiptoed down the hall. Part of her felt like her feet were in charge of her dragging body, and catching the sight of her bed through her open door, she was tempted to collapse on it clothes and all. But her mind ached in the way it did after six hours of television in bed on a sick day, overstimulated and too wound up to let her sleep. She turned instead at the top of the stairs and started down.
Hot tea would do her good. Help her process what all had happened that day.
And there, at the end chair of the dining room table, sat her best friend, two cups of steaming tea on the table.
“Bree?” Cassie said, skipping down the last three steps. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”
Bree turned the handle of the mug in her hand, nodding with a weary smile. “I waited.”
Once seated, Bree pushed the mug her way. The way she slid it over silenced Cassie; the lack of animation on Bree’s face hushing Cassie’s thoughts. Never had she seen Bree look so somber—at least, not since Cassie’s accident.
“Cass, I need to tell you something.”
Cassie reached out and pulled the mug toward herself. The heat radiated through fingers she hadn’t realized were so cold. “What’s up?”
“You remember the day we met?”
“Of course. At the park.” She’d never forget spying the tall, lanky eight-year-old girl on the swings out her third-story apartment window. How she’d begged her mom to let her fly down those stairs, jump over the creek, and meet her in the adjacent park. The newcomer from Jersey. Her instant friend—rather, her instant bosom-buddy, who-needs-anybody-else, forget-those-mean-third-grade-girls forever friend. How could anyone forget such a pivotal life moment?
“And do you know what that park was next to?”
“There was a Food City nearby. A gas station. A—” Cassie paused, suspicion rising. “A Rebos.”
Bree nodded, turning the cup in her hands.
The Rebos facility was simple, just a two-story colonial updated to house a support group for addiction recovery. Rebos. Spelled backward: S-O-B-E-R.
“You know, I was the youngest honorary member of that house,” Bree continued. “I wore down those halls with my running. I even once asked if I could be a real member when I grew up, just without the alcohol.”
Cassie sat back in her chair, stunned. “I had no idea.”
“That place was home back then.” Bree shrugged, her smile bittersweet. “Those people were family. In those early years, after getting back together, Mom and I were there almost every day.”
Cassie let go of her mug, felt herself stop breathing. She leaned forward. “Bree . . . What do you mean ‘after getting back together’?”
“After Mom got me back.” Bree took a breath. “From foster care.”
The world moved like a great rocking chair, and Cassie felt herself pulled back into her seat, the world suddenly dizzy. “You were in foster care? You?”
Bree started nodding. “For three hundred and twenty-six days. Mom got me back June 6, two weeks before my eighth birthday.”
Cassie’s lips parted, but no words formed. Her? Bree? Bree? And Mrs. Leake? This wasn’t possible. It had to be a joke . . . a terrible joke. But there Bree sat opposite her, her emerald eyes a rich and rare hue of sorrow and honesty and unlocked story.
Cassie fumbled for words. “I—I can’t believe this. I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell.” Bree shrugged, but then a whisper of a smile lifted on her lips. “What excuse did I give you for why we moved all the way down here from New Jersey?”
Cassie smiled. “To get cows.”
“Yeah. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there are cows in Jersey too.” A huffy laugh escaped her, and for a moment they both smiled in recollection before their smiles slowly slipped away.
“What really happened is that Mom wanted to get away after it all, take us somewhere nobody would judge her, and I wouldn’t have to remember. Where we’d never have to drive on Scott Street on the way to the grocery store or the elementary school or the movies and see the yellow townhome where I lived for months away from her. Where I wouldn’t have to look at the second-story window where I used to sit for hours, watching the road, hoping to see her car pass by. Making myself believe I saw her car pass by. Making myself believe she was slowing down and was squinting through the car window to see if she could see me and was waving. That any moment her blinker was about to turn on, and she’d pull in and ring the doorbell and say it was all over and I needed to jump in the car right then. And that she was sorry for everything. And everything was going to be different. And I was going home.” She shook her head. “You have no idea how many blue Hondas are on the road until you spend your life looking for one.”
Cassie lifted the cup of tea, her throat suddenly aching and dry. “I’m so sorry, Bree. I can’t imagine. I can’t believe it . . . A year?”
Bree nodded.
Cassie and Bree sat in silence for a minute, Cassie trying to wedge this entirely new set of information into the neatly organized facts of her life. Mrs. Leake had always been a second mother to her. There for every graduation. There for every holiday. Cassie had spent so much time at the Leakes’ home she was in half of their framed photographs on the walls. More than once she’d been included in the family photo sent out for the Leake Family Christmas card.
Bree? In the foster system because of something Mrs. Leake had done—or failed to do? Because of addiction? The woman had more self-control than a Shaker, and they’d all but died out in their successful stand on celibacy.
Bree turned the handle of her mug round and round, the skidding of the ceramic bottom across the dining table the only noise between them.
Finally, Cassie heard herself sputter despite herself, “What happened?”
She paused. “A lot of things that shouldn’t have, Cass. A lot of things no kid should experience.” Bree opened her mouth to speak more, then let it hang there a moment before seeming to change her mind. “But that’s the thing I do want you to hear from this. The point is those girls upstairs have a mom already. And no matter what had happened to me back then, and how wrong it all was, I still wanted my mom. I wanted her to get fixed up and get me back. I wanted her to fight for me. And thankfully, in my case, that’s exactly what she did.
“Now, I don’t know Star’s mom. I couldn’t begin to guess all the reasons she signed off her rights last week—maybe she felt pressured, maybe she thought it was the loving thing to do. Maybe she really didn’t care. I don’t know. But I’m telling you now, I don’t think she would’ve hung on to those girls this long if she didn’t care about them at all. And I don’t know Star’s and Kennedy’s and Deidre’s whole situation, but I can guarantee you one thing: no kid wants to hear their mom is letting go.”
Bree’s eyes flickered down to her mug as though afraid to say the next words to Cassie’s face. “And Cass, I hate to say it, but you need a little redirection.”
Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. Bree had never chastised her. Never. Not once in their twenty-five-year history.
Bree blinked and reached for Cassie’s hand. “I know you want a family. I know it. And girl, you deserve it more than every single person on this planet. But you also gotta realize that what is victory to you is tragedy to them. You have to start seeing what is happening through their eyes, even if they aren’t showing it on the outside.”
Cassie’s words rushed out, “But I’m sure these are different circumstances than you faced, Bree. Their mom left them without food for weeks—”
Bree shook her head, spreading her hands on the table as though spreading a deck of cards. “You know these facts. These few facts. But what you don’t know is every other memory these kids have with their mom, every good moment. Every possible reason for why their mom did what she did. That’s the thing. We don’t know her why.”
Cassie crossed her arms, suddenly cold despite the radiator beside them. She felt silly, sheepish as she defended herself quietly. “I just thought they would want to be out of all that—”
“What I saw tonight is that they want to be with her, just without ‘all that.’ This—” Bree waved a hand around the room. “—all of this, is not the plan. This is the backup plan, born out of tragedy. You can cover the place in scented candles and chocolate-chip cookies and bubble baths all you want, but at the end of the day, those girls are hurting.”
Cassie felt the hammer fall on her heart, crushing, flattening.
For several minutes they sat there, silent. Finally, slowly, Bree stood and reached for her coat. Cassie stood with her.
“They will be happy with you, Cass. Darn happy. And I’m over the moon to see it all play out. But I want you to remember that grief and happiness aren’t always mutually exclusive, okay?”
“I know,” Cassie whispered.
“I know you do, but do you know it enough?”
Bree’s gaze bore into Cassie’s for one long moment before Cassie nodded, seeing Bree—her carefree, tropical fish Bree—in ways she’d never seen her before.
Honestly, she’d never looked so beautiful.