She wondered how they would have reacted if her sisters hadn’t been around.Last night had been… different.
A breeze flitted through the air, lifting her hair and sending a chill down her neck.She moved a bit closer to Billy’s big body as they headed down the street.“You seem to know a lot about conducting a search for someone.”
“It’s nothing you don’t know already.It’s just street smarts.”
“Billy.”She knew him better than that.She’d seen the truth on his face.“You went looking for your mother.”
He pulled up short, and it was suddenly hard to breathe.
“Yeah,” he said roughly.
“Did you find her?”Roxie’s voice was wispy as smoke.
He stuck his hands in his pockets.“Yes, and that’s how I know it’s not all rainbows and bunny rabbits.”
He started down the sidewalk again, but she caught his arm.Her fingers snagged on the leather cuff he wore around his wrist.“How bad was it?”
He didn’t look at her, but he did focus more intently on the sidewalk in front of them.“Pretty bad,” he muttered under his breath.
Roxie’s eyes stung.They’d always known that his mother was out there somewhere.The circumstances surrounding his stay in foster care weren’t as cloudy as hers.Social Services had separated him from his mother when he was nine.
“She’s a meth head,” he said bluntly, with no attempt to soften the blow.
“Oh, Billy.”The wind left Roxie’s lungs.She took another step closer and wrapped her arm through his.She leaned a little his way, letting him feel her as they walked down the sidewalk, side by side.
There was no distance between them in this.She wasn’t expecting a happy ending for herself, but she’d wished one for him.“Where did you find her?”
“Under a bridge in Minneapolis.She was homeless at the time.”
Roxie leaned her head against his shoulder.“Did she know who you were?”
“Once I explained it, yeah.She was sorry.”He stopped to clear his throat.“Really sorry about everything.”
“But?”
“But she’s sick.That crap has a hold on her… She was too high to take care of me when I was a kid, and then losing me apparently played games with her head.”
Roxie tried to work up some sympathy for the woman, but it was difficult.His childhood had played games with his head, too.
“Was it worth it?”she asked.“Tracking her down and finding her?”
“I don’t know.”He raked a hand through his hair.“She was all weepy and begging for forgiveness, but by the time I left, she was asking me for money.”
Roxie closed her eyes against the fury of red that flooded her vision.To support her habit, no doubt.Talk about a knife in the stomach.
“Have you kept in touch?”She kept the words soft, but her jaw was set.
“She’s in a care facility now.”
“Are you paying for it?”
He didn’t deny it.He looked out over the river as they walked down the street that ran next to it.“I suppose it was for the best that she gave me up.”
For the best.
Funny how that knife so quickly changed directions.Roxie felt the twinge and she stiffened.With a twist, the pain became anger all over again.Moving deliberately, she unwrapped her arm from his and stepped away to walk on her own.
For the best.
