Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
She glared. “Lyndon Johnson, if I wanted sass, I would certainly let you know.”
“Yes, Mama.” He went to the closet and shucked through hangers, finally finding the padded shoulders of her church jacket in the back. She hadn’t been well enough to attend the one Sunday he’d been here, but it still alarmed him to see how far back the jacket had migrated. She must not have been up to the two-block walk for weeks.
He carried the jacket over to the bed and helped her thread her arms into it.
“Mama, uh . . .” He didn’t dare tell her to be nice, and he couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask her not to interrogate Andra.
“Don’t mumble, LJ. It makes you look uneducated. Now go and get my makeup bag out of the bathroom, and my hand mirror.”
He frowned. “She knows you just woke up. She doesn’t expect you to be wearing makeup.”
“Lyndon John—” She swayed, bracing her hands in her lap, and didn’t finish.
He caught her shoulder. “You okay? Do you want me to help you to the bathroom?”
She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “I’m fine. Now get my makeup bag. The green one with flowers on it.”
He decided to close his mouth rather than say he hardly needed a description. She’d had the same makeup bag since he was a toddler. It smelled like powder and waxy lipstick, and the lining was stained with little bits of color where various things had come open or spilled over the years. “Okay, Mama.”
“And put on a pair of pants, LJ. You look like a hobo.”
He smiled. It was comforting when she had enough energy to boss him around.
Andra was waiting right outside the door, her hair freshly smoothed. His smile broadened. She raised her eyebrows and mouthed, “Makeup?”
He rolled his eyes and held up a finger for her to wait as he disappeared into the bathroom. Considering how he’d left things between them, he couldn’t believe she was in his home, about to meet his mama. He didn’t know whether he was the luckiest man in the world or the most cursed, because if he couldn’t fix things with her, he was going to have to let her go all over again.
There was a choking sound from inside the bedroom, then a light thump. Oh God.
LJ dropped the makeup bag and sprinted back to the bedroom, but Andra had beat him there. She was on her knees next to the bed, holding the trash can as his mother threw up into it. “Mama!”