She might have quit the night before…but what if that was Trez calling her back to meet with the CPD again? And what if this time, it wasn’t about those shootings, but what she had done for money?

As she sat next to her son in church, the risk she had assumed seemed real for the first time. The thing was, the evolution from sexy waitress to something more had been done in an environment where that was a “career choice” a lot of people around her had made safely. Abruptly, though, she realized she must have been crazy. If she got jailed, Robbie would end up in foster care—with both of his parents behind bars.

Sure, neither Trez, nor her first boss, had ever had any problems with the police, but how could she have put so much faith in that track record considering what was at stake?

God…in cutting herself loose from that whole seedy underside of life, she was able to view her choice to do what she’d done for the money with very different eyes….

Glancing around at all the people in the pews, she was shocked to realize that these were normal eyes she was regarding her actions with. And as a result she was horrified with herself.

Be careful what you wish for, she thought. She’d wanted to be among the worried well, because that had seemed so much easier than where she’d been. Now that she was dipping her foot in that pool, though, it just made what she’d done seem all the more terrible and irresponsible and dangerous.

And actually, that had been the way she’d lived for the last ten years, hadn’t it. Her marriage to Mark had been the first step into a kind of lawless life she’d seen only on TV. Going rogue to keep her son safe had been the second. Turning to prostitution to make money in order to survive had been the third.

As she looked down the long aisle to the altar, she got angry with herself and her choices. She was the only person Robbie had in his life, and though she’d thought she was putting him first, she really hadn’t done that, had she.

And the fact that she hadn’t had many other options considering what kind of money she owed was a very cold comfort.

When the service was over, she and Robbie stood up and joined the crush of people who pooled in the vestibule around Father Neely. For the most part, she focused on ushering Robbie forward, but every now and again, because she couldn’t avoid it without being rude, she nodded to people she knew from the prayer group or from previous Sundays.