Her arm squeezes my waist. “I know, honey. But I’m not going anywhere ever again. Okay?”

“Okay.” And then I’m in my apartment and running to the bathroom, head in the toilet while Mom rubs a cool washcloth across the back of my neck.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Whiskey,” comes Ruth’s voice from outside the bathroom.

Mom wets the washcloth again, wrings it out. “What got into you?”

“Maybe it was Bob Dylan,” Ruth says. “His music could make anybody drink.”

I push to standing, wincing at an ache that spreads across my forehead. “Bob Dylan?” I say and sink into the couch.

Ruth takes a seat on one of the barstools.

Mom hands me a glass of water and two pills. “Drink this and take these.”

I do as I’m told, and while my head is fuzzy, an odd thought springs to mind. “I feel like a teenager again.”

Ruth frowns. “You acted like a teenager again.”

I look at Mom and I’m surprised at the warm feeling spreading through my limbs. Her hair is down, washed and dried in shiny waves, and she wears a soft lavender sweatshirt that brings out a healthy pink tone in her skin. I have to swallow past a lump. “But you weren’t here when I was a teenager,” I say.

Mom’s dark-blue eyes crinkle when she smiles. “Well, I’m here now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Wednesday, February 20

When I get to Kiko’s classroom, I easily locate my spot, MS. CLAIRE’S READING CORNER, and settle into the beanbag chair, moving my tall form around until I squish it into a comfortable-enough seat. While Kiko instructs the class, I scan my notes, blink against a pressure in my eyes when I read that Tate is a father. He’s a good one, I have no doubt, and his daughter, Maree, sits across the classroom now, squirming in her seat, with a name tag made of silver duct tape affixed to her shirt.

There’s a tenderness I feel toward the girl that is mirrored in my notes from previous times we’ve spent together. I wonder if on some level I sensed the connection. Tate and I were as close as two people can be. It wouldn’t surprise me if that connection extends to his daughter.

Kiko announces quiet activity time, and the little girl with cat-eye glasses picks up her backpack and zooms over to my corner, jumping into the smaller beanbag chair beside me. Maree. I smile.

She points to her name tag. “I’m Maree, like Mary with a y ’cept with two e’s ’cause I love—”

“Anne of Green Gables,” I say, and I don’t know where it comes from but it feels right and it apparently delights the girl, who has covered her mouth with one hand.

“Oh my God. That is so amazing. Maybe I should be a doctor when I grow up!”