Gavin painted his face with a look of boredom, shrugged, and said, “Never heard of her.”

Chapter 47

Lila didn’t go back to work after leaving Dovey at the restaurant—stunned and muted and covered in red blotches. She refused to treat the remainder of her day as just another afternoon, a page plucked from the calendar and thrown onto a pile with the rest. She wanted to bask in her audacity. She wanted to let the tremble of adrenaline work its way out of her fingers. And she wanted to call Joe, but this—along with everything she needed to tell him—seemed like a conversation best had in person.

A termination letter would likely be on her desk by morning. Or would they email it to her? She hoped that Dovey would at least have the balls to do it himself and not drag Andi into it. She sent Andi an email from her phone to let her know that Spencer’s status hearing was prepped and ready for the morning, adding a cryptic note about having a family emergency and needing to leave for the day. Then she climbed into her car and drove.

Lila followed the flow of the traffic through downtown Minneapolis, replaying those few minutes in the restaurant, the memory both thrilling and horrifying. She tried to convince herself that her rash act had been a huge mistake, but every time she relived the memory, it played like music in her ears.

Yet, there had been one moment at the table that didn’t feel right, a single sentence that had nothing to do with Dovey, or Nelson, or the letter from the bar examiners. In truth, that one sentence had no place in the discussion at all, but having said it, Lila could not rid it from her mind. My own mother refused to acknowledge what happened to me, and when it became too much, I swallowed some of her pills.

It wasn’t the statement itself that bothered Lila. She’d understood long ago that her mother closed her eyes to the ugly parts of life. That’s how Charlotte coped with her husband flying off to the Philippines or her daughter carving lines in her skin. But at the restaurant, Lila had presented her mother’s oblivion not as a reaction to the suicide attempt, but as a cause of it.

My own mother refused to acknowledge what happened to me, and when it became too much…

As she slowed for a red light, another voice entered the conversation. Healing requires forgiveness, Dr. Roberts had said. Forgiveness isn’t for them. It’s for you. She had always seen those words aimed at the men who attacked her. Weren’t they the ones who Dr. Roberts wanted her to forgive?

And when it became too much…

Lila aimed her car south, toward her mother’s house.

* * *

Charlotte answered the door wearing a smile that had no memory, as if Lila’s last visit hadn’t ended the way it did. “Well, look at this—twice in one week?”