Chapter 54

Sophie spends a half-hour in the room with my mother as we wait in the hall. Jake has asked me a dozen times if I’m sure about not going in, and I glare at him coldly. He clamps his mouth shut and looks away. His jaw tenses in agitation, but he leaves it alone.

He just doesn’t get it at all; he has no way of understanding my relationship with her when his mother is everything you could want in a parent: kind, caring, protective, and loyal. She would move mountains for her sons and is an advocate for abused children across all states. He wouldn’t understand.

My mother is the polar opposite. I spent my childhood being her carer, protector, and mother and fighting off the aggressive men she brought home. When I was eleven, I bought my baseball bat with money from a paper route, and I used it more than once to shield her from overly violent arguments with her current boyfriend. Even at such an early age, my fire and rage were uncontrollable. It saved me from advances often f