“Be careful, okay?” Megan warned her. “Want me to call someone? Let your dad know she’s there?”
“It’s okay.” No matter how angry she was with her mother, she felt like she deserved an explanation for some of the things that had happened. “I’ll be fine.”
“Call me back when she leaves, okay?” Megan asked. “I have something to tell you.”
“For sure,” she said absently.
Ending the call, she stepped out into the dark evening, still holding her blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.
“I picked up some groceries.” Her mother pointed toward the driveway, where her car was still running, the headlights on. “I’ll get them for you before I go.”
“Yeah?” She watched Hazel rub her doggy face against her mom’s right knee and then her left one, happy as a dog could be. It was easier for Hazel, who didn’t know Mom’s villainous side. “I was just trying to make a salad a second ago. There’s nothing.”
Her mother pursed her lips and frowned. She looked strangely good, though. Like she’d been to the spa for three weeks instead of prison, which seemed weird. The little worry lines that used to be around her forehead all the time had eased. She wasn’t moving around at a mile a minute trying to get things done.
“Bailey, I’m so sorry for everything. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness.” She rubbed the dog’s head, and Bailey noticed her wedding ring was gone. “I’m going to try to patch up whateverI can fix, but... I don’t know. I just wanted you to hear it from me directly that I understand what I did was so wrong, and I’m going to try hard to be a better person.”
“Dad is crazy angry.” She’d listened to his tirades—ugly stuff about her parents’ marriage that she wished she’d never heard. She knew her father would never take her mother back in a million years.
“Rightly so.” Her mother’s expression was unreadable, but she didn’t look away.
“But setting aside all the ways you hurt Dad? I’m so angry about what you did to my best friend.” Her mom had made the anonymous texts sound like they’d come from one of the girls at school. “You told Megan she might as well die.”
Her eyes burned to think that level of hate had come from her mother. The person who was supposed to love her the most in the world.
“I have regretted that every day since I sent it.” She straightened from petting the dog, folding her arms tight. “Every hour. I knew it was stupid at the time. I knew I was stupid for letting Jeremy talk me into it.” She frowned as if she still didn’t understand it herself.
This conversation sucked for about a million reasons. But it was really strange to stand there and be disappointed with her mother for acting like the most idiotic teenager on the planet. Since when was Bailey the adult in this relationship?
“Did you ever stop to consider what could have happened if Megan had taken the message to heart? Like, what if she was having a bad day and she got a note that said ‘You might as well die.’” Her mother had—as she was fond of reminding people—run a major electronics company at one time. How could someone so smart do something sodumb just because her boyfriend told her to? “What if she decided her life was shit and she should end it all?”
Her mother shook her head, blond hair slipping out of the elastic in front to hang in her face. “I’m truly sorry. What I did was unforgivable.”
Bailey had a whole lot more to say about that, but what was the point? Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Blah. Blah. Blah. The word didn’t mean much to her. It didn’t change what her mother had done.
Hugging the blanket tighter around her, she nodded toward the car. “Let’s bring in the groceries before Dad gets home.”
She damn well wanted the food.
“Okay.” Her mother followed her along the landscaped pathway they’d put in when they first moved here.
The cobblestone pavers had taken her mother weeks to choose. Was it strange for her to be here, walking on those stones she had picked and knowing she’d never be part of life in this house again? Bailey did not want to care how she felt. But she wondered.
Once they retrieved the bags and carried them to the porch, Bailey stepped back outside with her mom, ready for her to leave. Her mother hadn’t offered any great insights or reasons for what she’d done. And the last thing she wanted was a confrontation between her parents when her father came home.
“Are you still with him?” she asked, even knowing her dad could pull into the driveway any minute. “I mean, if Mr. Covington gets out of jail?—”
“No.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “I am going to do everything I can to make sure he goes to prison for a long time after—” She shook her head like she wasn’t going to say any more.
“Um.” Bailey tapped her foot and tried to decide how to express herself. “If you think you’re protecting me or something, please spare me after what you’ve already put me through. I’d like to know where you truly stand with him, Mom.”
“Jeremy Covington is a cheating liar who had another girlfriend half the time we were together. And if I can do anything to make sure he goes to jail, I will.”
Bailey’s head spun from her mother’s lack of sense. If she’d been talking to a girlfriend, she would have pointed out that her mom should have known he was a cheater by the fact that he was married and carrying on an affair. But her mother had lost her marbles. It was like one of those teen movies where the mom and daughter switch places for the day. Except Bailey would never pull the childish crap her mom had.
“How about Mr. Covington’s kid?” she asked instead, tracing a path between the pavers with the toe of her shoe. “Can you send J.D. to jail, too?”
“Why?” Her mom stepped closer, all tense like she was poised for action. “Did that boy do something to you?” She put her hands on Bailey’s shoulders. “Did he hurt you?”
