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He stood to leave, watching while his mom turned the iPod over and over "The power button’s on the side," he said, and tried to show her but she clutched it to her chest

"I’ve got it!"

He had to laugh He and Jacob were both stubborn to the end The apples hadn’t fallen far from the tree But this part of the visit with his mom always made him feel aard They hadn’t done presents when they were little She’d never been able to keep dates straight So that had meant no birthday celebrations, no Easter No Christmas At least not on the correct dates He and Jacob had done their best to keep some semblance of nor sure bills had been paid and that they had food and a roof over their heads Holidays and birthdays had been a luxury they’d never given themselves

Which reminded him what he’d seen on his Visa bill "Mom, did you order water balloons from A on the iPod He was pretty sure she still hadn’t gotten it turned on but there was no way she’d admit it "Mom?"

She lifted a shoulder "I don’t think so Why would I do that? You’re a grown ht Or at least at the moment And if she was, then he had another question for her "And cigars?"

"Of course not," she said, now shaking the iPod like it was an Etch A Sketch "You can’t se"

And there went the blink-and-you’ll-ot out of Denver on Friday heading toward Cedar Ridge only to get stuck in mountain traffic, all of them slowed down by unexpected icy conditions It stressed her out ht on the windy mountain roads, and she white-knuckled it the whole way By the tie, she literally fell out of her car and into her unit

And slept straight through until her phone beeped an inco

You never texted ht Let us know you’re safe or I’ up to find you

I’ the royal use of the "us"--which in this case meant Aaron and her mom

They were quite the pair

It drove her nuts in the worst way She felt like such a jerk, but she hated that Aaron was still close to her mom He’d friended her on Facebook and she kept hiot that there’d been a time when the two of them had needed each other, when they’d been each other’s support syste to the doctor with Bailey and co from her mood to her temperature to her nus weren’t necessary anymore

She was fine

She wasthat way

And yet they still maintained that unhealthy link, even nohen she and Aaron were no longer seeing each other

It didn’t work for her on any level She was tired of trying to convince the herself into an early grave, that she was loving her choices They both meant a lot to her, a whole lot, but she and Aaron had broken up for a reason

He was a saver

And she didn’t need saving

Since the Breakfast God didn’t knock this , she showered and dressed and hit the cafeteria herself She grabbed a coffee to go and a quick breakfast burrito, which she ate on the walk to her car

Once there, it took her three trips to unload the supplies she’d brought and another half an hour to get herself situated on the scaffolding

She’d finished penciling in her grand plan, using a big carpenter pencil that she loved working with The Kincaid fas of each of the Kincaids in such a way as to present their unique personalities on theas it was, soround and the tree itself were fun and the actual people would be even more so She knew exactly what she wanted for each of the siblings Well, except for Jacob, who she still didn’t have a handle on

And Hudson… but that wasn’t because she didn’t have a handle on hi about him turned her upside down and sideways