She laughed from the place inside her where joy still lived, even after everything.
She drove home through the dark Montana night with her window cracked open and the cold air sharp against her skin.She felt lighter.Not unburdened.She wasn’t naive enough to think one conversation could erase years of crushing guilt.But the weight of it was distributed differently now, shared between her and Gray instead of flattening just her.
She’d told him the worst thing she’d ever done, the deepest, darkest secret she carried, and he hadn’t even blinked.He hadn’t judged.He hadn’t looked at her one bit differently.
He’d corrected her methodology.
Bless his nerdy heart.
She was still smiling when she pulled into her driveway and saw the porch light on.She left it on every night so that anyone coming home would know someone was waiting for them.
17
Cassidy was waiting for Gray on the fire station steps when he pulled in Monday afternoon.
She was sitting cross-legged with her backpack beside her and a book open on her knees, but she wasn’t reading.She was watching the road.When his truck turned into the parking lot, she closed the book and stood up with the deliberate composure of a person who had rehearsed what she was about to say.
Gray parked and got out.“Hey, Cass.Where’s your mom?”
“Work.I told her I was going to the library after school.”
“Is this the library?”
“No.”She looked at him with Bonnie’s hazel eyes, steady and unblinking.“I need to talk with you.”
He unlocked the station door and held it open for her.She walked in ahead of him, her sneakers squeaking on the concrete bay floor, and went straight to the day room.She sat in one of the recliners and waited for him to sit beside her.
Like her mother she didn’t waste time on niceties.That apple had not fallen far from the tree.
“My mom’s been different the past few weeks,” Cassidy said.“She cries when she thinks I can’t hear.She sits at the kitchen table in the dark after we go to bed.She’s not sleeping.”
Gray nodded, giving Cassidy the same thing he gave everyone who brought him a problem.His full, undivided attention.
“She pretends she’s fine,” Cassidy continued.“She’s pretty good at pretending.But I’m better at noticing.”
This was true.Cassidy, at nine years old, had an observational capacity that most adults would envy.She missed nothing.
“Something happened,” Cassidy said.“And I think it has to do with you.”
The words were delivered without malice, not as an accusation but a simple statement of fact.He could respect that.It was a data point.She’d observed a change in her mother’s behavior and identified the most likely variable.
Gray considered his response carefully.Cassidy was nine.She was also Bonnie’s daughter, which meant she could spot a lie from a mile away and would hold the liar in permanent contempt.But he also couldn’t tell her the truth.At least not the full truth.He had to find the narrow path between those two things without losing her trust.
“Your mom has been dealing with some difficult things,” he said.“Things that don’t have anything to do with you or Noah.Adult things.”
Cassidy’s expectant expression didn’t ease.She was waiting for more of an explanation than that.
That’s what he was afraid of.But frankly, he expected no less of her.She wasn’t Bonnie’s daughter for nothing.
“Some of the things she’s dealing with do involve me,” he said.“Not in a bad way.I’m trying to help her with the other things she’s working through.But they’re tough problems to solve.And hard things take a toll even on people as strong as your mom.”
“Is she in trouble?”
“No.She’s not in trouble.”
“Areyouin trouble?”
He almost smiled.“No.”
