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Back The Mother Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. HALLOWEEN
  6. Seven Weeks Before Halloween
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. HALLOWEEN
  11. Six Weeks Before Halloween
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. HALLOWEEN
  16. Five Weeks Before Halloween
  17. SEVEN
  18. EIGHT
  19. HALLOWEEN
  20. NINE
  21. TEN
  22. HALLOWEEN
  23. ELEVEN
  24. TWELVE
  25. Twenty-Five Days Until Halloween
  26. THIRTEEN
  27. FOURTEEN
  28. HALLOWEEN
  29. FIFTEEN
  30. SIXTEEN
  31. SEVENTEEN
  32. EIGHTEEN
  33. NINETEEN
  34. TWENTY
  35. HALLOWEEN
  36. Eighteen Days Until Halloween
  37. TWENTY-ONE
  38. TWENTY-TWO
  39. HALLOWEEN
  40. TWENTY-THREE
  41. TWENTY-FOUR
  42. Eleven Days Until Halloween
  43. TWENTY-FIVE
  44. TWENTY-SIX
  45. Eight Days Until Halloween
  46. TWENTY-SEVEN
  47. TWENTY-EIGHT
  48. TWENTY-NINE
  49. HALLOWEEN
  50. THIRTY
  51. Four Days Until Halloween
  52. THIRTY-ONE
  53. HALLOWEEN
  54. THIRTY-TWO
  55. Two Days Until Halloween
  56. THIRTY-THREE
  57. The Night Before Halloween
  58. THIRTY-FOUR
  59. HALLOWEEN
  60. THIRTY-FIVE
  61. Halloween, Present Day
  62. THIRTY-SIX
  63. THIRTY-SEVEN
  64. HALLOWEEN
  65. THIRTY-EIGHT
  66. HALLOWEEN
  67. THIRTY-NINE
  68. HALLOWEEN
  69. FORTY
  70. HALLOWEEN
  71. FORTY-ONE
  72. FORTY-TWO
  73. FORTY-THREE
  74. FORTY-FOUR
  75. HALLOWEEN... NOW
  76. FORTY-FIVE
  77. Seven Months Later
  78. FORTY-SIX
  79. FORTY-SEVEN
  80. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  81. ALICE SWANSON’S
  82. Reader's Guide
  83. Questions for Discussion
  84. Booklist

Maggie looked up at us as she counted a stack of ones under her breath. Her straight brown hair brushed her shoulders and framed a roundish but shrewd face. Something about her seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen or met her before.

“Awesome,” Maggie said when she finished. “I’ve had to pee for like an hour.”

I took my place behind the table. I’d not worked a cash register since my part-time grocery store job in high school, but already I’d used that valuable skill set twice since volunteering at Woodard. By the time Maggie came back, things had died down.

She whipped out a lint roller from her purse. “Cats,” she said, pushing it across her sweater. “They lie all over me before I leave the house, and it’s not until I’m staring at myself in the mirror that I notice the fur. I’m Maggie Lewis. My son’s a senior at Woodard.”

“I’m Theresa.”

We shook hands.

Suddenly Maggie’s eyes lit up. “Oh you’re Adam Wallace’s wife,” she said. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. You have a daughter here, right?”

“Lily. She’s a freshman.”

“How lovely. She’ll find her place. That’s the nice thing about Woodard—there’s a club for just about anything. My oldest is a swimmer, and my youngest is like a chess genius, and I can’t do either. Isn’t it weird how we give birth to these beings and then they grow up entirely different than us?”

“Totally weird.” I thought about Lily’s temper. So sudden and fiery. Like the time I’d forbid her twelve-year-old self from going to a rock concert in Camden without me and she’d exploded, face beet red, eyes wild. You and I are nothing alike, she’d screamed, and I’d had to agree.

Maggie continued talking, almost as though she’d heard my thoughts. “Ugh, you’ve got a girl, though. Girls are hard. Oh the hormones. My boys are smelly and loud, but at least we’ve dodged some of that girl drama.”

“It hasn’t been that bad so far,” I said. “Lily had good friends in Philly, and she seems to be fitting in here, too. It’s the boyfriend thing that I’m worried about. I’m sure that will be starting soon.” I wasn’t sure why I was confiding in Maggie about Lily’s future love life, but it felt right. This was what women did, wasn’t it? Plus, I wanted her to like me. I wanted them all to like me.

Maggie tsked. “Overprotective mama, eh?”

“Well, not really. I just—”