I pushed my chair back hard, and it went over halfway, crashing into the wall behind me. “We’re done,” I told her. “Not for now or for today. For always. Pretend you don’t know me.” Even as I spoke, I had the sinking feeling my words were coming too late. Junie’s death had set events in motion that couldn’t be stopped. I crossed to the front door, paused before stepping out. “Pretend you never had a daughter. It shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.”

I wanted it to hurt her, but I knew with unflinching certainty that it hadn’t. As soon as I was gone, she’d open another beer, screw the guy on the sofa, and throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. End her evening with heroin between the toes. And the daughter she’d just lost, the daughter she hadn’t wanted to begin with, would never even cross her mind.

TWENTY-ONE

I couldn’t face Cal yet, look him in the eye and hear his stumbling, shamefaced apology. The combination of words that would never be big enough to cover the depth of his betrayal. The worst part was, I already knew I’d forgive him. He was all I had left. My only tether to the world. And as much as I didn’t want to, I understood why he’d done it. Understood how sometimes he was powerless to resist our mother. The piece of him that remained a little boy, desperate to prove his worth. But still . . . Junie. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around him bringing Junie into the mix. He must have thought he could control Mama, control the way she inserted herself into Junie’s life. But I knew better. There was no controlling Mama; there was only containment, and even that was fraught with danger as she constantly evaded your well-established perimeters. She was like a weed: You’d stomp her out in one spot, but when you turned around, she’d already be growing again.

I still hadn’t recovered my taste for alcohol. In truth, I probably had never had one, even when I was younger. But back then, a few too many beers had made the rest of my life easier to swallow, too. But when I passed by Jimmy Ray’s strip joint, the sun beginning to fall into the horizon, I pulled into the lot. I told myself I wasn’t going inside to see Jimmy Ray, that I didn’t care one way or the other whether he was there, but the self-destructive song in my blood sang a different tune.

This early in the evening, the place was virtually empty. Only one stripper out on the stage and a single occupied table, two guys who eyed me as I made my way to the bar. I was surprised to see Sam working behind the counter, and it took me a second to remember that Matt was dead. Blown to smithereens right in front of my eyes.

“Hey, Eve,” Sam said, shy smile easing out from under his beard. “What can I get you?”