Leigh tapped her finger on the steering wheel as she waited for the light to change. After last night, she could only pray that her sister wasn’t lying dead somewhere with a needle sticking out of her arm. Callie had been a wreck when she’d dropped out of the attic. Her teeth were chattering. She couldn’t stop rubbing her arms. Even when they’d finally reached Phil’s house, Callie had been so intent on getting inside that she’d put up no resistance when Leigh had asked for her phone number.
Leigh hadn’t called to check on her. She hadn’t texted. The not knowing was almost worse than the knowing. Since Callie’s very first overdose, Leigh had grappled with the same dark premonition playing out in her head: a phone ringing in the middle of the night, a heavy knock on the door, a police officer with his hat in his hand telling Leigh that she needed to go to the morgue to identify her baby sister’s body.
It was her fault. It was all her fault.
Leigh’s personal phone rang, pulling her out of her downward spiral. She clicked the button on the steering wheel as she took the left-hand turn.
“Mom!” Maddy rushed out the word.
Leigh felt her heart do that funny lurch. Then panic set in, because Maddy never made an actual voice call unless something was wrong. “Is Dad okay?”
“Yes,” Maddy said, instantly irritated Leigh had put the thought in her mind. “Why would you even ask that?”
Leigh pulled over to the side of the residential street. She knew that explaining herself would only give Maddy a platform for martyrdom, so she waited for her daughter to flitter to the next topic.
“Mom,” Maddy said. “Necia Adams is having a thing at her house this weekend, and there are only going to be five people, and we’re going to do it outside so it’s really safe and—”
“What did Dad say when you asked him?”
Maddy hesitated. She would never be a litigator.
“Dad told you to ask me?” Leigh guessed. “I’ll talk to him about it tonight.”
“It’s only—” Maddy hesitated again. “Keely’s mom left.”
Leigh felt her eyebrows furrow. She had just seen Ruby, Keely’s mother, last weekend. “She left?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Maddy clearly thought Leigh should know this already, but thankfully she filled in the blanks. “Like, in the middle of the night, Ms. Heyer got into some kind of huge screaming fight with Mr. Heyer, but Keely ignored it because, duh. But then, Keely came down for breakfast this morning and her dad was all like ‘Your mom needs some time to herself, but she’ll call you later, and we love you very much,’ and then he said he had Zooms all day, and Keely’s upset because—obviously—so we thought we’d get together this weekend to support her.”
Leigh felt a nasty grin on her face. She remembered Ruby’s bitchy little quip at The Music Man. The woman would soon learn the value of an in-town education when it came time to pay her part of Keely’s private school fees.
None of which Leigh could say to her daughter. “I’m sorry, baby. Sometimes things don’t work out.”
Maddy was silent . She had gotten used to the strange arrangement between Leigh and Walter because they had done the only thing that parents can do in strange times, which was to keep everything as normal as possible.
At least Leigh hoped that she had gotten used to it.
“Mom, you don’t understand. We wanted to cheer Keely up, because what Ms. Heyer is doing is bullshit.” Maddy never sounded so strident as when she was fighting an injustice. “Like, she hasn’t called Keely or anything. She just sent a peace-out-do-your-homework-TTYL text, and Keely is so upset. All she does is cry.”
Leigh shook her head, because that was a shitty thing to do to your kid. Then she wondered if Maddy was trying to tell her something. “Sweetheart, I’m sure Ms. Heyer will call Keely soon. Dad and I already left each other and you can’t get rid of either of us.”
“Yes, that has been made abundantly clear.” Maddy sounded so much like Callie that Leigh felt tears fill her eyes. “Mom, I gotta go. My Zoom is about to start. You promise you’ll talk to Dad about the party?”
“I’ll try to get in touch with him before I call you tonight.” Leigh didn’t press her on the fact that the emotional support group had turned into a party. “I love—”
Maddy hung up.
Leigh brushed her fingers underneath her eyes, trying not to ruin her eyeliner. The distance between herself and her daughter still brought a physical ache. She could not imagine her own mother ever feeling such longing. There were spiders who took better care of their young. If Maddy had ever told Leigh that a grown man had put his hand on her leg, Leigh would not have told her daughter to slap away his hand the next time. She would’ve taken a shotgun and blown the man’s head into bloody chunks.