She threw off the covers, finally locating her phone when it hit the carpet with a dull thud. The ringing had stopped by the time she climbed out of bed to get it, but she could see who’d been trying to reach her. It was her mother.
After a yawn and a stretch to help gather her faculties, she climbed back into bed, burrowed deep into the covers and braced herself for this conversation.
“There you are!” her mother exclaimed as soon as she answered. “But...what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“It sounds as though you’re losing your voice.”
Emery cleared her throat. “I just woke up.” She checked the clock on the nightstand. It was almost nine, which was late, but not that late, considering how hard it had been to fall asleep last night. Although she’d been exhausted, she couldn’t quit obsessing about the lawsuit—how long it might take to complete and what it might trigger. Neither could she quit thinking about the day she’d spent in Santa Barbara, the way Sidney had behaved in the chocolate shop, the implications of that encounter and the man she’d gone there with.
And then Ethan’s audacious text.
She hadn’t responded to her former coanchor. It was so hard not to tell him to get lost. But she figured she should try to lure him into revealing something that might help her case. She’d have only a short window before he became aware, a gap during which he might be confident enough to brazenly say something that would prove her allegations to be true.
“This late?” her mother said. “It’s almost noon!”
Emery tried to focus on the conversation. In her family, sleeping in was a mark of laziness. She couldn’t help but chafe at her mother’s overblown reaction. “You’re on Eastern time. How’s Grandma?”
Her mother sounded weary when she answered. “She’s not improving.”
Which meant she was getting worse. Emery could hear it as surely as though her mother was shouting it into the phone. “Does she still recognize you?”
“On a good day.”
Emery closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Her mother’s voice hardened. “Have you heard from your father?”
She hadn’t. She rarely heard from Marvin since her parents’ marriage fell apart. He was too caught up in his new life, and his new woman. She felt forgotten, left behind. He knew what Ethan had done to her, but he’d scarcely reacted to it, even though he used to be protective of her, of all of them—the defender of the family. Emery was so bewildered; she couldn’t figure out what’d gone wrong, but her father seemed to be walking away from her. “No.”
“He’s cut off my access to our bank accounts. I have no way of buying anything.”
A thread of panic ran through those words, causing Emery’s stomach to churn. Connie obviously hadn’t expected Marvin to act as he was, either.
Emery had no idea how long her own small savings would have to last. She wasn’t even sure she could get another job, not a decent one, what with all the slut-shaming that was going on as a result of that video. But how could she not help? “How much do you need?”
“A few hundred bucks, if you can spare it. I hate to ask, but Grandma doesn’t have anything besides her social security. It barely covers the utilities and her car insurance, and I’ve got to get groceries.”
“Of course. It’s no problem,” Emery lied. Connie hadn’t been able to pay her back the last loan. Her mother had no income, had always been a stay-at-home mom. But she couldn’t let her mother and grandmother go hungry. Fortunately, her grandmother, Adele, didn’t have a mortgage, so they didn’t have a house payment in addition to all the other bills. But she couldn’t continue to support them. Her father had to be fair with Connie and split the assets they’d accumulated in their marriage.
“Thank you, honey. I’m sorry to bother you with this. If I wasn’t at such loose ends, maybe I’d be able to figure out something else. But it’s all I can do to hold myself together and be there for your grandmother.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s okay.” But it meant she’d have to call her father, have to remind him of his duty to his first family, and she wasn’t convinced that would go well. “I’ll Venmo it to you.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
Although Connie had sounded relieved when they hung up, Emery was more worried than ever—about her mother, about her grandmother, about her future job opportunities. Christmas was a terrible time to look for work. Even if she could face doing it, she didn’t think it would be wise to set herself up for failure.
But things couldn’t continue like this.
It wasn’t until several minutes later that it occurred to Emery that her mother hadn’t even asked how she was doing.
She had to be almost as humiliated as Emery was. She could no longer brag about her daughter, who was on TV. She probably had extended family and friends who were watching that video, too. Not talking about it was her way of not acknowledging it, of shelving it completely.
With a sigh, Emery dragged herself out of bed. All she wanted to do was go back to sleep, but maybe Dallas would be home. Maybe he’d make her breakfast again. It felt surreal that she’d been reduced to relying on people who were barely more than acquaintances.
But she was infinitely grateful they cared enough to help.
The assembly ended at lunchtime, but the boys were so excited about the climbing wall, and having someone there who could show them how to scale it, they weren’t in any hurry to go to the cafeteria.
“You’d better get something to eat,” Dallas warned the last of the stragglers. “You’ll spend the afternoon
