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Saturday after Saturday, as September turned into October, and then into Novened in She sat in a cubicle, alone, watching the minutes of her life tick away

Dallas never caain Her weekly letters were returned unopened In December, six years to the day after his arrest, he sent a postcard that read: Give Noah my truck and tell him the truth

The truth

She didn’t even knohat that meant Which truth? That his parents had loved each other, or that it had ruined all of them, that love? Or did he mean to imply, as Roy had, that he had confessed to Cat’s murder (she would never tell her son that, and she wouldn’t believe it, either) She didn’t know All she kneas that she was past falling apart these days It had been bad going to prison to see hiht until today that it couldn’t get worse

Then the, Thank God

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage

Nothing had ever hurt like that, not even losing Mo

She’d gone straight to thethem doith tequila Then she crawled into bed and closed her eyes, praying to God that she didn’t dream

“Mommy Is it time yet?”

“Mommy?”

She lifted her heavy head from the pillow

Noah stood beside her bed “We gotta go to Sam’s house, remember?”

“Huh?”

His face pursed into a frown that was beco familiar “The party starts at three o’clock All the other moms know that”

“Oh” She shoved at the covers and stu and her body felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton—she tried to take a shower, but her hands were so nuers through her lank, dirty hair andseeers were treot herself into a pair of old gray sweats, cowboy boots, and a flannel shirt “Less go, littlethat maybe she’d slurred the words