And Dr. Tillman, coming toward her, saying she was a terrible parent; her mother in the front row, starting to cry; Johnny jumping from his seat, shouting something to a cameraman that Kate couldn’t hear.

She still felt shell-shocked by all of it, numb. Beneath the numbness, though, was a raw and terrible anger that was unlike anything she’d felt before. She had so little experience with genuine anger that it scared her. She actually worried that if she started screaming, she’d never stop. So she kept the lid on her emotions and sat quietly.

She kept glancing at the phone, expecting Tully to call.

“I’ll hang up,” she said. And she would. She was actually looking forward to it. For all the years of the friendship, Tully had pulled shit like this (well, nothing really like this), and it had fallen to Kate to apologize, whether it was her fault or not. Tully never said she was sorry; she just waited for Kate to smooth things over.

Not this time.

This time Kate was so hurt and angry, she didn’t care if they stayed friends or not. If they were to get back together, Tully was going to have to work for it.

I’ll hang up a lot of times.

She sighed, wishing the thought made her feel better, but it didn’t. She felt . . . broken by yesterday.

There was a knock at her door. It could be any member of her family. Last night they’d circled the wagons around her, treating her like a breakable princess, protecting her. Mom and Dad had spent the night; Kate thought her mom was on suicide watch, that was how overbearing she was. Dad kept patting her shoulder and saying how pretty she was, and the boys, who didn’t know exactly what was wrong but sensed that it was big, hung on her constantly. Only Marah stood back from the drama, watching it all from a distance.

“Come in,” Kate said, sitting up taller, trying to look more durable than she felt.

Marah walked into the room. Dressed for school in low-rise jeans, pink UGG boots, and a gray hoodie sweatshirt, she tried to smile, but it was a failure. “Grandma said I had to talk to you.”

Kate was relieved beyond measure simply by her daughter’s presence. She moved to the middle of her bed and patted the empty place beside her.

Marah sat opposite her instead, leaning back against the silk-upholstered footboard, with her legs drawn up. Ragged holes in her favorite jeans showed the knobby curl of her knees.

Kate couldn’t help longing for the time when she could have scooped her daughter into her arms and held her. She needed that now. “You knew about the show, didn’t you?”

“Tully and I talked about it. She said it would help us.”

“And?”

Marah shrugged. “I just wanted to go to the concert.”