“It’s the forbidden puppy,” Mom said.

All three women started laughing.

I tried to look serious, but I couldn’t. Emma was having too good of a time—and Mom and Leigh were actually pretty hilarious drunks.

“Good Lord, these hot flashes,” Leigh said, plucking her shirt in my rearview. “Lets me know I can’t go to hell because I can not take the heat. Justin, you taking us to Culver’s or what?”

“You two don’t think you’ve derailed my night enough?” I said, getting onto the freeway.

“I do not appreciate that tone,” Leigh said. “I feel like I need to remind you that I used to wipe your butt.”

“Uh, you do not need to remind me of that,” I said.

“He had the cutest little baby butt. Do you remember, Christine? Like a little apple.”

“It was soooo cute,” Mom said from the back seat.

Leigh tapped Emma on the shoulder. “Is his butt still cute, Emma?”

“It’s really cute,” Emma said, smiling and waving her raccoon’s little hand at me while I shook my head.

She hadn’t seen it. Not bare anyway. But I couldn’t help but hope that she’d looked.

“Yes, I will take you to Culver’s,” I said.

“Thank you,” Leigh said. “Christine, how we doing on the list?” Leigh asked.

“What’s the list?” Emma asked.

“Prison prep,” Leigh said. “Memorizing your important phone numbers, dying your hair back to your natural color so you don’t see your roots come in, fixing anything wrong with your teeth—I’m gonna put money on your books the second they let me, hon. I’m gonna come every week to visit you,” Leigh said. “Press my boob against the glass.”

Mom laughed. A deep, tipsy belly laugh. And then the laughter tipped and dwindled into crying. Leigh started crying too. She wrapped her arms around Mom, and Mom sobbed.

“Hon, I’m gonna be there with you every step of the way,” Leigh said. “I’m gonna help Justin take care of those babies and I’m gonna send you pictures and we’re gonna get through this.”

I could see Mom’s crumpled face pressed into Leigh’s shoulder in the rearview. The tail of a baby raccoon snaked out of Leigh’s cleavage and flicked under Mom’s chin. She still had leaves in her hair. The whole thing was like some fucked-up sitcom. The plot of a dark comedy.

Emma glanced at me as she pulled tissues from her purse and handed them into the back seat.

I think I would have been embarrassed if I’d been on a date with anyone else. My mother, sobbing drunk the night before she left for prison. But I knew Emma didn’t judge. That’s just not how she was. She judged this situation less than I did.

When she finished handing out Kleenex, Emma stayed turned in her seat. “You know,” she said, “I worked for three months in a women’s prison.”

Mom raised her head.

“I have never met cooler people than the women in prison,” Emma said.

Mom sniffed. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’ll make lots of friends. They had a cosmetology school for the inmates. You can get your hair done. And you get to do soooo much reading.”

I glanced in the rearview and I could see it. The sudden hope in Mom’s eyes that maybe prison wouldn’t be as bad as she’d built it up in her mind.

Emma sat back in her seat and twined her fingers in mine between us. Her turn to comfort me.

After that, Mom stopped crying. Leigh and Mom went back to laughing and giggling. They got their Culver’s. They held their baby trash pandas and ate their sundaes and Emma chatted with Mom and Leigh. And even though it was the last night Mom would be here and it was awful and sad, it was also sort of all right.

CHAPTER 20 EMMA

We’d dropped off Leigh and Christine and were parked on the curb in front of Neil’s house. The front door to the mansion was wide open and Fleetwood Mac was blaring from inside.

Justin lowered his head to get a look at the open door. “Should we go check that out?”

“No,” I said. “Probably Amber working on her rose wall. I’m not worried about it.”

I got out of the car, and Justin met me on the lawn.

“Sorry for the side quest,” Justin said, stopping in front of me.

“They were fun,” I said honestly.

“Mom doesn’t drink. You were treated to a show.” He smiled a little.

So handsome.

I’d been admiring his side profile as we drove. Little glances while his focus was on the road. The way his eyes creased at the corners when his mom and Leigh were laughing from the back seat. The way his jaw ticced slightly when they weren’t. The look of gratitude he gave me when I held his hand.

I liked being there to help him through that, the way he helped me the day Mom showed up. Even if it was just a tiny moment in a long lifetime of moments, I was happy to be a part of it.

Justin deserved good things. He deserved for the hard things of his life to be made a little easier, the way he made everyone else’s life easier.

“Leigh seems like a good friend,” I said.

“She is. She would do anything for Mom. She’d probably take her place if she could.”

I nodded. I understood that. Maddy and I had that.

It was weird to think it, especially given the circumstances, but I was glad I met his mom. I wasn’t making plans with Justin. We’d be done once I left Minnesota. But for some reason, it was important to me that when he talked about her over the next few weeks, I’d be able to put a face to a name.

That she’d be able to put a face to mine.

I liked the idea of Justin talking about me to her, I realized. Of him talking about me to anyone. Being important enough to come up in conversation.

And then I realized that I’d actually feel hurt if I wasn’t. If I was just some fling for him that didn’t warrant mentioning to his friends and family.

But why would that bother me?

That’s essentially what this was—a fling.