She took a breath. “But see, you took that away from me too. Hope. You inflicted chaos and destruction on my soul. Every day that you didn’t come home, every day my prayers weren’t answered, all I heard was God’s silence. God telling me I didn’t matter.” Her voice dropped. “What you did made me believe that God hated me.”

Her mother swallowed. “Echo—”

She held up a hand. “Stay. Away. From. Me.”

“Please. I love you. I’m sorry I left you.” Her mother’s expression was wrecked, sincere sorrow on her face.

Inside Echo sounded a terrible roaring, something tearing, a pulse of compassion—

No.

She backed away.

“Echo?”

Then she turned and pushed out of the room.

Dodge stood in the hall and took off after her as she stalked past the janitor mopping up her coffee. She ran all the way to the stairwell, hit the door, and took the stairs down.

Dodge was hot on her trail. “Echo!”

“Leave me alone!” But her voice had cracked, and she could hear her own choked sobs lifting, echoing.

“No!” He took the stairs two at a time and met her at the bottom, right after she slammed her way outside, into the cold.

He caught her arm, turned her. “Echo!”

She rounded, her breaths hiccupping, tears running down her face.

“What?” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “What did she say?”

“She . . . wants me to forgive her.”

“Oh.”

“She stood there and said that she never stopped loving me. Hello—I was two hours away!”

He said nothing, just nodded.

“After everything she’s done, all the chaos and pain she’s caused . . . The crazy, horrifying thing is that there’s a part of me that—shoot—that still loves her. That wants to forgive her.” She tore herself away. “What is wrong with me? I’m not a child, desperate for her mommy to come home. I’m an adult and she . . . she left us. Left me!”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t get it.”

The night was crowding in, the air brisk but carrying the faintest edge of spring.

He pulled her back against himself, his arms around her. “I do.”

He was warm and she turned in his arms.

“It’s love breaking through.”

“I don’t love her anymore.”

“Echo. Of course you do. She’s your mother.”

Echo looked away.

“What if you let it go? Your anger, even the injustice of it.”

She raised an eyebrow.