“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought I was protecting you. I tricked myself into thinking you wouldn’t notice what a bad father he was if I didn’t point it out too much. I thought it was better for you to think he was letting you go because he thought it was best than for you to know that he wasn’t even thinking. Don’t you go feeling responsible for his failings. They aren’t yours, April.”

“When both parents crap out on you—I’m the common denominator, you know.”

Margo grabs my hand and squeezes. “You’re the gift that came from two broken people. They were weak, and hurt, and cowardly, and somehow managed to make this miracle girl who is so full of piss and vinegar that she survived it all. Maybe you need to mourn who they weren’t. Maybe that’s what you’re here for now.”

“You’re too good to me, Margo,” I say, wiping my face with the napkin.

“I don’t think I’ve been good enough,” she says, and I realize she’s crying too.

— Chapter 63 —

Margo is gone before I wake up. She told me last night she was headed out early to make egg casseroles and crumb cake for anyone who stops by the diner after the funeral. Said she didn’t want “that poor Irene” to feel like she had to feed people on top of everything else.

I call to her anyway, wishing for an answer, hearing only the rattle of the heater. I have a crying hangover. Puffy face. My nose feels like it’s filled with cement. It’s strange to be in Margo’s apartment alone. When I walk into the living room her cat jumps off the coffee table to hide under the couch.

In the kitchen there’s a note, a strawberry Danish, and a glass of orange juice on the counter. The kitchen smells like coffee, but she didn’t leave me any. I’m sure it was on purpose. There’s a navy blue maternity dress hanging over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. The note says: Thought you might need this. Love, M. I wonder if it was one of Irene’s maternity dresses. It has a drop waist, a pleated skirt, and a square flappy collar with white trim like a sailor’s uniform. You know, because of all the pregnant ladies in the Navy.

I think about cutting the collar off and trying to make it something else, the way Carly would, but my father never cared what I looked like when he was alive I don’t think it’ll start to matter now. My long skirt with the stretchy waist is good enough.