“Hi?”

“J, it’s Di. You okay?”

“Uhh, yeah, why?” He quickly added, “Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

Here went another ton of guilt. I was such an idiot. “Everything is fine. Don’t worry. I’m sorry. Louie got sick and your abuelita had to go pick him up. I just wanted to check with you and make sure you’re feeling okay.”

The long exhale out of him made my heart hurt. “I thought…,” he whispered, his relief evident. “I’m not sick, but you can come pick me up if you want.”

This kid. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Get back to class. Your grandpa is picking you up today,” I said, even though I was sure he hadn’t forgotten. Our schedules hadn’t changed much over the last two years.

“’Kay, bye.”

“Bye, I love you.”

“Love you too,” he whispered right before the line went dead. At least someone loved me.

Wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, I didn’t realize until right then that I’d gotten teary-eyed at some point. Jesus. I wasn’t sure why I let my mom’s words bother me so much; it wasn’t the first time she’d said a variation of me not doing a good enough job with the boys. It wouldn’t be the last either.

* * *

“What you’re trying to tell me is that you’ve reached blue whale status?”

Vanessa’s laugh on the other end of the phone made me smile as I steered the car down the street toward my house. “Shut up.”

“You’re the one carrying a full-sized kid. I’m only speaking the truth, and you can’t handle the truth.”

“The doctor said he’s in the highest percentile in size—”

“No shit.”

“But he’s not that big—”

“Compared to what exactly? A baby elephant?” Some days, all a girl needed was to talk to her best friend to make a day that hadn’t been great better. I had done enough thinking and replaying everything that happened with my mom. I didn’t want to deal with it any more than I already had, so I’d been relieved when my phone rang and Vanessa’s name had flashed across the screen.

She groaned. “I haven’t gained that much weight,” she argued. “I’m all belly.”

“Until the belly eats the rest of you,” I joked, earning a big laugh out of her that made me smile. “I promise I’m going to try and schedule my trip to visit you. Everything has just been hectic lately. I barely have time to use the bathroom, and even then, someone is banging on the door asking for something.”

“I know, Di. It’s fine. I wanted to tell you I mailed Josh’s birthday present yesterday. Are you ready for his party?”

I almost groaned. The party. Ugh. “Almost,” I answered vaguely.

“That sounds convincing. Fine, I won’t ask. How’s it going with his baseball team?”

Spotting my house coming up, I turned the wheel to pull into the driveway. “He really likes it so far.” It was me who had been having issues with it. “I already got suspended from practice for getting into an argument with a mom on the team.”

“Diana! What did she do? Say something about Josh?”

In normal circumstances, she knew me too well. “She called me Teen Mom.”

There was a pause. Vanessa was a product of a parent who had become one as a teenager. “What a bitch.”

“Uh-huh. It’s fine. He likes it, I’m not worried about it, and the coaches are…” I let out a low whistle. “Not my type, but they’re nice to look at.”

She laughed. “Have your parents brought up him doing soccer again?”

I almost grumbled. That was a sore spot in my family. No matter how many times I explained to my parents that, just because I had two cousins who played professionally, didn’t mean every person with the last name Casillas was going to be good at it. “Nope.”

“And Louie?”

“Still no. He mentioned wanting to try karate, but he’s happy skateboarding for now.”

“I’m sure it’ll—shit. I need to go pee, but I need both hands to get off the couch—”

I just about shouted out a laugh, imagining her trying to get off the couch and failing.

“Shut up. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay.” I snickered again. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” she replied.

“Bye,” we both said at the same time.

Tossing the phone into my open purse, I was cracking up all alone. Imagining Vanessa trying to hoist herself off the sofa again only made me laugh harder, easing my memories of the day further and further away. Out of the car, I opened the rear passenger door and reached in, slipping my hands through several grocery bags. My mom had sent me a text before I had gotten off, saying she would bring Louie home later, and with the Larsens taking Josh to batting practice and keeping him overnight, I had decided to hit the store on my way home. I’d stocked up on sick-kid necessities.

“Diana?”

I froze. Each wrist had four plastic grocery bags hanging off it. My cell phone was in my purse.

My heart started beating so fast there was no way I would want to know what my blood pressure could possibly be in that moment. I’d heard that voice before. It only took a second “Diana” for the tone to register with the part of my brain that didn’t want to recognize it.

It was Anita.

She had found my house.

She was here.

I wasn’t above admitting there wasn’t a reason for me to lose it, but I was going to do it anyway. I was more freaked out than angry, and that pissed me off. A knot filled the very center of my chest and my throat closed up. That part of me that didn’t want to deal with this—that never wanted to deal with this—said I should just get in the car, close the door, and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

But I thought of Josh, and I knew I couldn’t do that.

Anita knew where we lived. She knew where we fucking lived. Arguably the biggest mistake of my brother’s life had somehow found our address.

My hands went numb right before they started trembling. I squeezed them into fists. I closed my eyes too, hoping this was a bad dream but knowing it wasn’t.

Slowly, I let out a long breath and ducked out of the car too hesitant when that was the last reaction I would want to have if I ever looked back on this moment. Like a bad dream, she was there.

Josh’s mom.

Josh’s birth mom.

I hadn’t seen her since Rodrigo’s funeral, where she’d pitched a fucking fit in the parking lot when she saw Mandy, my brother’s wife—Louie’s mom and Josh’s stepmom, who had always been more than that, until she wasn’t.

“Hi,” she said in a calm tone like the last time I’d seen her, she hadn’t called me a stupid bitch while she’d been drunk as a skunk. I could forgive her for that. We had all been in a bad place at that point. What I couldn’t forgive her for was trying to fight Mandy while she’d been grieving, and yanking on Josh’s arm when he hadn’t wanted to go with her. Why would he? Before the funeral, which I had no idea how she’d even heard about, she hadn’t seen him in three years. I could count on one hand how many times she had been with the boy she’d given birth to and given up parental rights to at nineteen.