Crushed under the weight of strangers. At a concert she’d never wanted to be at. Choking on tear gas while trying to save a daughter who shouldn’t be here. Chasing a mother who should have been at home, knitting in front of the television—not gallivanting across the country like some rock star on a comeback tour.
New tears filled her eyes. Not from the gas now but from rage. From helplessness. From a lifetime of holding everything together, only to have it all fall apart like this.
Chapter Eighteen
Nora could not remember a time—any time—she’d seen her mother helpless.
Leanne Miller didn’t fall. She glided, always graceful and upright. Standing firm like a mannequin in a department store window. When Nora was little, she used to stare at her mother’s feet to see if they actually touched the ground. And then she’d go out into the backyard, barefoot in the grass, practicing her mother’s walk.
Somewhere along the way, that glide had become her mom’s armor. Her poise, her power.
Until now.
Nora’s breath caught in her throat, watching helplessly as her mother sprawled over another person, pinned by the tide of bodies. People kept tripping over them—stumbling, shouting, shoving forward like a herd of antelope running from a lion. They ricocheted into strangers, some falling to the ground. No one tried to help or stop the stampede.
When Nora tried to breathe, it was through air that was thick with tear gas, with fear, with the crush of human heat.
Nora watched in horror as, curled in on herself, her mother wrapped her arms tight, trying to shrink into the dirt. Each attempt Leanne made to rise was met with another foot slamming into her back or shoulder, sending her crashing down again like a rag doll on top of the other person.
Nora screamed, her voice cracking. “Stop! You’re crushing them!”
The air burned her lungs, and her words came out in broken pieces, swallowed by the screech of pandemonium and the music still blasting from somewhere above.
“Stop!” she yelled again, shoving back at the surge of bodies. A man in a denim vest collided with her back, and she nearly lost her footing.
She couldn’t fall. She wouldn’t fall. Her mother needed her.
Nora dropped to her knees, coughing, grabbing her mom’s arm, tugging—pulling her back to the surface, out of the crush. But there were too many people. Too much movement. Too much panic.
“Mom!” she croaked, voice trembling. Her eyes stung, not just from the tear gas but from the sudden, terrifying grief of it all.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Not to her mother. Not to the woman who walked like royalty, who never faltered. Who was always the one to reach out a hand.
Now, Leanne was the one on the ground.
And Nora had never been so afraid in her life.
Leanne pushed herself upright, just in time for someone to leap over her, using her back like she was part of some twisted game of leapfrog.
“Hey!” Nora shouted, her instincts kicking in. She shoved one idiot midair, and he stumbled, arms flailing, crashing to the ground.
Her mother’s face was blotchy, red, wild-eyed. She looked on the edge of panic, tears shining on her lashes. And that—that—was worse than anything else. Nora couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother cry.
Grabbing hold of Leanne’s hand tight, she refused to let go. They began pushing through the mass, both of them suddenly more aggressive and desperate.
And then—
“Nora,” a voice called from her left, his voice calm and reassuring and at odds with their current situation. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
With a sharp turn of her head, Nora scanned the madness for the familiar voice.
Joe.
“I hardly think a soda line and a riot are in the same category,” she shot back.
Joe gave a lazy shrug, all effortless swagger and practiced indifference. “Depends how thirsty you are.”
