“I know you don’t, Maddie. You’re the best and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Maddie was family. Closer to her than her own sister had ever been, though she loved Katie dearly.
“I love you, Lynn.”
“I love you, too.” She loved how Maddie just said whatever was on her mind or in her heart.
“And I love Kara, too—of course you know that….”
Looking up from her salad at the peculiar tone in the other woman’s voice, Lynn caught Maddie biting her lower lip.
“Maddie?”
“Yeah?” The slender woman continued to chew her lip, and didn’t meet her gaze.
“What’s up?”
“I’m afraid you’ll be mad at me, but I thought it was okay, but now I don’t know if I think it’s okay and I’m afraid you’ll be mad at me.”
“For what?”
Maddie chewed. And Lynn pushed the bowl of leftover salad away. Had Maddie done something they couldn’t undo?
“Nothing happened to Kara, did it?” she asked. She’d seen her daughter. Her color had been good and her room neat, with everything in place exactly as it should have been.
Her knees bouncing up and down, Maddie said, “No, nothing happened to Kara.”
“Does this have to do with Darin?”
“No.”
Lynn’s tension eased as she studied her unhappy friend, whose chin had lowered to her chest.
As long as Maddie and Darin hadn’t done anything crazy, like have sex, then she could patiently play twenty questions.
“What time did he leave?” If she could get a time stamp on the incident, it might help her to determine the magnitude of the catastrophe.
Maddie had been inconsolable, crying herself to sleep one night, after she’d broken one of Lynn’s drinking glasses.
Because it matched a set and now there wasn’t a full set.
The woman had only ever used the plastic glasses in the cupboard ever since.
“It was 8:18.” Maddie’s voice was barely audible.
Eight-eighteen. Precisely. Because Maddie was precise. All black and white and no shades of gray.
“So Kara got to bed late?” It didn’t please her, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
“No.”
She was exhausted. And out of questions.
“Tell me, Maddie. You know how I get more upset when you won’t talk to me than I do about whatever happened.”
Maddie nodded.
And Lynn understood that whatever Maddie knew, her sense of self-preservation when it came to confessing her supposed mistakes was ingrained. It was a residual instinct due to all the punishment she’d taken over the years.
“I’ll just sit here and wait,” Lynn said. “Take your time.”
The only way to undo the damage caused by Maddie’s past was to replace the negative memory responses with positive ones.
“I let Grant read Kara her bedtime story!” Maddie blurted the words so loudly that if Kara hadn’t been a heavy sleeper, she’d certainly have awakened.
Grant had been in Kara’s room? And she wasn’t there to share the moment?
Lynn couldn’t breathe. She should’ve been there to be part of the experience. To see him tell her daughter good-night. He’d taken the time to read to Kara? A bedtime story?
It meant something.
Her stomach cramped, but her heart raced.
“Kara kept asking me all during her bath could Mister read her bedtime story, and he heard her and he said he would. When I said that only you or I read her bedtime stories unless Amy’s here, he just told me you wouldn’t mind.”
“He’s right, Maddie. I don’t mind.”
The other woman’s chin came up. Frowning, she met Lynn’s gaze. “But you said I always had to follow the list. Always. And that if anything happened and I couldn’t follow the list I had to call right away. You or Tammy or Lila. And when I had my cell phone in my hand and I was calling you, Grant told me I didn’t have to bother you at work because you were on an emergency, but I already knew that. Then Darin said I should do what Grant said, so I did.” Chew. Chew. Chew.
Lynn reached out and took Maddie’s hand. “Maddie, I do want you to follow the list. Always. That is the right thing to do.” If they strayed from that, she couldn’t let Maddie watch Kara anymore. Because Maddie would panic if she didn’t have exact orders to follow.