“Cady is going to be like Mom and I’m going to be like you.”

Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back. The children’s rhyme plays in my head.

“All right then. That sounds like your mother and I are doing a good job then, huh?” Daddy’s smile is bright and the sky behind him the prettiest shades of blue. There’s not a cloud in sight. “I’d say so,” I answer him. My father. My hero.

I must’ve been around five in my earliest memories of my father. His handsome face barely resembles the man on the floor of my parents’ living room, the man with the face lined with worry and aged from the passage of time.

With sweaty palms, I have to grip the wheel tighter before wiping off the moisture on my pants and getting a grip.

He’s dead. My father’s dead. The prickly harshness in the back of my throat is a precursor to crying but I hold it back. Not yet. I can’t lose both my parents. I can’t lose them both.

“Where are we going?” My mother’s voice wavers as she rises up, her reddened eyes peering into mine in the rearview mirror. The hand over her mouth quivers slightly. Maybe the reality is sinking in.

“Somewhere for us to hide for a moment, get you cleaned up—”

“You need to turn back.” She’s firmer than when she voiced her initial question, but altogether her tone lacks strength. I imagine doing what she did took it all away from her.

“No, Mom.” I swallow thickly and speak to her as if what I’m saying is fact; there’s not an ounce of negotiation in my tone. “We’re twenty minutes from the hotel.”

I’ve got cash in my purse, cash that’s meant for my sister to pay her back for the last salon visit.

“Turn back now.” Her hardened voice used to scare me when I was a child. Even into my teen years. My mother hardly ever yelled. That’s what our father was there for. All the discipline. Hearing it now, though … she just sounds desperate.

The tick, tick, tick of the turn signal follows us down Asher Lane. I recognize the street and know the hotel is only one block down. It’s in a quiet area, small and close to the off-ramp to the highway. It’s an old building and used to be some kind of chain. Everything about it screams dated but I guess the owner sold the place rather than updating it.

“Gunshot residue doesn’t lie and you need somewhere to wash it all off, plus a change of clothes.”

“I shouldn’t have done this,” she says and my mother’s statement is a plea. As if she wishes she could go back. I’ve heard that cadence so many times. “Just take me back.”

“I’m not taking you back until I make sure you’re all right.”

“Did you see what I did?” she says and her voice cracks. With a shuddering breath she croaks out, “You shouldn’t have to deal with me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, my baby girl.”