She shook her head, her eyes soft in a way I barely recognized. “I’m not laughing.” And that was the thing that undid me—not my daughter laid open on a stretcher, not Cal’s voice beside my bed, a kindness from my mother. Shame washed through me. I hated that it was comfort from her that I needed in order to cry. She leaned over and pulled me toward her, and I fell into her lap, buried my face in the dirty denim of her jeans. She stroked my hair while I sobbed, her muffled voice murmuring bits of childhood songs.

She’d always been good at this, waiting until you’d about given up on her once and for all and then reaching out with a tender hand. It reminded me of the few times she’d read to me as a child, tucked me up against her body on the couch and gave different voices to the characters in the secondhand picture book I’d gotten for Christmas. Once, she even made me a mug of hot chocolate to sip while she read. Her rare affection an offering I never could resist, even when I knew better. Because her sweetness was always short-lived, always out of the blue, so you could never predict or count on it. And that made the rest of the hours and weeks and years that much worse. Because you knew she was capable of something more, something different. And you were left always hoping for it, waiting for that rarely glimpsed side of her to show itself. Never quite able to let go.

When I finally pushed myself upright, face swollen and tear-smeared, my mama looked at me. Set down her beer, tossed her cigarette to the side, and held my face between her thin hands. “You were a good mama,” she said, stared at me until I gave a weak nod, and then tightened her fingers until I wanted to pull away, the edges of her sharp nails digging into my skin. “But the time for being good is over,” she said. “The time for bawling and feeling sorry for yourself is over. Do you understand?” This time she didn’t allow for nodding, didn’t give me any room to move or look away. Her cigarette-smoke breath bathed my face and her ice-chip eyes cut into mine. “You’re made of stronger stuff than that. You find him, Eve. Whoever did this. You find him. And you make him pay.”

FIVE

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind had never been one of my mama’s mottos. Her version of justice was less forgiving, more Old Testament. An eye for an eye. Or maybe even a life for an eye. People knew not to mess with my mama. Not unless they wanted far worse than what they’d given. She’d been known to beat the shit out of men twice her size. Had no qualms with fighting dirty or going for the jugular. Once, she’d snatched a fist-sized patch of hair off a woman’s head for calling us white trash. Her advice wasn’t a surprise to me. It was why I’d gone, really. The information about Jimmy Ray just an afterthought. What I’d really wanted was a second opinion to echo the voice in the back of my head. Permission to follow my own worst urgings.