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Back When She Returned Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE
  46. FORTY-TWO
  47. FORTY-THREE
  48. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The things I had read shook me to my core, and Dad wouldn’t consider anything they wrote. He wouldn’t even talk about it with me. Eventually, I’d gone to Dean for help processing everything, and unlike Dad, he had been willing to admit there was a possibility that Mom may have decided to leave on her own. I had told him how they talked about the possibility that she might have committed suicide, and he had shocked me when he had told me that they’d already ruled it out. It was one of the things I loved the most about Dean. He was refreshingly honest. Always had been.

“And then she just suddenly decided to come back? Why would she do that after all this time?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He took his arm off my shoulder and cracked his knuckles. “But I’m going to do my best to figure this mess out.”

“Thanks, Dean.” He had a way of always making me feel better. “All of this is just happening so fast. It’s like every time I get my feet on solid ground, something happens and I’m falling all over the place again. Tonight was just like bam—bam—bam.”

“It must be hard for you to see your mom this way,” Dean said.

I shook my head. “That’s the thing nobody understands. It’s really not.”

His eyes grew in curiosity. “It’s not hard seeing her so wrecked?”

“It’s hard to see her in pain, yes, but I would hate seeing anyone in pain. That’s not what I’m talking about. Dad has before-and-after versions of her, but I don’t. My only version of Mom has always been through his eyes, but it was never mine. She was never real to me from experience. It was always his version. You know what I mean?” He nodded, signaling me to continue. “It’s easier for me in a way because I didn’t know her, and all I want to do is get to know her. I don’t care who she is—I just want to know her. Even if she turns out to be totally damaged from whatever she went through, or she’s a completely different person than I thought. It doesn’t matter. Not to me. It’s different for me than Dad.”

He tousled my hair with his other hand. “You’re a smart kid, you know that?”

I smiled. “Dad’s totally freaking out, huh?”