All that time with Blake had turned her into someone else, and I thought of him, passed out and reeking in his bed, and could not understand how she could have stolen us from our life for this. Could not understand why she wanted to sleep with him instead of in the room we used to share, or stay up with him drinking coffee instead of herbal tea with honey in Grammy’s floral-patterned easy chair. Could not understand why she’d chosen a life where the only times we really spoke to each other were when Blake was far away. Or why she rarely even hugged me anymore, rarely looked into my face.

Where was my mother?

“Oh, Mila,” she said. “How will we get out of this?”

“We will,” I said, though I didn’t know the answer. “I know we will.”

I was fearless, because she needed me to be.

How clearly I saw my mother’s hair in the sun, heard her heartbeat, her voice. I lowered my body to the floor, rested my cheek against the wood.

Blake knew a lot of people. Most of them were transient. They’d come, pitch tents or sleep in the house on blankets, stay for a day or a week and move on. But Peggy and Matty lived close by and came over often. The four of them and whoever else was there would sit together by the firepit, talking late into the night, drinking beer or wine or liquor straight from the bottle. I usually stayed away, up on the platform near the top of the hill, or in my place at the far end of the house, reading by flashlight or trying to sleep. But not that night. My mother needed me; I could feel it. So I made my own place by the fire.

“Oh, look. The kid is joining us,” Peggy said when she saw me. “You’re usually off hiding somewhere.”

I shrugged. She cocked her head, assessing me.

“You must have been a baby when you had her,” she said to my mother.

“Fifteen.”

“Where’s the dad?” Matty asked, popping the cap off another beer.

“You tell them,” my mother said, smiling at me. I had been quiet, on the periphery. She was inviting me in. So I told them about the party and the movie and the conversation that followed. I pushed aside the ache over my grandparents, how I would never see them again—that wasn’t what this was about. This was about my mother and me.

I told them, “She knew he wouldn’t be a good father, so she made a decision.”

“Men,” Matty said. “Who needs them? Right, ladies?”

Peggy laughed too loudly. But I couldn’t tell whether Matty was being self-deprecating or whether he was being mean. I didn’t know what to say or what to do with my face. I was glad for the darkness, sheltered by it.