Kim nods and lowers her head into her hands. “How could we let it get this bad?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure she took the drugs on purpose, but still, running off withTanner like that—” God, I have no idea what we’re going to say to her now. “I don’t know how to talk to her about how dangerous that was without making her feel like it would have been her fault if he’d done something worse to her. I don’t want to teach her that some guy taking advantage of her is her doing, no matter what bad decisions she makes. But I also want her tostop making these decisions, damn it.”
Kim grabs my hand and holds tight. “Me too. I don’t know how to talk to her about it either.”
I close my eyes. “We’re in this together. So if we mess it up, at least she’s got both of us.”
Kim nods again, and we sit there like that until the police come knocking on the door to take our statement. And while I feel like Ivy deserves a better father and Kim deserves a better partner, and they all deserve not to be only just starting to heal from the damage we did all those years ago, I know this: what I said to Ivy was true.
I’m never going to stop fighting for them again.
Thirty
Kim
Both Blake and I take the next day off work. After everything that happened, our family needs it, and evenTroy doesn’t complain—at least not where we can hear. Considering all the legal ramifications of the things that happened on his set yesterday, he’s wise not to. Not that we blameTroy for either Aaron’s illegal recording of us or forTanner giving our underage daughter drugs, but right now he doesn’t know that, and I don’t mind making him sweat a little if it gets us the space we need.
I’m just not sure how to best use that space, now that I have it.
I sit at the table in the kids’ hotel room, sipping a cup of coffee. We gave Marguerite the day off, and Blake took Luke out for the morning to give me and Ivy a chance to talk, but Ivy is curled up in her bed, a motionless mound under the covers. She’s slept quite a bit since yesterday, and I don’t know if she’s still sleeping or just avoiding me.
I can’t blame her if it’s the latter.
My phone buzzes, briefly startling Costanza out of a deep sleep near my feet. I sigh before looking at it. I don’t want to deal with PR statements or legal steps or even Helene’s concern that the cats at the ranch are beginning to band together to stalk the ducks.
But it’s not any of those things. It’s from Bertram, and it’s a picture of me from my rant yesterday that must have started circulating the internet, with the cable and crane photoshopped out. I’m suspended in midair, my hands on my hips, my hair catching a fortunate gust of (sweltering) breeze, a take-no-prisoners kind of determination on my face.
I look like a badass woman who can and will take on anything for those she loves. Not just Hemlock, either—me. Kim Watterson.
A text follows right afterward:Well done, Kimberly. Well done.
My heart swells.
Then another text:Now if you could use your powers to get me out of the karaoke duet I drunkenly agreed to perform with Dryden when this bloody film is over, you will truly be saving the day.
A laugh bursts out of me, and I start to text back, when I hear Ivy’s voice.
“Is that a text from Dad?” She’s sitting up in bed, her hair a tangled mess.
“No, it’s Bertram.” I pause. She’s never cared who texts me before. “Why do you ask?”
She shrugs, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Because Dad makes you laugh like that. You laugh a lot more now.”
I’m not sure how to respond. She’s not wrong; Ihavelaughed more in the last few weeks than in years before that, even though things have been stressful and often terrifying. I settle for the truth, something I should have been better at all along. “Being with your dad again brings me a kind of happiness I thought I wouldn’t ever get back. It’s a different kind of happiness than I get from being your and Luke’s mom—not more, not less. Just different. And I need both, you know?To be my most happy. It’s not like—”
“I get it, Mom,” she says, and there’s a hint of that teasing tone she always takes with me when I overexplain something to the point where she wishes she’d never asked the question in the first place. “Dad already said, like, the same thing.”
“Yeah, well, your dad’s pretty smart. Especially when he agrees with me.”
Her lips quirk up, just the barest ghost of a smile, but it’s so good to see.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
The smile disappears, and she picks at the blanket. “Okay.”
“Do you want anything to eat? We have cereal, or I can order room service or—”
“I’m not hungry.” Her cheeks turn pink. “Anymore.”
