Tully practically ran for the kitchen. In that pink hell, junk food wrappers covered the table, dirty dishes clogged the sink, and over-flowing ashtrays were everywhere; more evidence of her pathetic life for her best friend’s mother to see.

Mrs. Mularkey walked past her, bent over the oven, put the casserole onto the rack, then shut the door with her hip and then turned to study Tully. “My Katie is a good girl,” she said at last.

Here it comes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“She’s been praying for your mother to recover from her cancer. She even has a little altar set up in her room.”

Tully looked at the floor, too ashamed to answer. How could she explain why she’d lied? No answer would be good enough, not for a mother like Mrs. Mularkey, who loved her kids. At that, a wave of jealousy joined the shame running through her. Maybe if Tully had had a mother who loved her she wouldn’t find it so easy—so necessary—to lie in the first place. And now she’d lose the one thing that mattered to her: Katie.

“Do you think lying to your friends is okay?”

“No, ma’am.” So intently was she staring at the floor that she was startled by a gentle touch on her chin that forced her to look up.

“Are you going to be a good friend to Kate? Or the kind that leads her to trouble?”

“I’d never hurt Katie.” Tully wanted to say more, maybe fall to her knees and swear to be a good person, but she was so close to tears she didn’t dare move. She stared into Mrs. Mularkey’s dark eyes and saw something she never expected: understanding.

In the living room, Cloud stumbled over to the television and changed the channel. Tully could see the screen through the rubble of the messy room: Jean Enersen was reporting on the day’s top story.

“You do it, don’t you?” Mrs. Mularkey said quietly, as if she worried that Cloud might be eavesdropping. “Pay the bills, grocery-shop, clean the house. Who pays for everything?”

Tully swallowed hard. No one had ever seen through her life so clearly before. “My grandmother sends a check every week.”

“My dad was a fall-down drunk and the whole town knew it,” Mrs. Mularkey said in a soft voice that matched the look in her eyes. “He was mean, too. Friday and Saturday nights, my sister, Georgia, would have to go to the tavern and drag him home. All the way out of the bar he’d be smacking her and calling her names. She was like one of those rodeo clowns, always stepping between the bull and the cowboy. By the end of my junior year I figured out why she ran with the fast crowd and drank too much.”

“She didn’t want people to look at her like she was pitiful.”

Mrs. Mularkey nodded. “She hated that look. What matters, though, isn’t other people. That’s what I learned. Who your mom is and how she lives her life isn’t a reflection of you . You can make your own choices. And there’s nothing for you to be ashamed of. But you’ll have to dream big, Tully.” She glanced through the open door to the living room. “Like that Jean Enersen on the TV there. A woman who gets to a place like that in her life knows how to go after what she wants.”