Ronnie folded the note quickly, sucking in a breath. Was that true? Vanessa had become a stranger to her; Ronnie didn’t know whether this knowledge was a gift or a trick. She wanted to believe that Vanessa was telling the truth. Jerrod was gone. Jerrod was dead. So that was the reality she chose. Vanessa was still her sister. And Vanessa was giving her a gift—two gifts, actually. She turned to Esme and, in a burst of elation, plucked Esme’s half-eaten donut and took a huge bite.

“Hey!” Esme said, grabbing it back. “That’s mine!”

“We’ll get you another,” Ronnie decided, shooing her daughter out of the booth. “We’ll get a whole dozen to take home.”

Thirty-Three

Come on,” Lauren coaxed, her arms outstretched. “Come to me. You can do it.”

Matthew stood five feet away, teetering on two stout legs, holding fast to the edge of the coffee table and looking at Lauren with a mix of uncertainty and determination. His big blue eyes went wide with fascination at his own abilities; he kept breaking into a smile, showing off a new bottom tooth.

“Go on,” Clarissa, who was sitting on the couch, goaded. “You got this!”

Matthew had started flirting with walking a few days ago, not long after Piper’s attack. But Lauren had been so out of it—and so had Graham, apparently—that only Clarissa had witnessed and acknowledged the feat. But Lauren wasn’t going to miss the baby’s first steps. She held her breath as Matthew dared to remove one hand and then the other from the table, suddenly standing alone without support. He lifted his foot as if to take a step, and then toppled down on his butt.

“Oh!” Lauren cried, rushing to help him back up. Her hands were sure on his back now, not tentative as they’d been before. She didn’t have to worry about herself. She would never harm her baby, and she could trust all her instincts. In fact, she scooped him up and held him tightly, probably more tightly than Graham would have liked, just to give him an extra squeeze. And you know what? Matthew squealed with delight.

“Some kids cruise for months before walking,” Clarissa said when Lauren put him back down. “He’ll get there.”

It was Lauren’s first instinct to snap, I know he will. But Clarissa cared about babies and was trying her best. It wasn’t like she’d asked to get mixed up in the family’s dysfunction. Lauren wondered if she’d been too quick to judge her before, because when Clarissa came to work that morning and Lauren told her that Graham was no longer living at the house and had been in jail for assault, Clarissa sucked in a breath and said, “Oh my, Lauren, I’m here for whatever you need.”