said one word.
“Seriously?”
I said, “Yes.”
No speech.
No lecture.
Just yes.
The thirty days were ugly.
Not television ugly.
Real-life ugly.
Cabinets slammed.
Cassie cried loudly on phone calls.
Ryan avoided my eyes.
Duke followed me more than he followed them, which somehow made Cassie angrier.
They tried guilt.
They tried silence.
They tried bringing up Patricia.
That was the only time I raised my voice.
“Do not use your mother to defend something she would have stopped on the first day,” I told Ryan.
He looked down at the floor.
He knew.
That was the part that hurt most.
He knew.
On day twenty-six, Ryan knocked on the doorframe of the living room.
I was sorting medication into a weekly pill organizer.
He said they had found an apartment.
Small.
Not ideal.
Month-to-month.
Cassie’s mother was helping with the deposit.
I nodded.
He waited for me to
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