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She sighs and slumps back in her chair. I’ve lost count of the number of times Aunt Dottie has tried to get me to try dating again but I always refuse. “And why does it have a shelf life?”

“Because it’s doomed from the start, anyway.”

“Child, it would break your daddy’s heart to hear you talk like this. What happened to you all those years ago was horrific, I won’t even deny that, but you can move on. You can find someone who loves you the way you deserve, the way your daddy would have wanted you to be loved.”

Reaching across the table, I lay my hand on hers and shake my head. “Dottie, I love you and I appreciate what you’re saying but I have moved on. This is me after moving on and love is just not in the cards for me.”

She forces a smile to her face and nods, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You know I won’t push you, but I just wish you would go see someone or consider giving love a chance again. Those boys, they were awful, but they were also young and who knows the men they are today.”

“I don’t want to talk about this tonight. Please, Aunt Dottie.”

She pats my hand with her other hand and nods. “Of course. Why don’t you tell me about work? How is the new job treating you?”

Pushing the memories from my mind, I smile and nod. “Really great, actually. I’ve always loved the writing part and now that I’m at Champagne Dreaming, I love my work environment and the people there. I would love to find something special I could do that would really put my stamp on the blog. Kind of like Alison’s advice column.”

“I’m sure you’ll find your thing, Honey. When the time is right.”

I smile. Dottie is all about someone’s energy and the time being right and listening to your instincts. She rarely worries over things the way other people do because she believes the universe will just work itself out. I used to think it was weird, but I’ve learned to listen to her advice over the years.

The ringing of my phone pulls both of our attention to my bag and I grab it, rolling my eyes when I see Ivy’s name on the screen.

“Let me guess, you’re running late,” I answer and I’m greeted with silence.

“Uh, actually,” she says after a moment. “We can’t make it tonight.”

“What do you mean you can’t make it tonight?” I ask, meeting Dottie’s eyes as her eyebrows shoot up. “You haven’t ever missed a Sunday dinner.”

“I know. It’s just…we, uh, we have something we have to go do tonight. Next time, okay?”

“Ivy…” I start but the line goes dead and I pull the phone away from my ear as I stare at Dottie.

“She’s not coming? You girls never miss this night, not once in twelve years.”

I glance down at my phone before setting it on the table, face down. “She said they had something to do tonight and she’d bring him next week.”

“I don’t like this,” Dottie says, shaking her head as she chews her lip. “Something is definitely up with this guy she’s seeing. I knew it as soon as she told me.”

“We don’t know anything yet, Dot,” I point out, to placate her but it’s like she’s not even listening to me. “Maybe they really had something to do or maybe she got nervous. You know this was important to her.”

“We can’t trust this guy. I mean, twelve years without missing a single family dinner and then she meets him and stops showing up. I don’t think so.”

“Dottie,” I whisper, unsure of what to say to her.

“What if he hurts her? How could I live through it again if I let her get hurt, too?”

Tears well up in my eyes as memories threaten to overwhelm me and this time, I can’t stop them. “You couldn’t have stopped them from hurting me.”

“I should have,” she exclaims, her eyes meeting mine in a steely stare and a tear slips down my cheek. “Your mother didn’t want me around you girls, but I should have told her exactly where she could stick it. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. Look what they did to you.”

I stand abruptly and my chair falls backward as I grab my phone and my bag from the floor. “I have to go. I’ll see you next week.”

“Carly! Wait,” she calls as I walk away from her, but I don’t look back, my chest tight as I run from the house to my car. Firing it up, I fly out of the driveway and away from her house as snapshots from that night flash through my mind. I suppose I should be thankful for them – the snapshots. It’s all I have of that night, little pieces of time that make no sense whatsoever. I don’t know how I would have survived if I remembered every painful detail. Tears blur my vision as I pull onto the interstate and I grit my teeth, trying to fight back the memories but it’s a losing battle.

When I was sixteen, my mother met Harrison, husband number three. Harrison lived in Baton Rouge and my mother wasted no time in moving all three of us away from New Orleans to be with her new beau. It was the only home I had ever known and it felt like I was leaving everything I loved behind - my friends, Aunt Dottie, and my father, even though he had been dead for almost ten years. It was also about the time Ivy and I saw the truth about our mother. We understood this would be a pattern with her and we resented her for it.

Harrison, the nice guy he was, pulled some strings and got us into a very prestigious private school because only the best would do for my mother. It was so different from what I was used to and I felt so alone. My world had been twisted until I didn’t even know which way was up anymore. On my second day of school, Austin Mitchel, one of the cutest, most popular boys at school, approached me at my locker and introduced himself. He had a smile that put me at ease and he invited me to eat lunch with him and his friends. Just like that, I had a place again. For two weeks, he walked me to most of my classes and we talked about anything and everything. I felt like he really got me and when he finally asked me out, I was over the moon.

Of course, so was my mother.