My hands shook as I remembered the letter in my hands; the last (and only) letter Gemma wrote me while I was in rehab. But did two sentences really count as a letter?

I miss you. I hate it here Mom.

Those words, as much as it pained me to read them, gave me one small glimmer of hope—Gemma still calls me Mom.

Not her deadbeat father, not my eccentric aunt and uncle … not my catty never-became-my-sister-in-law Jewel.

Me.

I’m Mom. And, regardless of my past mistakes, I always will be.

The driver followed a snaky paved road, past a meadow teeming with wildflowers. Rolling my window down, I drew in the heady perfume.

Nice to catch a break from the cornfields and cattle shit.

A gentle hill arose from the earth, and then the cab rattled to a stop.

“Here we are, Ma’am,” the driver said, careful not to call me “Miss” again.

After hours of passing nothing but grainy farmland, smudgy patches of churches and painted farmhouses … I was finally here.

The rotting monstrosity rose before me, like a bad dream. I lowered my sunglasses, taking it all in.

The house had been beautiful once, you could tell. But the rotten, peeling Victorian that belonged to my aunt and uncle looked to be on the verge of collapse. Steeply pitched points and arched windows gave the house a gothic appeal.

Creepy.

Now this is my daughter’s home, too, I thought, unable to hide my shock and dismay.

Truth was, I could barely remember Cedar Farm from my youth, having spent so little time here. In my mind’s eye, I’d imagined a cutesy farmhouse, something wholesome with chickens and ducks. Not this dilapidated, pseudo-haunted house.

But it was my aunt and uncle who had turned up at my court hearing after Finn’s overdose and my third arrest. It was they who had volunteered to take custody so that Gemma didn’t become a ward of the state. With my own parents dead and gone, the chances of finding an alternative to foster care had seemed slim … until my long-lost relatives showed up to save the day.

Deep down, I knew I should feel more grateful toward Sara and Francis. They had taken in my daughter, whom they had never met … and now they were offering to take me too.

You can stay with us until you’re ready to bring her home, Aunt Sara had offered over the phone when I was fresh out of rehab.

But coming here, after ninety days of treatment and feeling disconnected from my daughter, all I could feel was bottled-up fear. Fear that they wouldn’t give her back. Fear that she wouldn’t remember how close we once were… Only seven, Gemma’s resilient heart and mind might help her block me out for good…