Chapter 125

Amy looked around her bedroom. During the course of the summer she had made a few attempts at tidying up but had never really succeeded. That was okay. There were a lot worse things to be in life than a messy, curvaceous woman with curly hair who liked to wear sundresses and the bracelets her mother made for her, a woman who liked to cuddle her cats and eat a decent meal. A woman who loved and respected her mother.

Amy knew that she was partly responsible for what had happened this summer. Did she really present such a blank slate to the world that a person felt that she could choose what to write upon her? If that were the case then things had to change, and before much more time was wasted. She needed to know her own mind and to make it known to others.

She thought about those who loved her for who and what she was. There had been her grandparents, and there was always her mother. For a few months, there had been her father, too. By all accounts he had adored his infant daughter, and Amy had the photos to prove it. There was Hayley, and like Hayley had said, they made a pretty good team. And there was Vera, and maybe there would even be Noah Woolrich. She bet her father would have approved of Noah. To lose sight of those people as she had almost lost sight of them that summer was simply wrong. It was also dangerous.

Now, Amy thought, to tell her mother what she had done that morning. She knew her mother would be proud.