“Fifteen years.”

“So you never see her?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Molly nuzzled his chest. “I don’t even remember my mother. But I still resent her.”

He didn’t ask why.

She decided to tell him anyhow. “I’m pretty sure she killed herself. Grams called it an accident, but she was the only one who believed it. I’m not resentful that my mother abandoned me by a selfish act of suicide. I’m mad because she never left behind any indication of who my father was. Grams suspected, given my ‘coloring,’ as she called it, that my father was Mexican. Sometimes I caught her staring at me like she feared I’d start speaking Spanish.”

“Babe.”

“When I think about it, which I try not to because it’s so screwed up, my mother left home without a word and disappeared for twenty years. Her parents had no idea whether she was alive or dead. Who does something like that?”

Deacon’s body went rigid beneath her.

“Then she returned home to Nebraska a few months after her father died. My uncle Bob said that my mother never got along with her father and he was the reason she left.”

“Most people don’t understand when leaving isn’t an option; it’s the only choice.”

Molly had the feeling Deacon knew about that firsthand. “Of course, my nasty-minded, bully cousins had a theory on why my mom took off.” The first time they’d shared that theory with her, she’d gotten violently ill. They teased her about that and kept detailing scenarios that were more disgusting than the last. When she became numb to it and didn’t react, they moved on to some other verbal torture.

“What did they tell you was the reason?” he said tightly.

“That my grandfather had sexually abused her. They had no proof. Now part of me thinks they said that only because they wanted me to go to Grams to see how she’d react.”

“Gimme your goddamn phone, Molly. I’m blocking those bitches from your life forever. Right. Fucking. Now.”

When Molly thought of all the years of verbal abuse, all the years she’d cowered in fear of them, all the things they’d taken from her—not just makeup and toys and candy, but her sense of self—not to mention the atrocious lies they’d told . . .

Deacon’s hands framed her face, forcing her to look at him. “Tell me why you just gasped like you’re in pain,” he demanded.

“Because I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to talk about any of this.”

“Tell me.”

That Sunday morning after church became so clear in her mind, she could see the heat shimmers on the blacktop leading out of town. Her cousins had begged her to come along with them because they had a big, secret surprise for her. And they promised they’d be back at the church before the annual meeting that Grams and Uncle Bob had to stay for ended.

So because Jennifer and Brandi had been so nice to her the last two Sundays, she’d gone with them. She’d secretly hoped that Grams was right and they were outgrowing their meanness.

The August day had been a scorcher. The blacktop squished beneath her white dress shoes. The sun beat on her head. Sweat poured down her back, and she wished she’d left her sweater in the car.

They cut through Mr. Stewart’s pasture and climbed under the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the junkyard.

Before Molly could point out the NO TRESPASSING signs, or ask about the pit bulls that patrolled the area, Brandi and Jennifer had taken off. And unlike her, they were fast runners.

She’d run up and down every row, looking for her cousins, and had fallen down twice. When she saw the blood welling on her scraped-up hands and knees, she’d panicked, positive the mean junkyard dogs would smell blood and attack her.

She’d stayed very quiet until Brandi jumped out from behind a car. That’d scared her so much she’d screamed and wet her panties a little.

Embarrassed, hot, out of breath, and bleeding, she knew this had been another trick. She turned to hide her tears and to start walking back to the church.

But Jennifer had come up behind her. Pinching the back of the arm to direct her where she wanted, steering Molly to her surprise.

They stopped in front of a twisted heap of metal.

“What is that?”

“That’s the car your mom died in.”

She’d been too horrified to speak. The car had been mangled so badly it didn’t resemble a car.

“We thought it was time you saw it,” Jennifer said. “Can you imagine how much it must’ve hurt to die in that? With a train ripping your body to shreds?”

By that time Molly had been all-out weeping.