his attorney.”
“To send us back?”
“No. Just you.” I shoved away from the table and started to pace. Ellie was curled up on the bed upstairs, watching a movie with Devin while the hot, afternoon sunshine warmed everything with choking heat.
My brow furrowed. “It doesn’t make sense. He’s only claiming you, though. Why?”
“Because he isn’t Ellie’s dad.”
Lizbeth said it with all the emotional inflection of a rock. Her expression didn’t waver in the slightest as she stared at the letter, although my jaw almost dropped to the floor.
“What?” I screeched.
Lizbeth sighed, hugging her book to her chest. She looked at me uneasily, then pushed the letter my way again.
“Mama had a . . . thing . . . for the neighbor. He was a widow. They’d talk every now and then when he came to borrow a tool from Dad or something. She’d cook big dinners and take some over to him. That kind of stuff. She didn’t act on it at first, but then . . .”
“She did.”
Lizbeth nodded with a sigh. “Yeah. For a while. Dad didn’t find out until right before Mama died. The night she died, in fact.”
My already-aching heart sank a little deeper in my chest. “Is that why she was driving away?” I asked, puzzling out what I’d learned at the funeral. Mama had been in a terrible car crash, pulling out in front of a semi that her car couldn’t outrace.
“Yes. From fighting with him,” Lizbeth confirmed, a flash of something appearing in her eyes again. “She was angry; he was angry. They were both screaming for hours. When he found out the truth about Ellie, he went ballistic. Ellie and I hid in the forest for a while, until we heard the cops calling for us. That’s when we found out that Mama had died.”
I let out a long breath.
“Wow. Does Ellie know?”
Lizbeth shook her head, then shrugged. “At least, not that I can tell. I pulled her away before she could hear what they were arguing about that night. Mama never told her. Maybe Dad did. But I don’t think so. He was never able to say the words, to admit it out loud. Even in his drunk rages, he never brought it up. Just blubbered and cried.”
“Think he feels responsible for Mama dying?” I asked. “That’s why he’s drinking so much?”
Lizbeth shrugged.
“Wow.”
Even though I tried to block it, Maverick’s voice rose in my mind. Expectations. Mama had shattered her marriage vows for another man on her second marriage, defying expectations of fidelity. Maybe she was to blame for the situation we were in.
No, she didn’t ask Jim to be drunk and abusive. If I knew anything, it was that.
But she sure hadn’t helped anything, either. The memories flashed through me. The fear. Those long nights living in the car, waiting for Mama to come back.
No wonder Maverick ran from the depths of this crazy. From the carefully unraveling tapestry that Mama had built and left behind for us to bear the burden of. But that was Mama. In her mind, long-term consequences were for the birds. She had the here and the now, and that was it.
So many pieces clicked together. Jim’s harsh treatment of Ellie. His sullen silences. His drunken rages. The way he took so much of his anger out on her.
“Mama was sick,” Lizbeth whispered, terror in her voice, “and so is Dad. If I have to go back there, you’ll never see me again, Bethie.”
Gathering as much courage as I could, I pulled her to me, clutching her tight. “It will be over my dead body that he takes you, Lizbeth. I promise you.”
“Maverick isn’t here anymore. He was . . . he made me feel safer.”
“I know.” My heart cracked. “But we’ll be fine. You’ll never go back. This is just a formality, and it tells me that we need to get legal action going now. The business is profitable, even if by a small amount. Still, it’s enough. I believe that.”
She relaxed only slightly. Several moments later, she pulled back, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Can I go back upstairs and read for a little bit? The post is up.”
“Of course.”
Silently, she slipped up to the apartment. Seconds later, a pair of thudding feet appeared at the end of the hallway, and the back screen door slammed shut. Ellie and Devin must have escaped outside at some point. As if she could sense something bad had happened, Ellie stared at me in wordless question.