“The college?” Linnie asked.

“Not just the damn college. Carlton cliques, Carlton Tigers, Carlton fans, the endless parade of Carlton creeps. I hate Carlton.”

“That’s not true. You’ve got great friends there. And colleagues.” Maggie shook her head. “You can’t lump the whole town together over one incident.”

Wren raised her mug. “It’s tempting, though.” She took a long sip.

“If only it were the one incident. But it’s been months and months of bullshit.” Mom rubbed her eyes with her fists, a curiously childish gesture.

Maggie didn’t know how to react. This wasn’t her old mother, the soothing, church-board-treasurer-at-Saint-Luke’s, look-on-the-bright-side Minerva Arioli. Three-quarters of a year had reduced her to this: a frailer, unhappier person.

Maggie was still learning what those months had cost her personally. But the toll wasn’t hers alone. The hurt was shared, compounded in others … in Mom and Dad, especially. She remembered something her mother had said once—years ago at the doctor’s, when they’d waited in the office for the nurse to return with the vaccinations and Maggie had been sick with dread. “I’d take them for you in a flash if I could, little Mags.” And Maggie hadn’t doubted for a second that her mother had meant it. All these years, in every hurtful situation, her mother would have shielded Maggie from the pain if she could have. But it wasn’t possible. Parents couldn’t take life’s blows and stings for their children. And that was the terrible truth.

Mom raised her face from her hands. “Your dad and I talked about it. We’re moving.”

Maggie stared. It took a moment for her to add a voice to her amazement. “You can’t move.”

“Sure we can. Your dad’s a CPA. I’m a librarian. We can work anywhere.”

“Carlton’s home.” My home.

“It’s…” Mom gazed morosely out the window. “Poisoned.”

Wren sighed. “You want to keep her safe.”

“I want to try.”

Linnie averted her face, but Maggie read the expression before she hid it: Good luck with that.

“You’re a great mom, Min,” the aunt murmured.

Mom swallowed. “A parent can only be so good. There’s too much danger out there.” She folded her hands together tightly. “But I can do better than our parents did.”

There was a concession in those words. Wren had heard it, too. Pain worked over her features. She reached across the table and covered Mom’s folded hands with both of her own.

“Don’t make any hasty decisions about Carlton,” Maggie said.

“If we stay or move—who cares?” Mom asked sadly. “You don’t want to be there, either.”

Maggie mumbled something about not acting rashly and lowered her gaze to her cup of coffee. But she was thinking about Jane Cannon’s email. About Jane’s future. And her own. I’ll go back if you go back.

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