It had taken weeks, but I finally managed to track down our mother. She was living in an apartment in Dempsey, not as far away as I thought. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she’d even stayed at the lake house once or twice when we weren’t there. It’d be a step up from the rundown building I pulled up to.

Real bricks made up the outer walls, not a pleasantly bright orange-red but crackly withered gray. Weeds grew in thick tufts around the base like an ugly grass skirt left too long in the sun. A strong enough gust of wind could have blown the place into a pile of rubble. Living with us must have truly been hell for her to trade it in for such a crumbling pile of filth.

The address I’d punched into my phone led me to the seventh floor. Apartment 703. It took a few knocks for someone to answer, and I held my breath when the handle finally turned. What if I was about to find myself face-to-face with her new family? Someone she loved more than me and my sisters? The person who’d replaced us? What would I do? What would I say?

But it was just her. Alone.

She’d gained weight. The dress she wore might have once been red but had long faded to pink. The smell of rose petals haunted her.

“Chance?” she asked like she didn’t quite recognize me. It wasn’t a surprise considering how long it’d been since we’d seen each other.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Good lord, you look terrible,” she said, and I probably did. I’d focused my entire life on my search to find her, and I wasn’t always good about making it back in time to sleep or shower. “Come in. I’ll make you some lunch.”

“I’m not here for lunch.”

“Yeah, I figured. Come in anyway. I don’t want anyone to see you.”

It was the friendliest reception I could’ve hoped for. Although, I didn’t know if friendly was the reception I wanted.

I passed through the threshold and had to admit, the inside wasn’t as bad as the outside. She’d taken care of her little home. I could tell by the lines in the carpet that it had been freshly vacuumed, and all of her knick-knacks sat neatly in their place. Not a speck of dirt or dust marred any surface. The scent of a citrus candle even gave the air a feeling of cleanliness. Of course, it had to be easier to keep a place spick and span without five kids and an alcoholic underfoot.

She untwirled a bread bag and pulled out two slices. “How’d you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy,” I admitted. “It took a lot of asking around. Uncle David gave you up.”

“You got a hold of Dave? He’s all the way in Texas. I didn’t even know you knew him.”

“I went down a lot of rabbit holes.”

She slapped down a blob of mayonnaise on a slice of bread and squashed it down with a cut of ham. “How are your sisters?”

I wasn’t sure why we were pretending to have a conversation. Nevertheless, I answered, “They’re good. Mia’s a piece of work.”

“Camila talking yet?”

“Camila’s been talking for years.”

She ignored the venom in my voice and added a wilted lettuce leaf to the pile. “You looking for money? Cause I can tell you right now, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“No. We’re doing fine. I have some money saved up from when I was working after school at the garage. And we’re trying to sell the lake house.”

“When you were working?” she repeated. “So, you’re not working now?”

“I went to a youth detention center for a few months.”

“You went to—” She set down her mustard bottle and burst out laughing. “They sent you to juvie? Wow. You’re passing more than ever.”

“Passing?”

She didn’t explain, puffed a yellow squirt from the mustard bottle, and topped off the sandwich with the other bread slice.

“What’d you do?” she asked and handed it to me.

I set it down on the counter. Although it smelled good, I wasn’t hungry, and I thought I might lose some of my edge if my mouth was full while we talked. “Assault and battery,” I said, meaning to sound threatening. “Dad crossed a line.”

But she only laughed again. “Good for you! I hope you knocked all his teeth out. It’s about time someone gave him what he had coming.” She slid a chair from under the dining room table and sat in it. A cup of coffee already waited for her beside her phone. “So, the girls are doing well, you don’t want money, and it sounds like you’re handling yourself where your father’s concerned, so what can I do for you?” She gestured for me to join her.

I didn’t. I leaned against the wall instead. “The girls want to go live with Nana.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. She swooped in to save them when I went to juvie, and now she wants to keep them.”

She sipped her coffee. “Did you ever wonder if maybe that’s for the best?”

Huh? What did she say?

“No!” I snapped once my brain had stopped buffering. “I’ve taken care of them since you left. They should be with me. No one knows them like I do. And I can’t believe you would take her side after how you grew up.”

“It’s true, Mom was always running around the globe with her boyfriends, leaving me to fend for myself. But Chance, those girls don’t belong with you. Whatever situation you had going on was always dependent, legally, on your father being there. I’m guessing since you assaulted him, he’s probably not around so much anymore?”

“He never was.”

“Well, now it’s official. He’s gone, and so am I. The next person in line to get the girls is Mom. Not you.”

I straightened. “Next in line? The girls aren’t some old china set being passed around from family member to family member. They’re people. Their lives matter. They deserve to have some consistency and stability. You know I’m the best person to give them that. I’m the one whose been there for them all these years. I’m the one who changed Camila’s diapers. I’m the one who sat in the audience when Selena and Sophia won their swim championship, who coached them, and rode with them to every practice. I’m the one who helped Mia through her transition which, by the way, she believes is the reason you left.”

“What? Why would she think that?” Surprisingly, she sounded genuinely concerned. “Who told her that?”

“Your beloved mother. The woman you think it’s a good idea for them to live with. The woman who abandoned you like you abandoned us.”

“Tsk. Now you’re just being manipulative. You’re more like your dad than you think. My mother would never say that. She has no reason to blame anything on poor Mia. Mia had nothing to do with why I left. I’ve always supported her transition. Mom knows that.”

“Then come back.” I dropped to a knee and looked into her dark brown eyes for some semblance of humanity. “Come back and tell her that yourself. She needs to hear it from you.”

She went back to sipping her coffee. “No. I’m finally in a good place. I’m never going back there.”

“Sorry.” I took the cup out of her hand and slammed it on the table. Coffee splashed over my fingers, but it was only lukewarm. “I didn’t mean to suggest you had a choice.” I marched across the apartment and threw open the door. “Let’s go!”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’ll stand here as long as it takes!”

She flinched, but I didn’t care if I scared her. Why should I? She didn’t care about us. Twelve-year-old me ran through my mind on his way home from school. I remembered thinking she’d run to the store. My sisters and I waited for hours, but she wasn’t home for dinner. She wasn’t home that night. She wasn’t home the next day. She had never been away for so long.

But as confused and frightened as I’d been, I would have done anything to keep my sisters from feeling the same. I was the oldest, the example. I had to show them not to be afraid. When Friday night rolled around and Mom still wasn’t home, I rode with Selena and Sophia to a junior swim meet. They’d been looking forward to it for weeks before Mom’s disappearance. I was supposed to play a game with my middle school baseball team that same night, but skipped it to record the twins swimming on my phone for Mom to watch when she came back.

Of course, she never came back.

That swim meet was the first in a long line of events I attended. It wasn’t until a few years later that I fully understood the truth. Mom left us on purpose. And it was up to me to hold the family together. No matter what happened, that was still my job.

“Let’s go!” I demanded.

“No.”

“Let’s go!”

“I said, I’m not going anywhere with you, you freak!”

Freak? Where had I heard that word before? “What’s the matter with you? How can you say that to me?”

“For God’s sake! It wasn’t Mia’s fault I left, Chance! It was yours!”