“Even if you never talked to Debbie, you’re already more. You’re you, and you are everything in the world to me. Every. Single. Thing.”

As he spoons me and snuggles in close I try once more to explain what feels so wondrous to me. “It feels like hope,” I tell him.

Hope.

Harley

As September rolls into October, the colors flood the trees in Manhattan and the change in the calendar erases the heat, replacing it with sheets of chilly fall air. Then we slide into November, and my jeans don’t fit well anymore. I move up a size, hoping to stave off maternity clothes because those belly panels aren’t ugly beautiful. They’re just plain ugly.

Over the last few months, I’ve aced my English classes, helped Kristen find a new roommate—hint, it was easy, her boyfriend Jordan is moving in—and managed to attend several SLAA meetings each week, sharing victories and challenges each time.

Victories—not looking at that wretched book’s Amazon page again. Not caring about it. Donating to Goodwill the dress I wore to the gala with Mr. Stewart. Falling deeper in love with Trey Westin. I even meet his parents, and I’m surprised by how pleasant they are. They ask me all sorts of questions about school, and what I’m studying. I don’t think we ever discuss anything beyond school, but they smile and they’re cordial, and all things being equal, I don’t want to hurl my shoes at them like I would if I brought Trey to meet my mom.

Then there are the other things that happen.

Like learning that my grandmother’s favorite books are the Harry Potter series, that she loves big epic swoony movies that make her cry, that she was born and raised in San Diego, and that’s where my mom met my dad. But she doesn’t talk about him much, which is fine with me. Because he never tried to find me and she did try, so I don’t want to know him, I want to know her. She asks me if I’m eating healthy for the baby, and I say I am, and then she whispers in a hushed tone that if I want to feel the baby kicking I should drink a Coke. “The doctors won’t tell you this because they act like Coke is the worst thing in the world, but my oh my, does that get a little bugger jamming around in your belly.”

I laughed when she said that. “I haven’t felt the baby kick yet.”

“Soon, soon. And it’s like your whole world tilts on its axis. And time splits—everything that happened before the first kick and everything after.”

She’s had two babies—my dad, of course, and a daughter, who lives an hour away from her.

I never knew my dad had a sister.

Debbie and I talk several times a week, and we email, and we text, too. Which is the oddest thing. She’s sixty-two, and I know that’s not old, and I know that’s not unusual, but it’s odd for me to find pictures on my phone late at night of the sunset over the ocean, or of their dog chasing tennis balls, or just of the sandwich she made for dinner with the caption yum.

I know, too, that she likes to name her sandwiches after stories and animals—The Raccoon’s Tale, The Aardvark’s Fable, The Fox’s Yarn—and that we’re going to see them in two weeks.

Yes, we as in Trey and me. I’m leaving New York for the first time in years, after Trey finishes his last college class ever. But before I see them, I am seeing the person who kept me from them because I want to know why.

Trey

Harley shivers. The wind is fierce today, and late November is punishing us with frigid temperatures that are like ice lashing our skin. She wears a thick coat, and has a scarf wrapped around her neck, some kind of purple fluffy thing that Joanne knit for her.

Her so-called one-year scarf, since that’s how long we’ve been in recovery. That’s also how long we’ve known each other.

“Can you believe I met you a year ago, and you’re finally introducing me to your mom?” I say, teasing her as I hold open the door to the sushi restaurant where we’re meeting the witch.

She rolls her eyes as we walk inside. “I know. It’s only because I’m so embarrassed of you, Trey. That’s the reason.”

The hostess takes our coats, and then Harley turns to me. “Thank you for coming with me to do this.”

“You know I’m by your side,” I say, reaching for her hand. I can tell she’s nervous. I wonder if her crazy mom is nervous. But I have a feeling that woman doesn’t know nerves. She lives her life with blinders, oblivious to anyone but her.

The restaurant is noisy and black—black tile, black tables, black uniforms on the waiters. We follow the hostess to a table near the sushi bar, where several chefs in white jackets wield huge steely knives that slice fish so quickly the silver is like a blur. Then I feel Harley’s grip tighten and I know she has her mom in her crosshairs now. We’ve reached her table and I lay eyes for the first time on the woman who nearly destroyed the love of my life.

Her mom is polished, with jet-black hair and that salon look that women her age sometimes have. She has strong features—high cheekbones, bright eyes. But she’s ugly to me, and it has nothing to do with the way she’s shellacked so much foundation under her eyes to hide that she’s clearly not sleeping well.

Good. The bitch deserves to never sleep.

“Harley, my love,” she says, and pulls her daughter into an embrace. It kills me inside watching Harley hug her back, but I know she’s only doing it not to make a scene. I can sense the distance between them.

Then her mother offers a hand to shake. So professional. So poised. And it takes all my resistance to swallow the words, the profanity-laced diatribe that I’m dying to spit out at her—How could you, you scumbag bitch who deserves to be dunked into a tank of piranhas? Instead, I take her hand, and it’s soft and smooth. She probably rubbed lotion on it earlier. For some reason, that makes me mad because the right to wear lotion, and use a fork, and walk upright should be taken away from someone like her.

“What a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” she says.

Harley narrows her eyes. “You haven’t heard anything about Trey. Why would you say that?”

“Why, I could have sworn you’d told me so much about him.” Her mom sits, and gestures for us to do the same. Her eyes roam over Harley, but she’s not showing much, and the sweater she wears hides her bump pretty well.

“No,” Harley says. “We don’t really talk much, in case you haven’t noticed.”

I try to suppress a smirk, because I’m so damn proud that she’s holding her own against her mom, that she’s not being sucked back into the vortex.

“And that’s such a shame, and I hope we can rectify that, starting tonight,” her mom says, punctuating her pathetic attempt at an olive branch by snapping open her white linen napkin and spreading it across her lap. She clasps her hands together, and looks from Harley to me. “So, tell me everything about the two of you. How did you meet? How long has it been?”

Amazing how she can go from acting as if she knew everything to freely admitting she knows nothing.

Harley glances at me, and raises an eyebrow playfully. I squeeze her leg under the table. I bet she’s thinking of the night we met, when she walked into my tattoo shop, and straight into my heart. If she’d gone to any other shop in the city she might not be mine. But then, I bet fate always had her picked for me, and me for her.

But before Harley can answer, her mom goes first. “Wait. No. Don’t tell me he’s a . . .” She lets her voice trail off, but I can still smell the lingering salaciousness of her tone, and I clench my fists so I don’t deck her right now.

“No, Barb,” Harley says sharply. “He’s not a client.”

“Whew. Thank god.”

I want to fucking smack this woman.

“We actually met at church,” I say, piping in. It’s close enough to the truth, since the SLAA meetings are held at a church, but mostly I just want to get a reaction from her.