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  I texted Keisha half a dozen times throughout the day, and when I called to check on Landon after he got home from school, he confirmed she wasn’t there. Instead of going straight home after work, I went to the Denny’s where she worked.

  I pushed through the glass doors, and a young woman asked me if I wanted a table for one.

  “I’m actually looking for an employee. Is Keisha Griffiths working tonight, by chance?”

  “Keisha?” the girl said with an unusual amount of surprise in her voice. “No, she doesn’t work here anymore.”

  They’d fired her already? “Do you know if she left a forwarding address or phone number for her last paycheck or anything? I’m her stepmom, and I’m having a hard time finding her.”

  “Uh, let me get the manager.”

  She returned with a very tall, lanky Hispanic man who put out his hand and introduced himself as Juan. He invited me back to his office, which I didn’t find very comforting. In his office, which was tiny, he invited me to sit in one of the chairs that matched those out in the dining room and asked what I needed. I repeated that was trying to find Keisha.

  “I’m her stepmom, and I haven’t seen her for a couple of days. The hostess said she’d already been fired. Was she scheduled to work today?”

  “Keisha was fired weeks ago.”

  “Weeks?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  He paused, and I repeated in my mind the labor laws I knew backward and forward. “Please, I just need to know where to start looking.” She’d said she was filling in at another Denny’s and that she was working a crazy amount of hours in hopes of paying me back. I’d never doubted her enough to check her facts.

  “She left in the middle of her shift a few weeks ago and came back with alcohol on her breath,” Juan said after a few moments. “It was her third offense. I had no choice.”

  I remembered the night—Keisha had said Tagg had sent someone to proposition her about repaying the money she owed him. “Third?”

  “I had no choice,” Juan repeated, his tone surprisingly gentle.

  I started to cry and wiped at my eyes, then smiled gratefully as he handed me a napkin. “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling humiliated as I stood. “But thank you for letting me know.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope she can get some help.”

  I thought that’s what I’d been doing—helping her. What had I really been doing?

  I was in the driver’s seat with the engine on and the seat belt stretched across my chest before I allowed myself to admit what all these things meant. Keisha had been lying to me for a long time. She’d thrown her fit about not being able to pay off Tagg knowing full well she didn’t have a job to pay me back. Had she even owed him money at all? Then she’d pretended to work for weeks after that. She’d completely played me, and yet the anger I knew I should feel didn’t come. I needed to talk to her. I needed to understand her intent.

  There was only one answer, of course: her addiction was spiraling to the point where it was controlling her, rather than her having any control over it. Where would it take her before it spit her out, used up and desolate? Where was she right now? Was she okay?

  If John had been home when I walked in, I couldn’t have hidden my feelings from him a second longer, but he and Landon were at a game. They hadn’t even bothered to ask if I was going to go because I hadn’t gone to one of Landon’s games in nearly a month. I had the house to myself and was so exhausted that I reheated the tomato soup from the other night, ate it without tasting it, and then went to bed. I heard John come in just after nine but pretended to be asleep, putting off for just one more night what I knew I couldn’t run away from for much longer.

  Come home, I begged in my mind again, thinking of Keisha. Just come home and give me one more chance.

  But a chance for what? I didn’t even know anymore.

  Chapter 28

  The rawness from the night before had scabbed over by morning, and I managed to send John off for work with just a minimal conversation about him having talked to Dani—she hadn’t heard from Keisha—and my finding out Keisha had been fired. We had a lot to talk about now that I’d run out of reasons not to tell him everything, but he had a big day and I didn’t want him distracted from his work. When we talked, we needed to really talk, and that wasn’t going to happen amid a rushed morning of getting lunches packed and shoes found and tools loaded into his truck.

  When I called Keisha’s phone on my lunch break, it went straight to voice mail, which I took to mean that the battery was dead. I called the cell phone company to see about tracking the phone, but the GPS app we’d put on her phone when we bought it had been disabled. I called her school and learned she’d attended the first four days, then never came back. The receptionist thought Keisha had sold the $1,500 supply kit I’d ordered to another student. I requested a refund of Keisha’s tuition, minus the twenty percent nonrefundable portion. They said the check had to be in Keisha’s name, but it would be waiting for her to pick up Monday morning.

  I texted her again, asking her to please just let me know she was okay.

  No response.

  Aunt Ruby called and left a message about the next book for book group. It was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the book Gabriel had given her. I wondered what was happening between her and this man. I’d only talked to her that one time since the morning at her house when we talked about Uncle Phillip. Did she think she’d run me off by confiding about Uncle Phillip’s philandering? I felt horrible and hollow when I thought of her and the good she’d done for me all my life. How could I tell her that Keisha had robbed her? And yet, that feeling was tempered with the thought of how desperate Keisha must have been to steal from Aunt Ruby in the first place. My poor girl was so broken. Did she even know what she was doing when she’d done these things to us? Did she have the ability to comprehend the choices she made?

  I got through my shift, but just barely. I was exhausted. In the parking lot I started the car and took a breath. I needed to tell John everything before he found out for himself, but the idea made me cold. He would be so angry with me. And yet I still blamed him for parts of this mess. If he was more approachable . . .

  I parked in the garage and took longer than usual to gather my things. Before walking inside the house, I said a prayer in my head and just asked that we could get through this.

  “Hey,” I called out, after letting myself in from the garage. I put my purse on the counter and hung up my keys on the rack where Aunt Ruby’s key no longer hung. I heard John come into the kitchen and turned to him with a careful smile that quickly fell when I saw the look on his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked, a hundred scenarios rushing through my head, all of them centered on his daughter. “Keisha?” Had he heard from her? Had she called him and not me? Was she okay?

  His eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the mention of her name, and it made me pull back. Not Keisha. In fact, the sound of her name made him angry. No, the sound of her name made him angrier. He raised his hand, holding a piece of paper I recognized as the pawn shop receipt I’d found two nights ago and dropped on Keisha’s bedroom floor. My eyes moved from his hand to his eyes, hard, cold, and very angry.

  “I was going to tell you,” I said.

  “What is going on, Shannon? And don’t you dare leave anything out.”

  Chapter 29

  I took a breath and explained the basics of what had been happening behind his back these last several weeks: Keisha not coming home on time, her admission that she’d used, my covering for her and then finding the receipt in her room. He listened in silence. I finished with a teary apology, and then we just stood there for several seconds, John leaning against the doorway, and me standing in the middle of the kitchen. The island served as a barrier between us, as though we needed a physical reminder of the distance that seemed to have grown between us with every word I’d said. As the seconds ticked by following my explanation, I tensed. Would he y
ell? Would he hold his arms out for me?

  Oh, please hold your arms out. Please forgive me for all of this.

  “When did you realize she stole Ruby’s laptop?”

  “Two nights ago,” I said.

  “And when did you find the drugs?”

  I looked up at him. “I didn’t find any drugs.” He cocked his head slightly. He didn’t believe me. “Did you find drugs?”

  “Yes, Shannon, I did. I found a baggie of pills in her room—the room right next to our son’s room. You’re surprised?”

  I looked at the floor and wrapped my arms across my waist. “I didn’t know, John.”

  “You didn’t?”

  I met his eyes. “Of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t let her use drugs in our house. I had no idea she had any here.”

  “But you were fine lying for her about other things and covering her tracks. Do you even understand what you did? You made that contract null and void. You hid things from me—your husband and her father. Why would you think that could possibly be a good thing? You enabled her.”

  It was like being shot through the chest to hear his accusations. Did I bear responsibility for what she’d done? Why was there something satisfying about that idea? If I shared the blame, then maybe it wasn’t all her weakness. If I shared the blame, than maybe fixing my mistakes could help her. Was that possible?

  “You need to tell Ruby.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I closed my eyes. “I can’t do that,” I said after a few miserable seconds. I looked up at John, then to the single receipt in his hand. “I’ll go to the pawn shop and buy it back.”

  John tightened his fist on the paper and shook his head. “No, you won’t. You’ll take this to Ruby, who will give it to the police and press charges.”

  “No!” I said, louder than I meant to. I glanced toward Landon’s door and lowered my voice. “Where’s Landon?”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to think about your son?”

  “John,” I said, a sob in my voice.

  “Landon’s at Jeffrey’s house. You need to tell Ruby.”

  “No, John. Not like that. Let me talk to Keisha first and then—”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” John said, shaking his head and holding up the receipt again. “She broke into Ruby’s house and stole from her. Don’t you see what that means? It means she’s a criminal, Shannon, and that she’s willing to use the people who care about her the most to get whatever fix it is she needs. She’s used you, she’s used me, and she’s used Ruby. Can you not see how horrible this is?”

  “It is horrible,” I said, “and I do understand. But you’re talking about possibly sending her to jail. She’s your daughter.”

  “I’m talking about accountability, which is probably the only thing left that will save her.”

  I shook my head, overwhelmed by the very idea. Had he no compassion for the battle she was fighting?

  “And I’m changing the locks in the morning.”

  “John,” I said, a sob shaking my words. This was why I had kept things from him. He was proving me right for doing what I’d done.

  “She’s not welcome here anymore,” John continued, straightening in the doorway. “I won’t have her here again.”

  Anger shot through me like a bullet. “She’s not Dani, John. You can’t just walk away from her.”

  Fire lit up his whole face at the sound of his ex-wife’s name—his first wife, the woman he’d vowed to share a lifetime with, who had completely broken his heart. He’d always blamed Dani’s addictions for the breakdown of their marriage, always harbored anger for her lack of control, which had ruined everything they had tried to build together. But I’d never thrown that in his face before, and he was not ready to hear it.

  He walked toward me but stopped a foot away, waiting until I looked up at him. “She’s not Dani,” he said, low and angry. “But because of Dani I have been down this road before, Shannon, and I will not do it again. I don’t know why you can’t see the big picture here, and I obviously can’t make you see the truth, but I can decide who comes into my house, and she is not welcome here. I’m going to pick up Landon.”

  He held my eyes for another moment, then stormed into the garage, leaving me, shaking, in the middle of the kitchen, repeating his ultimatum in my head and wondering how he could be so cruel.

  Chapter 30

  The next morning, I woke up to the alarm in a daze, replaying the night over and over again, wishing I could believe it was a dream. The tension radiating from John when he got up and headed into the bathroom to take a shower was intense and convinced me that it had all been real. I tried to keep my distance by getting breakfast for Landon—cereal. I hadn’t made him pancakes in over a month.

  I worked at eight, and I thought John and I would maintain our dancing around one another until Landon ran out the front door for school. I turned to find John standing in the kitchen, putting his phone into his pocket. “I’m meeting a locksmith here at two o’clock. When do you get off? Six?”

  “John, please don’t do this.”

  “You need to talk to Ruby.”

  My stomach sank. He stared at me, holding my eyes for several seconds. “I texted Keisha and told her not to come back. I’ll be cancelling her phone in a couple of days. She can call if she wants to talk about this, but she’s not living here again.”

  Tears filled my eyes, and all the times Keisha had said how much she appreciated being here—how comfortable she’d been—flooded my brain. I thought about the conversation she and John had had just a few weeks ago, when she told him about how excited she was about school. Yet she’d already stolen the laptop by then; she’d been fired by then too.

  I looked at the floor and heard him come closer to me. I thought maybe he was going to raise my chin and tell me he loved me and that we would get through this. I should apologize for bringing Dani into our fight last night—that was cruel of me. But he just stood there, then moved past me and out the front door without saying a word. I stayed where I was, a tornado of thoughts and feelings spinning around in my head. I texted Keisha again, stared at my phone for a full minute in hopes of a response, then took a breath and faced the day.

  I feared the hours would drag by, but they moved at record speed, which was actually worse. I checked my phone every half hour, waiting for Keisha to contact me. I almost wished she’d been in an accident because that at least would be a valid excuse for her not coming home. On my lunch break I called hospitals. I got a text from John around four o’clock.

  John: Locks changed. New key under front mat. We’re off to practice.

  I let myself into an empty house a couple of hours later with a shiny new key and immediately checked the caller ID to see if Keisha had called the house. She hadn’t. I wondered what John had told Landon, and I wondered if Keisha would ever sleep in her room again. Would John ever let her return? Would John and I ever get back to who we’d been before I begged him to pick Keisha up in Compton?

  When they got home, he asked if I’d talked to Ruby yet.

  I clenched my jaw shut, which he took as an answer.

  Landon was looking between the two of us, his expression cautious and confused. I continued to face off with John for a few more seconds, then turned away from both of them and headed to our room. I sat on the edge of the bed and gripped the edge of the mattress, rocking slightly back and forth while trying, and failing, to make sense of all of this. After a while, I changed into my pajamas and crawled into bed, wanting more than anything to just sleep and forget. I didn’t understand what was happening, and I didn’t know what to do about it. And I was so scared for Keisha.

  I pretended to be asleep when John came in, but he called my bluff. “You’re really going to keep defending her?” he said. I stared at the wall while he got undressed. “This is sick, Shannon.”

  “Your daughter’s sick,” I said without looking at him. “And she’s so desperate for help that she’ll use drugs to make her
feel okay. She needs help.”

  “What help have we not offered?” John asked, his voice rising. “What more could we possibly do?”

  I still wouldn’t turn to face him. “You could have spent more time with her. You could have gone to a single NA meeting with her. You could have made her feel important.”

  “So this is my fault? You’ll put the responsibility for what she’s done on me, but not on her? How can that possibly make sense to you?”

  “You’re not even listening to me,” I said, finally sitting up and looking at him and letting my anger filter through. “She’s sick, John. She can’t think clearly. It’s like . . . it’s like a diabetic not having insulin, or a cancer patient not being able to get chemo. She can’t get better until her head is right and she—”

  “She won’t get her head right,” John shouted, throwing out his arms. “You got her a therapist, you took her to meetings, you talked to her and coddled her and got her enrolled in school. She had every chance to get her head right, and she chose not to do it. She chose to put us and our son at risk instead. She chose not to get help, Shannon!”

  “She doesn’t know how to help herself!” I shot back, my fingers clenching the bedspread. “Maybe it will take another try, maybe it will take six more tries, but she is not well, John. You judge her as though she is purposely trying to hurt us, and she isn’t.”

  He clenched his hands at his sides and groaned so low and loud it was almost a scream. His face was red and his jaw tight. “I can’t talk about this anymore,” he said, suddenly pulling open a drawer and grabbing some pajama pants and a T-shirt. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “Fine by me,” I said, lying back down and pulling the covers up to my chin. He didn’t say anything but slammed the door on his way out. I heard muted voices in the hall and knew he was talking to Landon, who had to have heard the argument. I clenched my eyes shut and pulled the pillow up around my ears. I hadn’t had more than a passing conversation with Landon in who knew how long, and yet it felt like he and John were on one side, and Keisha and I were on the other. Except that I was fighting by myself.