“Of course, you’re right.” Even though her mother sounded disappointed, her voice rang with the support and encouragement Amy had always depended on.
Simple, solid, no-nonsense living and unconditional love. Those were Gwen’s gifts. The very gifts Amy prayed could break through her daughter’s anger and confusion.
Gwen knew firsthand the sacrifices required of single mothers. Amy’s father had died when she was just a baby, and Gwen had worked three part-time jobs some years to keep them off food stamps.
But she hadn’t been able to soften the blow of having so little in a world where everyone else seemed to effortlessly have more. So Amy had busted her butt making something of herself, vowing to build a better life for them both. And that’s exactly what she’d done, even though Gwen had refused every offer Amy made to share her and Richard’s financial success.
Her house was paid for, Gwen had argued. Her needs were simple. She had some savings, and she was still a part-time teller at Sweetbrook’s one and only bank. Unlike Amy, she hadn’t wanted more, as much as she’d wanted what she already had.
“I wish I had another solution, Mama. But I need this promotion. I don’t mind giving up the condo, the car or that fancy private school Richard insisted Becky attend. But I can’t afford to live in Atlanta on my current salary.”
“Then move back home,” her mother urged, as she had for months. “You two can stay with me until you find a job here.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. And I can’t move Becky away from her friends for good and ask her to start over with nothing. Atlanta’s the only home she’s ever known. She wants to live here. I won’t rip her world apart any more than I already have.”
“There are worse things than having nothing, Amy.”
“Yes. There’s going back to Richard and asking him for money—”
“Of course you’re not going back to him!” her mother interjected.
For years, Amy had kept the details about her marriage secret from Gwen. But her mother knew every ugly bit of it now.
“I have to prove to my daughter that a woman really can support her family on her own,” Amy continued. “That Richard was dead wrong when he said we’d never make it without him.”
She’d never seen her husband as angry as the morning she’d worked up the nerve to leave him. He’d controlled her every move for years. What she thought, and wore, and did, and with whom. Even how much she was allowed to focus on her career, insisting she curtail her responsibilities at work after Becky was born.
She’d tried to make the best of things when her marriage began crumbling less than a year after their wedding. She’d done everything she could to pacify Richard and save her dream of a perfect life with her perfect husband, downplaying the escalating verbal and emotional abuse. It took the bastard striking her in front of their daughter before Amy had finally had enough.
Richard could have fought her for Becky. Considering his connections as a high-priced corporate attorney, he would have won. But his sights had been on a priority far more important to him than his daughter. If Amy would agree to his demands of no alimony and the minimum child support the law allowed, he’d let Becky go. The money would be paid lump-sum into a trust account for Becky’s college tuition, not to be touched until she was eighteen. In return, he’d concede full custody, and Amy and Becky would be on their own—then maybe they’d wise up and understand just how much they needed him.
“You’ll come back to me,” he’d said in front of Becky the last time they’d seen him. “Once you’re on your own and realize how tough the world is, maybe then you’ll have some appreciation for all I’ve given you.”
He’d set Amy up to fail, just for the satisfaction of watching her crawl back to him. And as usual, he hadn’t concerned himself with their daughter, except for how he could use Becky to control Amy.
“I’m going to make things work for Becky here in Atlanta,” Amy vowed to herself and her mother. “She needs to see me standing up to her father. She needs to understand that a woman doesn’t have to put up with the way he treated me to be financially secure. She was there all those years, Mama, when her father belittled me, and I just took it. She watched me be a doormat for the sake of holding on to a man who didn’t respect me. I can’t even imagine what that did to her.”
“But you’re working around the clock now,” Gwen reasoned. “What happens when the promotion comes through, and Becky moves back in with you? Will you have any more time to spend with her after you make manager?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” Whatever it took, Amy was going to be the strong woman her daughter needed her to be. Becky wasn’t growing up afraid.
“But if you moved back here—”
“There’s no work for me in Sweetbrook, Mama.”
Amy’s other phone line chirped at the same time that her computer dinged. She juggled the receiver between her shoulder and ear, checked the phone display and clicked the e-mail prompt with her mouse.
It was Phillip Hutchinson on both counts, Enterprise Consulting’s senior partner, and her personal slave driver.
She didn’t bother to read the body of the e-mail or pick up the call. Not a man to worry about the constructive use of anyone else’s time, Phillip Hutchinson didn’t stoop to discussing details until those he’d summoned had quick-stepped their way to his corner office. His two-pronged bid for Amy’s attention didn’t bode well.
“I’ve got to go.” She typed and sent a quick I’ll be right there response to the e-mail. “I’ll clear a few hours Saturday to come down for a day trip.”
“Joshua White wants to set up a meeting with you and Becky’s teacher on Friday—”
“Josh White no doubt thinks the entire world moves at the snail’s pace he runs his elementary school.” Amy winced at the bitchiness in her voice, rubbing her temples, where a headache was building.
No one listening would have guessed she was talking about the best friend she’d ever had. The friend she’d told to go to hell when he’d dared to judge her decision to marry Richard and leave Sweetbrook behind for good. The friend whose angry kiss had almost tempted her to change her mind.
“Honey, I really think you should talk with the man. He’s taken such a personal interest in Becky since she came here.”
“I know he has.”
Gwen had gone on and on about the time Josh was spending trying to make sure Becky settled into his school. He sounded like a bang-up principal. And before their friendship had imploded, he’d always been there for Amy. But why did he have to pick tonight of all nights to work her mother into a tizzy about Becky’s harmless antics at school? Wasn’t there something more important for the wealthiest man in town to be doing besides shoving Amy over the edge of sanity?
“I’m sorry to saddle you with all this, Mama. If there was any other way…”
“I love having Becky,” Gwen reassured her. “And she can stay as long as you need her to. But she thinks you’ve abandoned her. She needs to know that you want her with you, that you think this is the best place for her right now. That you care what’s going on at school.”
“I’ve told her how much I care. I tell her every time we talk.” Another e-mail message from Hutchinson dinged for her attention. The subject line read simply, NOW.
Amy e-mailed back a polite on my way, curbing the stream of obscenities she longed to spew at the man instead.
She was making compromises with her child she’d promised herself she’d never make. Her personal definition of hell. But