Her worry melted almost as fast as the remains of the sandwich in Madison’s mouth after Jake held it up to her to get his arm back.

Madison wiped her damp palms against her pant legs and knocked at the doors of her grandmother’s office.

“Come in.”

Madison straightened and entered.

“Madison? What brought you here? Where’s Tiffany?”

Looking over her shoulder to the empty seat of her grandmother’s assistant, she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Grandmother Eileen closed a folder in front of her and leaned back in her chair. “Close the door and tell me why you’re here.”

Madison took her time closing the door and walking to the seat in front of her grandmother’s desk. When she sat down, she took a deep breath and let it out again without answering. It wasn’t that she had even the slightest doubt that this was the right thing to do, but she also knew that there was no going back. It all depended on Grandmother Eileen now.

“I’m waiting.”

Madison cleared her throat and forced herself to look deep into Grandmother Eileen’s cold eyes. “I love Sherry.”

Her grandmother shook her head. “That isn’t love. Decency forbids saying out loud what you’re feeling.”

Madison balled her hands into fists. “Just because you’re incapable of love doesn’t mean—”

Grandmother Eileen jumped up with an agility that belied her age. “How dare you?”

This wasn’t going the way she’d planned this. She forced her hands to relax and to tone her voice down. “All I’m saying is that I won’t end things with Sherry.”

“You’re so stubborn, so unreasonable. How could I ever believe that you’d changed?” Grandmother Eileen whirled around and snatched a half-empty bottle of her favorite scotch out of a hidden cabinet Madison saw for the first time. She grabbed a glass and filled it up about two thirds. Not bothering to get ice cubes out of the minibar beside Tiffany’s desk, she took a long swig, almost downing the whole glass in one go. She turned back to Madison and, as if in slow motion, sank back down into her chair, rolling the glass in her hand.

It hit her like a ton of bricks. Grandmother Eileen was a caricature. The caricature of a person her grandmother could be, maybe even should have been but wasn’t because she was unable to see herself for who she really was. Because she has nobody like Sherry.

A part of her knew it was too late to try to talk to Grandmother Eileen like a normal person, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying anyway. “Can I ask you something?”

Grandmother Eileen drained her glass. “Can I stop you?”

It took all her courage to ask, “Do you really think it was my fault that…Mom and Dad died?”