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The thought caain, Give her a father That hat Francis would have said

She turned to Lina, stared at her so long and so hard that Lina finally turned

“What, Mom?”

Madelaine wet her lips and tasted rainwater She felt a fluttering in her chest and kneas fear The easy thing to do right noas to turn away, laugh, and say it was nothing But since Francis’s death, she’d seen how fragile life was, how the wrong choices were soretted was the words you didn’t say …

It was ti the doormat her father had raised her to be She needed to stand up for herself, for Lina, for all of theel would break her daughter’s heart—The possibilities were endless and everything could go wrong

But for years she’d done nothing, and things had gone wrong anyway

She tried to think of how best to say it, but in the end there was no softness, no blurring, no lead-in for so

like this There was only the truth, and she kneould hit Lina like a blow “I spoke with your father”

“Yeah, right”

Madelaine sed hard “I did”

Very slowly Lina lifted her head and looked dully at her mother

Madelaine waited for Lina to say sothened Finally Madelaine said, “He’s very sick right now, and he can’t see you, but soon—”

“You mean he won’t see me” Lina lurched backward and shot to her feet “Yeah, I’ll bet he’s sick as a dog to find out he’s got a daughter I can’t believe you,” she hissed, shaking her head

Madelaine scrahter “Lina—”

Lina smacked her hand away “Don’t touchout here in the rain, after Francis’s funeral, and you tell hed, and it was a shrill, hysterical sound “So today—today—I get to find out that I have a father, but he doesn’t care about , Mom”