“Only if you told him! I’m careful.”

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go to the counselor. Today. I’ll drive you or you can get a ride, I don’t care which as long as you don’t drive. You’re going to work out with her just what the hell the problem is and you’re going to work to fix it. If you don’t I’m taking Chris.”

Her mother surged to her feet and then wobbled. Disgust and alarm warred in Lily’s belly.

“He’s my son. You can’t take him.”

“I’ve been documenting all this on the advice of an attorney. I’ve taken pictures of the bottles in the trash. I’ve watched you fall and puke. I’ve watched you fall asleep at the kitchen table. I’ve watched your son despair that his mother has abandoned him just as surely as his father. I will take him and it will be for the best. Dad won’t do a thing, especially when he learns this house belongs to me and not you. Even if he did break the trust, it’s still not his. Nancy won’t help you if you don’t have any money. I’m all you’ve got, Mom.”

Chris hollered from the driveway and she moved to the door. “Don’t test me. I’ve had enough. His last day of school is in three days. Then he’s off to that wilderness camp my friend runs for three weeks. You can use that time to get yourself straight. Don’t blow it.” She paused and then turned before she left. “I love you, Mom. I want you to get better. I want to help you. But you have to take the first steps on your own. If losing Chris isn’t enough, I can’t help you at all. Please do the right thing. He needs you. I need you.”

She drove Chris to school; trying not to think about the scene she’d just left.

“She’s drunk isn’t she?”

Lily sighed. “Not yet. But she will be soon. I’m sorry. I’ve tried to shield you as best I can. But I don’t think lying is going to help you much.”

“It all started in the months before Dad left. It was all right at first. Just a few nights a week and then every day and then all day long by the first weeks after he’d left. Then the pills. For a while the drinking stopped when she began the pills. I thought they helped her. I guess it started again when I got into trouble.”

She pulled into a spot and turned to him. “This is not your fault. Do you understand me? She’s our mom and we love her and I want to help her. But her issues are her own. She’s a grown woman and she knows better, which is why she hides it. It might be difficult, I’ve just told her she has to get help or I’m bringing you to live with me. I’ll let her stay in the house, but I can’t have you there with her. I can’t trust her not to burn the place down at this point. I’ve taken the spark plugs out of her engine so she can’t drive. Not that people are inviting her anywhere these days.” Her friends had come around less and less as her problems had estranged her from people more often.

“You’d do that? Take me from her even if you know she’d get worse without me around?”

“She’s an adult. You’re not. I’m one person and I can’t fix everyone. You need me and she’s an idiot if she can’t see you need her too. But if I have to choose, I choose you.” It probably made her a monster, but it was something she was willing to be to keep him safe.

But he didn’t get angry at her. He leaned over and hugged her tight. For a brief time he felt so very young and fragile, and she ached for him. “I love you. Thank you for coming. I know I’ve been a jerk. I’m trying to be better. We can fix her, right?” He sat back and she tried very hard not to cry.

“You’re a barely sixteen-year-old boy. You get to be a jerk sometimes. Just sometimes so don’t get used to it. And I hope we can help her. I’m doing everything I can. Go to school. I’ll see you this afternoon. I’m going to tell you to try not to worry about it, but I know you will. I love you, kiddo.”

And he was gone.

She ended up in the Honey Bear, drinking a very large coffee and looking over the shots she’d taken throughout the last week. She’d been so busy she’d barely had time to eat, much less see Nathan. But she knew she was partly avoiding him. She’d begged off the Sunday dinner at the Chase house and had ignored her phone. It was only a matter of time before he came to hunt her down.

And maybe that’s what she was waiting for.

“I heard you’d be here.” Beth slid into the booth across from Lily, who turned around to see William send her a wave.

“Gonna have to start drinking my coffee elsewhere. You Murphys are far too smart for your own good.”

“Nathan was a grumpy ass**le all weekend long. You want to tell me why?”

“’Cause he’s naturally grumpy with assaholic tendencies?”

Beth laughed. “Well aside from that. Though we both know the man is ridiculously hard to agitate.”

“I must be naturally gifted. Anyway, Friday I dropped Chris off at school and went to see Edward Chase. Well not him, but one of his partners. I needed to talk to an attorney about whether or not I could take Chris away from my mother if her drinking got any worse.”

Beth heaved a long sigh. “Christ. Really? I’m sorry. So totally sorry. You know I love your mother. She was more a mother to me than my own ever has been.”

“But you had Tate, and Tate never would have drank three full glasses of bourbon before eight in the morning and made believe everyone was fooled it was tea.”